89 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Masr El Makasa lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Alberto Joshimar Acosta, and the manager let it.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Masr El Makasa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abdallah Hamdi is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
96 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Masr El Makasa lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The offer from Police Union for Abdallah Hamdi was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Masr El Makasa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Ahmed El Sheikh was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Salah Tarek has his answer from Masr El Makasa; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Masr El Makasa, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Salah Rico is 35 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.