Marked for Abdallah Zizo
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad4 Oct 2027
Abdallah Warda damages knee ligaments — 59 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 59 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.
Player ratings4 Oct 2027
Ahmed El Sheikh, 35, rolls back the years — 7.95
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.95 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad4 Oct 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Ibrahim Tarek commits to Masr El Makasa for another 2 years.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Salah Trezeguet and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ahmed El Sheikh was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Player ratings4 Oct 2027
Successful dribbles: 20. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Match2 Oct 2027
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. Ahmed El Sheikh had Masr El Makasa level again within 4 minutes, and Aswan never got to play with a lead at all.
The dugout4 Oct 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Abdallah Zizo, and the manager let it.
Match2 Oct 2027
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market14 Jun 2027
Zamalek arrived with $1.1M and left with the best player in the building. The board will call it business; the queue at the ticket office will use other words.
Squad14 Jun 2027
35 days out for Trezeguet Marwan after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Masr El Makasa will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Market14 Jun 2027
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Masr El Makasa have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The terraces14 Jun 2027
Mostafa El Nenny has gone, the accounts have $1.1M in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
Market14 Jun 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Ahmed El Sheikh and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets14 Jun 2027
Ismaily wanted more than $20.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Transfer targets14 Jun 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Arab Contractors have kept their man, and Masr El Makasa go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Words at Masr El Makasa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Karim Hassan 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The dugout19 Apr 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Masr El Makasa may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market19 Apr 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Market19 Apr 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Masr El Makasa is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Mostafa El Nenny and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Words at Masr El Makasa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ahmed El Sheikh 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.
The dugout19 Apr 2027
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.
The dugout19 Apr 2027
Abdallah Zizo knocks on the manager's door
“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.
The dugout19 Apr 2027
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Market19 Apr 2027
Still no signature from Emad Hegazi
4 months left and the two sides are nowhere near each other. Every week this drags on takes money off what Masr El Makasa could get for him.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad22 Feb 2027
The knee: Bassem Zaki out for 44 days
44 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Masr El Makasa lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Match20 Feb 2027
No end in sight to Masr El Makasa's wait for a win
7 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Masr El Makasa has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad22 Feb 2027
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.
Market22 Feb 2027
Only the photograph left for Ali Soliman
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ali Soliman will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Masr El Makasa the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Match20 Feb 2027
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Masr El Makasa can tell you which week it ends in.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Mostafa El Nenny and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Yasser Hegazi 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.
The dugout22 Feb 2027
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.
The dugout22 Feb 2027
“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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad28 Dec 2026
36 goals and a season average of 7.92. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Squad28 Dec 2026
The knee: Bassem Zaki out for 102 days
102 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Masr El Makasa lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Match26 Dec 2026
3‑0, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
A brace, and Hossam Mohsen takes the afternoon — 9.48
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Hossam Mohsen provided it, and the 9.48 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Match26 Dec 2026
Masr El Makasa make home a hard place to visit
9 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words at Masr El Makasa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ahmed El Sheikh 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.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Mostafa El Nenny and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Marked 8.85 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad30 Nov 2026
29 goals and a season average of 7.78. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
A brace, and Hossam Mohsen takes the afternoon — 9.22
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Hossam Mohsen provided it, and the 9.22 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Match28 Nov 2026
The unbeaten run reaches 7. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad30 Nov 2026
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.
Match28 Nov 2026
A 2‑1 win over Ghazl El Mahalla, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad30 Nov 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Ibrahim Elneny and Masr El Makasa agree another 3 years.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Shikabala Elneny on a 2‑1 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
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.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
“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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad2 Nov 2026
23 goals and a season average of 7.68. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Two goals and a mark of 9.19 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Mohamed Ali Saleh Ziad has just signed for Masr El Makasa, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ahmed El Sheikh was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match31 Oct 2026
Smouha made Masr El Makasa work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Abdallah Zizo slips down the pecking order
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Abdallah Zizo is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
Market2 Nov 2026
He is 20, and the scouting reports agree on the only line that matters: the ceiling. Signings like this are lottery tickets written by professionals.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Shikabala Elneny, on a 2‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
Nobody at Masr El Makasa will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad12 Oct 2026
The match ball belongs to Hossam Mohsen, whose 3 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Squad12 Oct 2026
18 goals and a season average of 7.54. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Hossam Mohsen was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.99. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ahmed El Sheikh was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad12 Oct 2026
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 terraces12 Oct 2026
He is 17 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
The manager makes an example of Abdallah Zizo
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
“That is what I want every week. Not the result, the way they went about it.” The manager, after 3‑1, already talking about the next one.