Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Arab Contractors will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Amir Abed will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Arab Contractors the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
Shokry Naguib 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 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.
53 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. USM Alger lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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 name of Sbonelo Cele has come up in conversations USM Alger were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
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 USM Alger this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” USM Alger have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad22 May 2028
Words at USM Alger training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Zakaria Draoui 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 is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
João Moreira 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 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 words a physio says slowly. 31 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.62 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
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 paperwork is done long before the player is. Housseyn Selmi has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means USM Alger have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Andrija Novaković. 2‑0 against MC Oran, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at USM Alger this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
15 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 12 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
The words a physio says slowly. 47 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.
3 in front and in complete control, and it finished with JS Saoura the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that USM Alger will enjoy reviewing.
Player ratings7 Feb 2028
Seun Agboola, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.74
A mark of 7.74 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 USM Alger 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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Houssemeddine Ghacha, and the manager let it.
Player ratings7 Feb 2028
Hocine Dehiri was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.39. 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.
Everyone has stopped pretending: ES Ben Aknoun will make the call about Haithem Loucif this week. USM Alger have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
The words a physio says slowly. 56 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.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.82 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at USM Alger is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at USM Alger this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad31 Jan 2028
Words at USM Alger training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Zakaria Draoui 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.
19 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
73 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. USM Alger lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The offer from ASO Chlef for Haithem Loucif 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at USM Alger this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad17 Jan 2028
Words at USM Alger training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Zakaria Draoui 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.
17 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 16 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
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.
80 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. USM Alger lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
João Moreira 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Rafik Brahimi is living that version at USM Alger, and it tends to show in the first month.
JS Kabylie paid $250.0K and USM Alger took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” USM Alger have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
15 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Squad27 Sep 2027
Words at USM Alger training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. João Moreira 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.
Sbonelo Cele 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.
5 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.
João Moreira 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 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.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Zakaria Draoui has improved at 33, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Hossein Kazeminia is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at USM Alger, another week without a signature from Andrija Novaković.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Kwara United will make the call about Haithem Loucif this week. USM Alger have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
A new face in his position, and Houssemeddine Ghacha suddenly has to win back what he thought he owned. USM Alger have promised nothing — clubs rarely do at this stage.
“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 USM Alger, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
MC Oran will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Mpho Mathebula has pre-agreed a move to USM Alger, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
The phone has started ringing about Haithem Loucif again, and this time the name on the line is Kwara United. USM Alger are listening politely and promising nothing.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at USM Alger this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The contract runs out and nothing has been agreed, so the football is doing the talking. USM Alger are getting the best of him precisely because they have not yet committed to him, which is an uncomfortable thing to be right about.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. USM Alger will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
João Moreira 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 phone has started ringing about Marco Antonio Bueno again, and this time the name on the line is JS Kabylie. USM Alger are listening politely and promising nothing.
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.
7 arrivals, an average age nobody would call a squad, and a set of parents being shown around a building their sons will spend more time in than at home. The scouting has already happened; today is only the paperwork.
The name of Andrija Novaković has come up in conversations USM Alger were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
The paperwork is done: Yacine Goudjil joins from MC Oran in a deal worth $1.1M. Now comes the harder part.
The terraces14 Jun 2027
USM Alger spend $1.1M on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $1.1M for Yacine Goudjil, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
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 Khaldi 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at USM Alger this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 May 2027
Words at USM Alger training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andrija Novaković 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 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.