Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 8 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
Mahamoud Metwaly 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. Hossam Awad is living that version at ES Setif, and it tends to show in the first month.
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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” ES Setif 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.” Alexandre Oukidja and ES Setif agree another 2 years.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mahamoud Metwaly was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” ES Setif have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Ben Ahmed Kohili is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at ES Setif this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Habib Sylla has improved at 28, 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.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Dila had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
“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 ES Setif, and it is not being withdrawn.
7.74, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 18 arrived, 12 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Mohamed Touat is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Jadsom 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.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Kamel Hamidi has improved at 31, 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.
5 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ahmed Kendouci was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Something was said to Ahmed Kendouci and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Nobody at ES Setif 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.
Riad Benayad 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Queens Park Rangers have kept their man, and ES Setif go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Bilal Mrezigue has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Rachid Halliche has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Sofiane Zeffane is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Adel Belmadi has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
ES Setif have made the call to Ajax Cape Town. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.