Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Ismaily they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Éric Traoré was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody at Ismaily 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.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Bassem Ashour has his answer from Ismaily; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Ismaily know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
0‑3 to El Masry, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Ismaily they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
Ali Ghazal 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.
Squad15 Mar 2032
Léo Baptistão 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Momen Awad will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Ismaily the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Ali Ghazal 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.
Successful dribbles: 22. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad16 Feb 2032
Léo Baptistão 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.
El Masry will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Ahmed Mahmoud has pre-agreed a move to Ismaily, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Al Ahly have kept their man, and Ismaily go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Ismaily they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Ali Ghazal 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Éric Traoré was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Ali Ghazal 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.
Squad22 Dec 2031
Words at Ismaily training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Léo Baptistão 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.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Ricardo García after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
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.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Military Production? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
In brief
MarketThe clock does Mohamed Magdy’s negotiating for him
A 3‑1 win over Petrojet, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Player ratings24 Nov 2031
Ashraf Gabr, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 8.35
A mark of 8.35 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.06 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Léo Baptistão 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Éric Traoré was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 19-year-old it feels ownership of. Ashraf Gabr has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Police Union will want this one forgotten quickly: 5‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Ismaily were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Ismaily, and it is not being withdrawn.
Léo Baptistão 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.
Successful dribbles: 31. 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.
Léo Baptistão 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.
Éric Traoré 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ali Ghazal was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Ricardo García after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.