The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Mamadou Sacko has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Onze Createurs can pretend not to have heard.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Lassana Samaké and Onze Createurs agree another 2 years.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Onze Createurs this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad8 May 2028
Words at Onze Createurs training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abdou Kanouté 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.
Nobody at Onze Createurs will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
“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 The request is on a desk at Onze Createurs, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Onze Createurs this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Feb 2028
Words at Onze Createurs training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abdou Kanouté 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.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Idrissa Guindo.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Etoiles du Mande? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Onze Createurs scored in the 118th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
Malick Traoré 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.
Squad8 Nov 2027
Abdou Kanouté 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 Onze Createurs game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at FC Diarra runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Onze Createurs is running low.
The terraces29 Mar 2027
The mood at Onze Createurs has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Onze Createurs can pretend not to have heard.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Onze Createurs this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Words at Onze Createurs training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abdou Kanouté 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.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.27 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Onze Createurs have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Onze Createurs this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Words at Onze Createurs training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abdou Kanouté 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.
8 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Player ratings18 Jan 2027
Kwandile Gumemde, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.69
A mark of 7.69 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Onze Createurs this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Words at Onze Createurs training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abdou Kanouté 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.
At 20 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.
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 35 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
0‑3 to AS Bakaridjan, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Malick Traoré 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.
Nobody at Onze Createurs will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Moussa Mariko signs something — a contract at Onze Createurs or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.