The Red Devils are reshaping their squad at Ard El-Lewa training complex with three confirmed signings already done and a transfer window that closes in under four weeks.
Al-Ahly SC moved fast this week, confirming the acquisition of central midfielder Mahmoud Hamdi — known to fans as El-Wensh — on a two-year contract extension while simultaneously announcing a deal to bring in a Moroccan winger whose medical was completed at Cairo's As-Salam International Hospital on Tuesday. The club's executive office released a brief statement on Wednesday confirming both deals, ending days of speculation that had turned social media in Nasr City and Zamalek district into something approaching a rumour factory.
The timing matters enormously. Al-Ahly opens its 2026–27 CAF Champions League campaign in the group stage in September, and coach Marcel Koller — retained after his Continental Cup semi-final run last spring — has been explicit with the board about needing width and pressing intensity. The squad that finished second in the Egyptian Premier League last season, five points behind Zamalek SC, showed defensive solidity but created too few chances from wide positions. Koller logged that problem in April. The club appears to be answering it now.
Training at the Ard El-Lewa Sports Complex in Giza, Al-Ahly's main preparatory base, resumed on July 1st after the mandatory post-season rest period. Roughly 24 outfield players were present on day one, according to club staff figures circulated internally. The session ran for 95 minutes under temperatures that peaked at 38 degrees Celsius — a reminder that preparation in a Cairo July demands a very different kind of physical management than a European pre-season in Marseille or Porto.
The club's fitness department has extended a partnership with the Egyptian Football Association's sports science unit, based at the EFA headquarters on Al-Ahly Street in Nasr City. That cooperation, first formalised in January 2025, involves shared data on player load metrics. Two Al-Ahly physiotherapists completed a five-day training course under the programme last month, and the club is using that knowledge base to manage return-to-fitness schedules for three players who came back from injury-interrupted seasons.
Zamalek fans, meanwhile, are watching Al-Ahly's summer with competitive anxiety. Zamalek's own window has been quieter — one loan deal confirmed for a Tunisian left-back — and the board at Midan El-Tahrir's Zamalek Club administrative offices has not publicly addressed whether coach Patrice Carteron will be handed fresh funds. The contrast in activity between the two Cairo giants is impossible to ignore.
Al-Ahly has won five consecutive CAF Champions League titles, the last secured in Casablanca in May 2025 with a 2–1 victory over TP Mazembe. The club's annual revenue crossed 1.2 billion Egyptian pounds in the 2024–25 financial year, the highest in the club's recorded history, according to figures presented at the general assembly held at Cairo Stadium in Heliopolis in June. That financial position gives the transfer committee — chaired by former defender Sayed Abdelhafeez — room to pursue a third signing before the Egyptian FA's domestic registration deadline of July 25th.
Shirt sales at the Al-Ahly merchandise store on Road 9 in Maadi have reportedly been brisk since the season-ending campaign concluded, with the store manager indicating on local sports channel On Time Sports this week that foot traffic in June was up compared to the same period in 2025. New kits, released on June 28th and priced at 850 Egyptian pounds for the replica version, sold out their initial stock in 48 hours online.
What comes next is a three-match pre-season tour of the Gulf region, starting July 14th in Riyadh, followed by friendlies against Saudi Pro League sides. Koller will use those matches to assess the new Moroccan winger's integration and to decide whether to field a second defensive midfielder or revert to the 4-2-3-1 shape that carried the team to Casablanca. The answer to that tactical question will tell supporters a great deal about how seriously the club believes it can go six titles in a row — a number no African club has ever reached.
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Published by The Daily Cairo
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