45 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.
7 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Masr El Makasa may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Words at Masr El Makasa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mehdi Khallati 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.
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
Marked 5.73. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
59 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Bassem Aboutrika scored, was marked 7.21, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
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.
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 words a physio says slowly. 21 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Salah Elneny: 3 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Mehdi Khallati 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 words a physio says slowly. 28 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Masr El Makasa have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
43 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Masr El Makasa, another week without a signature from Mário Junior.
In brief
SquadA place in the month's best eleven for Fathy Marwan
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Masr El Makasa can pretend not to have heard.
Jonathan Vega 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.
5 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Masr El Makasa has been clear about where Yasser Mohsen stands, which is more than many ever get.