Sports clubs proliferated in Egypt since the turn of the twentieth century. Largely organized as joint-stock companies, these clubs contributed to both the organization of the urban middle classes, and the propagation of a physical culture, which by the 1920s formed a critical element in the discourse on national progress. They formed (semi-) professional football teams which participated in a growing number of competitions, both ‘international’ and ‘local’, and the latter both mixed and Egyptian. My paper studies these clubs as sites for negotiating, contesting and articulating nationalism between 1919 and 1952. Importantly, sports clubs became lynchpins of various forms of mobility – physical and social – that were at the heart of defining the nation under colonial rule. Centering mobility, I address three main themes. First is the regulation of players’ field mobility and the formulation of football teams. As clubs moved towards the professionalization of the sport in the early 1920s, they hired coaches to synchronize their players’ field mobility and allow the team to function as one, corporal body. Players resisted this team discipline, which undermined their individual skill. Second, I explore these teams and sites for social mobility. Team membership was initially confined to the elite club members. The popularization of sport through the media in the 1920s however led to the pursuit of talent outside the effendi class, and joining football teams therefore became a means of social mobility. The paper explores the limits and conditions of this inclusion. My paper’s final theme is the emergence of a national football milieu. Nationalizing the sport became a central concern for club managers in the aftermath of the 1919 revolution. The Egyptian Football Association was established in 1921, Prince Farouk Cup was launched in 1922 (eventually replacing the Sultanic cup, in which Egyptian and British teams competed), and a national team was assembled to participate in the 1920 Olympics and the 1934 World Cup. Nationalization efforts however encountered significant challenges, including the high cost of transportation, and the 'uneven development,' which delimited the national domain. Al-Ahli ‘visits’ to Port-Said, Assiyut, and Alexandria are a case in point: these trips were understood to be tiresome, costly, and impossible to conduct on a regular basis. It was not, therefore, until 1948 that the ‘national league’ was first organized. The paper focuses on the period preceding this league, and examines the ways (limits to) mobility contributed to defining the national football milieu.