A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. MC Oran will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about 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 The request is on a desk at MC Oran, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Abderrahmane Bourdim will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around MC Oran the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Wilfred Nkaya and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad14 Apr 2031
Words at MC Oran training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yanis Hamache 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. MC Oran will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around MC Oran they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Yanis Hamache and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at MC Oran, another week without a signature from Wilfred Nkaya.
Nobody at MC Oran 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.
2 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee MC Oran could ask drops and the wages David Sambissa can ask rise.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at MC Oran, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 50 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Abderrahmane Bourdim will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around MC Oran the goodbyes have quietly begun.
43 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. MC Oran lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 81 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at MC Oran is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and MC Oran know which stage they are at.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. MC Oran told David Sambissa something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
In brief
Player ratingsThe afternoon belonged to Yanis Hamache
74 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. MC Oran lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. MC Oran will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around MC Oran they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at CR Belouizdad is saying, and nobody at MC Oran is enjoying the guessing.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Abderrahmane Bourdim has agreed terms with USM Alger for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between MC Oran and USM Khenchela, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
123 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. MC Oran lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 10 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. MC Oran will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Kamel Soufi will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around MC Oran the goodbyes have quietly begun.
5 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” MC Oran have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Chahreddine Boukholda and MC Oran agree another 2 years.
20 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. MC Oran lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at MC Oran is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mohamed Abdelmoumene Kadri was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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 MC Oran know it.
51 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. MC Oran lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at MC Oran is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Successful dribbles: 24. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 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.
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 last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. MC Oran have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Ajak Riak has just signed for MC Oran, and for once the answer mattered.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around MC Oran they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. MC Oran have done the hard part with Cruzeiro, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Zaid Jaouhari has agreed terms with CS Constantine for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Yanis Hamache 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.
MC Oran asked and Al Ahly said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around MC Oran people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“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 MC Oran, and it is not being withdrawn.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Al Ahly have kept their man, and MC Oran go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad17 Jun 2030
Words at MC Oran training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Iyad Mohamed 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.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation MC Oran are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around MC Oran people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Wilfred Nkaya has just signed for MC Oran, 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 MC Oran, 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 MC Oran this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Abderrahmane Bourdim is a MC Oran player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
Squad10 Jun 2030
Wilfred Nkaya 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.
MC Oran asked and Al Ahly said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.