Sfundo Shezi 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.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 36 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Katsina United is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
Moses Adikwu 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.
33 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Katsina United lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Words at Katsina United training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sfundo Shezi 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 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.
Enyimba go through and Bendel Insurance go home, 0‑2 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms 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.
“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 The request is on a desk at Bendel Insurance, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer went to Warri Wolves this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Bendel Insurance this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Julius Emiloju Junior and Bendel Insurance agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 10 combined actions and a mark of 6.59, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Bendel Insurance is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Oke Kayode 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Chinedu Nwosu 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.
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
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 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Calvin Awoniyi to a room that had heard them before.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
Oke Kayode 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.
Successful dribbles: 18. 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.
Still no offer on the table, and Oke Kayode’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.