“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Belkacem Brahimi and ASO Chlef agree another 2 years.
Squad2 Jul 2029
Words at ASO Chlef training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Noa Cervantes 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.
MC Oran paid $48.0K and ASO Chlef took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Dalil Adel Hassen Khodja 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.
None of them will be seen by anybody outside the training ground for three years, most of them will never play a senior match, and one of them might change the club. That is the whole proposition, and it is why academies exist.
The words a physio says slowly. 59 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 84 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The fee is $290.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. USM Khenchela drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at MC Oran this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boards get told what they have done wrong for years and hear nothing on the days they get it right. This is one of those days: Elly Saenyi from USM Khenchela for $290.0K, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
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.
6 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.
Sofiane Kacem is 36 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
“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 ASO Chlef, 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 ASO Chlef this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad18 Jun 2029
Words at ASO Chlef training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Belkacem Brahimi 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Mohamed Arab trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Samuel Ayanrinde 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.
In brief
SquadNoa Cervantes falls out with a teammate over standards
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at ASO Chlef can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around ASO Chlef they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Sofiane Kacem has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at ASO Chlef this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Kokou Avotor and ASO Chlef agree another 4 years.
Squad4 Jun 2029
Words at ASO Chlef training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Belkacem Brahimi 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 146 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what USM Alger can pretend not to have heard.
Ghiles Guenaoui 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.
Squad4 Jun 2029
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.
ASO Chlef will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Sofiane Kacem 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 name of Imad Eddine Azzi has come up in conversations USM Alger were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Nobody at USM Alger 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.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Rafik Brahimi has his answer from USM Alger; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Abderrahmane Atal has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
The terraces5 Feb 2029
The mood at ASO Chlef 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around ASO Chlef they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. ES Mostaganem moved on, Sofiane Kacem reports back to ASO Chlef, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Kevyn Montaño commits to ASO Chlef for another 2 years.
Squad5 Feb 2029
Words at ASO Chlef training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Noa Cervantes 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.
Dalil Adel Hassen Khodja 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what ASO Chlef can pretend not to have heard.
17 points and a position everybody in the ground can do the arithmetic on. The songs have stopped being about the team and started being about surviving, which is a different noise entirely.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at ASO Chlef is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Samuel Ayanrinde 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.
Position 14 and 17 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Two goals and a mark of 7.79 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at ASO Chlef 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 ASO Chlef this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad22 Jan 2029
Words at ASO Chlef training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Belkacem Brahimi 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.
20 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. ASO Chlef lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at ASO Chlef this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad8 Jan 2029
Words at ASO Chlef training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Noa Cervantes 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.
Everyone has stopped pretending: ES Ben Aknoun will make the call about Sofiane Kacem this week. ASO Chlef have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
3 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
CS Constantine are out and ASO Chlef go through, 0‑0 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Player ratings9 Oct 2028
A first appearance Mehdi Zeffane will want to forget — 5.69
Everybody's debut is one of two stories and this was the other one. 5.69, and the only consolation available is that nobody's career has ever been decided by ninety minutes in a shirt he had just been given.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at ASO Chlef is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Samuel Ayanrinde 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.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Luis Fernando Cruz reports back to ASO Chlef with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at ASO Chlef is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Words at ASO Chlef training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Noa Cervantes 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.
Dalil Adel Hassen Khodja 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what ASO Chlef can pretend not to have heard.
The offer from Paradou for Mohamed Medjaji 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.
An average of 7.04 in a first team he is several years too young for. ASO Chlef have something, and by now the whole division has noticed.
Squad31 Jan 2028
Words at ASO Chlef training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Belkacem Brahimi 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.
Ibrahim Farhi 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 name of Anis Elhadj Benchouya has come up in conversations ASO Chlef were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
8 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
There were 86 minutes on the clock and MB Rouissat had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and ASO Chlef did not stop to explain themselves.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Ganiyu Gberefu has just signed for ASO Chlef, and for once the answer mattered.
“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 ASO Chlef, and it is not being withdrawn.
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad24 Jan 2028
Noa Cervantes 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at ASO Chlef this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The offer from ES Ben Aknoun for Anis Elhadj Benchouya 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.
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 ASO Chlef this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Add another name to the list: USM Khenchela have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Sofiane Kacem. The answer from ASO Chlef has not changed — yet.
Nobody at ASO Chlef 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.
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.