Abdallah Mahmoud 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.
Military Production asked and Zamalek said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad9 Jun 2031
Mohamed Ayman falls out with a teammate over standards
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.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Military Production will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Khaled Ramadan is on it.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Ahmed Zaki has written the date down.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Military Production will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Military Production can pretend not to have heard.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mohamed Ayman 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.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout12 May 2031
The manager has not finished forgetting Hossam Sobhi's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Military Production, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Khaled Ramadan is on it.
Omar Warda has been around long enough to know what the spring feels like when it goes wrong, and he can feel it. A dressing room that is frightened plays like one.
11 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 89 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Wadi Degla have kept their man, and Military Production go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Mohamed Ayman 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.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Military Production will try again when the window opens; El Dakhleya may not be selling by then.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Military Production, another week without a signature from Ahmed Abbas.
In brief
The dugoutThe view from the dugout
The dugoutHossam Sobhi is still being punished for one mistake
Mohamed Ayman and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Roberto Molina after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
12 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Military Production has to find a result from somewhere.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Military Production will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Military Production this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Ali Hamdi has his answer from Military Production; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
0‑1 to Haras El Hodoud, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout7 Jan 2030
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Roberto Molina to a room that had heard them before.
Position 17 and 6 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Karim Mamdouh and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Al Gaish next, and one man in the Military Production dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Ibrahim Ashour is on it.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
7 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Military Production has to find a result from somewhere.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Ahmed Abdelaziz and Military Production agree another 1 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Kamal Aboul Fatouh and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Masr El Makasa left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout3 Dec 2029
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Roberto Molina left the room before anybody could ask which.
15 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Military Production lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Military Production can pretend not to have heard.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Military Production, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Military Production will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Khaled El Akhmimi’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Military Production needing him to play as if none of it matters.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Military Production has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.