2 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Aboubacar Haïdara provided it, and the 9.06 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AS Bakaridjan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Justus Ohanu was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.01. 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.
At 18 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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Makan Camara, and the manager let it.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Bourama Diallo was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.62. 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” AS Bakaridjan have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Aboubacar Haïdara 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 AS Bakaridjan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Justus Ohanu 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.
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.
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.
Aboubacar Haïdara 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 24 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 4 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.
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 5 of the 23 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AS Bakaridjan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Abbey Benson 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. 4 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Justus Ohanu 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at AS Bakaridjan, another week without a signature from Sani Mubarak.
Shots: 6. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
Aboubacar Haïdara 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 27 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.
In brief
SquadWords at AS Bakaridjan training over how hard people work
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AS Bakaridjan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 28 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Justus Ohanu 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AS Bakaridjan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Justus Ohanu 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.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at AS Bakaridjan would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Justus Ohanu has just signed for AS Bakaridjan, and for once the answer mattered.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AS Bakaridjan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Justus Ohanu 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at AS Bakaridjan, another week without a signature from Bright Ethaghara.
Still no offer on the table, and Makan Camara’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.