Two goals and a mark of 8.24 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Petrojet have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Matías Esquivel was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Karim El Deeb 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.
An error at the back is a moment; an error in goal is a goal. Hicham El Majhed knows it, the crowd knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Ahmed Yassin 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 Youssef Limouri was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Chances created: 12. Not on the scoresheet and not remotely anonymous — a passing performance that pulled a defence apart without leaving a mark on the column that gets read.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Shots: 8. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Aswan in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Ahmed Yassin 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.
At 19 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Words at Petrojet training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Matías Esquivel 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 one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ziad Farag trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Hicham El Majhed and Petrojet agree another 1 years.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Ahmed Yassin 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.
“I watch every Petrojet game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Aswan runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Marked 8.18 — 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.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 93. Masr El Makasa had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
Youssef El Gohary 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Petrojet have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Ahmed Yassin and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Words at Petrojet training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Youssef Limouri 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.
He is 23 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.
Chances created: 14. Nothing on the scoresheet and everything in the match: the pass before the pass, over and over, until the defence stopped guessing right.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Adham Hamed has his answer from Petrojet; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Smouha go through and Petrojet go home, 0‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Ahmed Yassin 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 Matías Esquivel was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
11 combined actions and 6.69. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
At 35, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Islam Abdallah
16Edition
The Petrojet Post
16 Nov 2026
From our football correspondentUpbeat
Squad16 Nov 2026
Ahmed Yassin 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 Petrojet this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
9 new faces, and Petrojet are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Petrojet this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ahmed Yassin trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Petrojet will quote 16 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 36 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Petrojet is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Mostafa El Badry. 2‑0 against Arab Contractors, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Renê Júnior has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
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.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Gabriel Chukwudi. 2‑1 against Ghazl El Mahalla, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Gabriel Chukwudi 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.
At 35, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
Samuel Ogunjimi 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.
7.90, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Petrojet had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Walid Salah kept it short after the 2‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
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.
Ahmed Yassin 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.
He is 23 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.
13 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
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 Petrojet this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I watch every Petrojet game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Aswan runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Omar Reda’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Petrojet needing him to play as if none of it matters.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Samuel Ogunjimi trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
Karim El Deeb 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.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 36 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Petrojet is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
Still no offer on the table, and Hicham El Majhed’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
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 1‑3 Walid Salah left the room before anybody could ask which.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Islam Abdallah has his answer from Petrojet; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Words at Petrojet training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Youssef Limouri 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.
Ahmed Yassin 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Samir Mohamed. 2‑0 against Military Production, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
At 35, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
100 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
A mark of 7.78, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
The dugout28 Sep 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.” Walid Salah, on a 2‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Ahmed Yassin 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.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 14 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
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.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Petrojet can pretend not to have heard.
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.
At 23 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.
Marked 8.44 — 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.
8.24. 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Petrojet, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Gabriel Chukwudi had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
“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 Petrojet, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Petrojet close the window on a squad of their own making
20 in and 1 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Sport Recife keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Youssef Limouri was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Abubakar Liadi is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
He used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.
In brief
The dugoutAhmed Yassin knocks on the manager’s door
Everything agreed with Mamelodi Sundowns, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Petrojet had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at São Paulo, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Ahmed Yassin 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.
“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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
8 new faces, and Petrojet are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
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 Walid Salah to a room that had heard them before.
The chase for Youssef El Gohary ended with $690.0K changing hands and El Masry out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
The offer went to Arab Contractors this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Successful dribbles: 22. 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.
Petrojet offered $190.0K; Arab Contractors said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Boards get told what they have done wrong for years and hear nothing on the days they get it right. This is one of those days: Youssef El Gohary from El Masry for $690.0K, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Petrojet training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Youssef Limouri 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Petrojet this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Petrojet and El Masry have settled on $690.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $200.0K — a club that wants Ziad Farag enough to be asked twice.
$720.0K was the most the club would pay and Masr El Makasa were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
The offer went to El Masry this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
The name of Gabriel Chukwudi has come up in conversations Petrojet were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Petrojet training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Youssef Limouri 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.
Karim El Deeb 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.
In brief
BoardroomNobody left the Petrojet dressing room in a hurry
$720.0K on the table at Masr El Makasa. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $200.0K — a club that wants Mahmoud Abou-Gouda enough to be asked twice.
Petrojet have gone to Arab Contractors with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at Petrojet training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Youssef Limouri 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Omar Soliman 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Fathy Zaki 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Omar Trezeguet has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Youssef Limouri was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Karim El Deeb 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.