Marked for Abdelhamid Dris
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market31 May 2027
“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 The request is on a desk at USM Khenchela, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad31 May 2027
Abdou Sissoko and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout31 May 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Abdelhamid Dris, and the manager let it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market10 May 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at USM Khenchela is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad10 May 2027
Anisse Saidi 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 dugout10 May 2027
Mohamed Ehab gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout10 May 2027
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 Abdelhamid Dris has written the date down.
Market10 May 2027
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Ahmida Zenasni may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
Squad10 May 2027
Somebody to talk to at the next peg, a few words of the language, and a training ground that has stopped being a foreign country. It never appears in a scouting report and it decides most signings.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom3 May 2027
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Mehdi Touba has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Market3 May 2027
“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 The request is on a desk at USM Khenchela, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad3 May 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Abdou Sissoko and USM Khenchela agree another 2 years.
Squad3 May 2027
Abdou Sissoko and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad3 May 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ayobami Junior was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout3 May 2027
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Market3 May 2027
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
The dugout3 May 2027
Every squad has men who were signed by a particular manager and men who were merely inherited. Abdulrahman Talal is in the first group, and the man who wanted him here is no longer in the building.
The dugout3 May 2027
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at USM Khenchela. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces29 Mar 2027
The mood at USM Khenchela has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Boardroom29 Mar 2027
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at USM Khenchela is running low.
Match29 Mar 2027
The season ends: position 15 for USM Khenchela
The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 20 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
Market29 Mar 2027
“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 USM Khenchela, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match27 Mar 2027
USM Alger left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Abdelhamid Dris, and the manager let it.
Squad29 Mar 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Josué Balamandji and USM Khenchela agree another 1 years.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Mehdi Touba after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market15 Mar 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Market15 Mar 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at USM Khenchela is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Abdou Sissoko and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Nadjib Baouia 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 terraces15 Mar 2027
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 18-year-old it feels ownership of. Anisse Saidi 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.
Match13 Mar 2027
It finished 1‑0, and it was Ammar Oukil’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to USM Khenchela.
Player ratings15 Mar 2027
Ammar Oukil was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.07. 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 dugout15 Mar 2027
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at USM Khenchela pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
The dugout15 Mar 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Mehdi Touba kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match13 Feb 2027
14 matches without a win for USM Khenchela
The run now stands at 14, and the questions being asked around USM Khenchela are no longer polite ones.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 10 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Market15 Feb 2027
Only the photograph left for Serge Badjo
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Serge Badjo will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around USM Khenchela the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Match13 Feb 2027
6 matches without a goal for USM Khenchela
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 6 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” USM Khenchela may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Réda Boumechra 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.
Transfer targets15 Feb 2027
$77.0K was the most the club would pay and ASO Chlef were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Transfer targets15 Feb 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. ES Setif have kept their man, and USM Khenchela go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Match13 Feb 2027
MC Alger left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match23 Jan 2027
11 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Match25 Jan 2027
Every point is an argument now for USM Khenchela
Position 15 and 10 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Transfer targets25 Jan 2027
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. USM Khenchela have done the hard part with ES Setif, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Abdou Sissoko 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.
Transfer targets25 Jan 2027
USM Khenchela have gone to ASO Chlef with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Match23 Jan 2027
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Squad25 Jan 2027
34 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
The dugout25 Jan 2027
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout25 Jan 2027
Mehdi Touba: “We have to be better”
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad28 Dec 2026
18 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. USM Khenchela lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Squad28 Dec 2026
10 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Match28 Dec 2026
Position 16, 7 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Match26 Dec 2026
7 matches without a win for USM Khenchela
The run now stands at 7, and the questions being asked around USM Khenchela are no longer polite ones.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Réda Boumechra and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Anisse Saidi gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Anisse Saidi has just signed for USM Khenchela, and for once the answer mattered.
Match26 Dec 2026
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at USM Khenchela can tell you which week it ends in.
Match26 Dec 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
The manager makes an example of Abdelhamid Dris
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad9 Nov 2026
70 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. USM Khenchela lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Match7 Nov 2026
10 matches without a win, and then this, against CS Constantine. Relief is a strange noise in a football ground and it was the only noise at the end.
Squad9 Nov 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at USM Khenchela this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad9 Nov 2026
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Mohamed Ali Saleh Ziad is living that version at USM Khenchela, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ayobami Junior was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match7 Nov 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Ammar Oukil. 2‑1 against CS Constantine, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The terraces9 Nov 2026
At 20 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.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Abdelhamid Dris
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Marked 7.99. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.