“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 The request is on a desk at AS Bakaridjan, and it is not being withdrawn.
Daouda Koné 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.
Squad1 Apr 2030
Makan Camara 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 is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
In brief
Player ratingsAn afternoon Jeffrey Nuhu will want back
Daouda Koné 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.
Squad18 Feb 2030
Makan Camara 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.
Nobody at AS Bakaridjan 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Godbless Ayeke signs something — a contract at AS Bakaridjan or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Marked 5.60. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Jeffrey Nuhu will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around AS Bakaridjan the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“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 The request is on a desk at AS Bakaridjan, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad28 Jan 2030
Makan Camara 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.
It needed Tshepang Mogotlane to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against US Forces Armees, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
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.
“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.
Squad21 Jan 2030
Isaiah David 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 is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
It finished 1‑0, and it was Fousseny Tangara’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to AS Bakaridjan.
Squad29 Oct 2029
Isaiah David 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 is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
At 17 he is being measured against the rest of the division's kids and coming out in front. The senior version of this award is where the club would like this to lead.
The mood at AS Bakaridjan 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.
“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 AS Bakaridjan, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
Daouda Koné 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.
Squad24 Sep 2029
Makan Camara 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.
At 30 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AS Bakaridjan they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad9 Apr 2029
Words at AS Bakaridjan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Makan Camara 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.
Senzo Hlophe 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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. AS Bakaridjan know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 18 of the 33 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
Everybody's debut is one of two stories and this was the other one. 5.72, and the only consolation available is that nobody's career has ever been decided by ninety minutes in a shirt he had just been given.
4 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.
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.
Squad6 Nov 2028
Words at AS Bakaridjan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aboubacar Haïdara 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.
62 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. AS Bakaridjan lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AS Bakaridjan can pretend not to have heard.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Paulo Balbúrdia is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
69 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. AS Bakaridjan lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Youssef Ali is living that version at AS Bakaridjan, and it tends to show in the first month.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Aboubacar Haïdara signs something — a contract at AS Bakaridjan or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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.
Squad21 Aug 2028
Islam Bakir has improved at 32, 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. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Squad21 Aug 2028
Noa Cervantes 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.
Everyone has stopped pretending: JS Saoura will make the call about Abdelkader Morcely this week. USM Khenchela have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
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.
Serge Badjo 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 25 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 Aug 2028
Words at USM Khenchela training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abdelhamid Dris 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.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at USM Khenchela has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
In brief
The terracesThe stands have heard the Kamel Chergui talk too
The words a physio says slowly. 20 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 29 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around USM Khenchela they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
55 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. USM Khenchela lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 63 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Mohamed Amine Ezzemani 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.
In brief
SquadWords at USM Khenchela training over how hard people work