28 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. MC Alger lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason MC Alger will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
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 Alger this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
8.03. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
The words a physio says slowly. 37 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason MC Alger will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
1 for Matías Palacios, marked 7.91, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
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 Alger this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ahmed Al Naqbi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” MC Alger have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason MC Alger will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Achille Anani 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at MC Alger training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mohamed Zoungrana 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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at MC Alger has been clear about where Walid Ouabdi stands, which is more than many ever get.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against USM Khenchela in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Facundo Kruspzky signs something — a contract at MC Alger or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nobody at MC 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.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Mohamed Benkhemassa has written the date down.
In brief
The dugoutWalid Ouabdi knocks on the manager's door
Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Ahmed Al Naqbi scored in the 89th minute, ES Ben Aknoun had already begun thinking about the journey home, and MC Alger took the lot.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason MC Alger will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ahmed Al Naqbi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. MC Alger will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Facundo Kruspzky 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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Words at MC Alger training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ahmed Al Naqbi 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.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
JS Kabylie will want this one forgotten quickly: 4‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. MC Alger were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 57 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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 Alger this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. JS Kabylie tried to reorganise, MC Alger did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
Marked 8.47 — 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.
Marked 8.04. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at MC Alger.
Squad26 Oct 2026
8 new faces, and MC Alger are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. MC Alger will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
1 for Matías Palacios, marked 7.88, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Ahmed Al Naqbi
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason MC Alger will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Achille Anani and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words at MC Alger training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ahmed Al Naqbi 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.
“I watch every MC Alger game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at ASO Chlef runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. MC Alger will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at MC Alger, another week without a signature from Mickaël Le Bihan.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Ishak Talal Boussouf’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and MC Alger needing him to play as if none of it matters.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Achille Anani has written the date down.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 82 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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.
Successful dribbles: 25. 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.
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 Alger this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Matías Palacios is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.