$310.0K is a serious amount of money and it does not play centre-forward. Everybody in the dressing room knows who used to be looked at when it went wrong.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Isaac Mintah was one of the reasons people came, and $310.0K does not replace that by itself.
Bruno Centeno 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Johnson Nsumoh has just signed for Asante Kotoko, and for once the answer mattered.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 21 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Words at Asante Kotoko training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andrews Ntim 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 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 Asante Kotoko this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The name of Mohamed Camara has come up in conversations Asante Kotoko were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Words at Asante Kotoko training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Emmanuel Antwi 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 month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Peter Amidu Acquah is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Asante Kotoko this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody's fault and entirely his: a goal that goes into the book with his name against it and nothing about it intended. Asante Kotoko deserved better, and so did he.
“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.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Words at Asante Kotoko training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Emmanuel Antwi 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.
Boardroom23 Nov 2026
Nobody left the Asante Kotoko dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
In brief
SquadAlbert Amoah asks for a word with the manager
Bruno Centeno 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at Asante Kotoko training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lord Amoah 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 one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
12 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Asante Kotoko this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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 Asante Kotoko know it.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Albert Amoah. 1‑0 against BA All Stars, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
Bruno Centeno 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.
At 26 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Bruno Centeno 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 20 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.
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Asante Kotoko training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andrews Ntim 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Emmanuel Antwi. 1‑0 against Heart of Lions, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
12 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
The offer from New Edubiase United for Jordan Amissah 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 fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Liberty Professionals moved on, Isaac Mintah reports back to Asante Kotoko, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Bruno Centeno 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.
3 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Kwame Essien is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
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 Asante Kotoko this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Zakaria Fuseini and Asante Kotoko agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Add another name to the list: Wa All Stars have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Hubert Gyau. The answer from Asante Kotoko has not changed — yet.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Asante Kotoko know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Asante Kotoko, another week without a signature from Elvis Baffour.