From our football correspondent
Steady
Match29 Aug 2026
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 3‑0 against Ghazl El Mahalla, and it could have been more.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Market31 Aug 2026
Ameed Sawafta hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what El Masry can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Bambo, 33, rolls back the years — 7.85
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.85 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
26 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Defensive actions: 24, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Squad31 Aug 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 El Masry this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market31 Aug 2026
Al Ahly pay $200.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Ninety minutes of Salah Mohsen at his very best
Marked 8.89. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at El Masry.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market24 Aug 2026
“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.
Market24 Aug 2026
Zamalek come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and El Masry did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Karim El Eraki 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.
Market24 Aug 2026
The phone has started ringing about Mido Gaber again, and this time the name on the line is Al Ahly. El Masry are listening politely and promising nothing.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Bambo runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 20. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad24 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Karim El Eraki, and the manager let it.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Salah Mohsen 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.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Sofiane Boufal was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.30. 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.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
5 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad17 Aug 2026
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad17 Aug 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 El Masry this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
Graduation day at El Masry
2 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Market17 Aug 2026
Ismaily pay $240.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Nobody could get near Bambo
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad17 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Sofiane Boufal
“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.
Market17 Aug 2026
The name of Ziad Farag has come up in conversations El Masry were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Market17 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Fathy Hegazi has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Market17 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Fathy El Hadary is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market10 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Moustafa Zeidan commits to El Masry for another 4 years.
Squad10 Aug 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 El Masry this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at El Masry training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Moustafa Zeidan 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
El Dakhleya are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. El Masry will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Market10 Aug 2026
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad3 Aug 2026
193 appearances across 10 seasons in these colours. Careers like that are not built any more, and El Masry know what they have.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Mahmoud Hamada and El Masry agree another 2 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Mahmoud Hamada 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. El Masry have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Salah Mohsen 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
El Masry and Bambo are talking past each other
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.