It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Paradou this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 4 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
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.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
CS Constantine go through and Paradou go home, 1‑2 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Rafael Durán 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.
Squad3 Apr 2028
Words at Paradou training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mohamed El Amine Ramdaoui 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.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Ahmed Abdelkader is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Paradou know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Paradou have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Paradou is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Rafael Durán 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.
“I watch every Paradou game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at JS Kabylie runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Paradou told Bilal Boukerchaoui something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
14 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
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.
Rafael Durán 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Amayas Boudedja will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Paradou the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Paradou this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Abderrahmane Bacha has his answer from Paradou; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
13 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
61 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Paradou lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Paradou have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Paradou 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 Paradou this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Rafael Durán 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 words a physio says slowly. 133 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.
Ahmed Aït-Abdesslem 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.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Words at Paradou training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rafael Durán 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.
8 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Ouanisse Bouzahzah is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Rafael Durán 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: 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.
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.