Walid Hamdi had done his part in building a 2-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and Ghazl El Mahalla were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
Karim Kahraba 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.
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.
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
In brief
Player ratingsNinety minutes of Ahmed Hamdi at his very best
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Hossam Warda reports back to Masr El Makasa with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
“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.
22 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Ali Ashour and Masr El Makasa agree another 4 years.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Walid Hamdi 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.
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 words a physio says slowly. 16 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.
“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.
7.09, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
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.
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.