Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Sydney FC will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 8 arrived, 16 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Sydney FC 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 Sydney FC this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Al Hassan Touré is on it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Al Hassan Touré signs something — a contract at Sydney FC or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The words a physio says slowly. 49 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.
Takahiro Sekine 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 decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Jordan Courtney-Perkins and Sydney FC agree another 4 years.
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.
Sydney FC asked and Adelaide United said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Sydney FC have made the call to Crewe Alexandra. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
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.
Everything agreed with Adelaide United, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Takahiro Sekine 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.
Squad29 Jan 2029
Words at Sydney FC training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marcel Tisserand 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Tiago Quintal is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Marked 8.34 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Squad13 Nov 2028
Words at Sydney FC training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rhyan Grant 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.
100 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑1, Adam Williams could afford to be generous.
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.
Takahiro Sekine and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad8 May 2028
Rhyan Grant 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Sydney FC, and 3 appearances in 17 say he has earned the hearing.
Nobody at Sydney FC 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.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Sydney FC. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Sydney FC would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Takahiro Sekine 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Bayer Leverkusen have kept their man, and Sydney FC go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Brisbane Roar spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
Marked 8.29 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
A 2‑0 win over Adelaide United, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Takahiro Sekine 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.
Sydney FC asked and Wellington Phoenix said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Abel Walatee has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Nobody's fault and entirely his: a goal that goes into the book with his name against it and nothing about it intended. Sydney FC deserved better, and so did he.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Hosine Bility
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Víctor Campuzano provided it, and the 9.13 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Takahiro Sekine 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Sydney FC and Macarthur FC, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Rhyan Grant 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.
The dugout22 Nov 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 2‑4 defeat, delivered by Adam Williams to a room that had heard them before.
A touch he did not want, a bounce he could not have read, and his name in the wrong column. There is no consoling a man after one of these, and Sydney FC will not try tonight.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Western Sydney Wanderers in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.