Marked for Daniel Gnahoua
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad2 Nov 2026
A fracture rules Daniel Gnahoua out for 19 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason ES Setif will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match2 Nov 2026
ES Setif refuse to drop out of the race
Position 3, 16 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
No sign of nerves from Carlos Abeldaño at 21 — 8.02
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Carlos Abeldaño did not need any: 8.02, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Squad2 Nov 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 ES Setif this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Aldair Ferreira 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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Brian Rowe
“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.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Ninety minutes of Mohamed Boukerma at his very best
Marked 8.32. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at ES Setif.
Market2 Nov 2026
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at ES Setif, another week without a signature from Aldair Ferreira.
Match31 Oct 2026
2‑2, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad26 Oct 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 27 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Age has not caught Rachid Ghezzal yet — 8.16
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.16 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Sofiane Bendebka 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad19 Oct 2026
A fracture rules Daniel Gnahoua out for 35 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason ES Setif will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad19 Oct 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 ES Setif this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Oussama Bouguerri is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Sofiane Bendebka 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.
The terraces19 Oct 2026
At 21 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.
Match17 Oct 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Mohamed Boukerma. 2‑0 against ES Ben Aknoun, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad12 Oct 2026
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Zakaria Saidi: 3 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Match7 Oct 2026
The small margins put ES Setif out
Out, 0‑0 to ES Ben Aknoun, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 43 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The terraces12 Oct 2026
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 8 of the 36 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Rachid Ghezzal, 34, rolls back the years — 7.81
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.81 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Sofiane Bendebka 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Kheir Eddine Toual is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match10 Oct 2026
Olympique Akbou left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad5 Oct 2026
A fracture rules Daniel Gnahoua out for 51 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason ES Setif will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Kiros wants to go home
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and ES Setif know it.
Squad5 Oct 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 ES Setif this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad28 Sep 2026
A fracture rules Daniel Gnahoua out for 58 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason ES Setif will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 7.80, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad28 Sep 2026
A one-man rearguard from Brian Rowe
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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Mohamed Messaoud Salem is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad28 Sep 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 ES Setif this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match26 Sep 2026
Three points for ES Setif, 2‑0 the final word against CR Belouizdad in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Defensive actions: 16. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 14 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 9. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market24 Aug 2026
Al-Faisaly come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and ES Setif did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Kevin Akpoguma gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Kevin Akpoguma has just signed for ES Setif, and for once the answer mattered.
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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad17 Aug 2026
A move Aldair Ferreira would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Aldair Ferreira is living that version at ES Setif, and it tends to show in the first month.
Market17 Aug 2026
Add another name to the list: Al-Faisaly have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Daniel Gnahoua. The answer from ES Setif has not changed — yet.
Market17 Aug 2026
ES Setif say no — this time
The offer from Ismaily for John Okoli was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
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 ES Setif this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at ES Setif training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sofiane Bendebka 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. ES Setif will not keep him by pretending otherwise.