15 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. ASO Chlef 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 ASO Chlef can pretend not to have heard.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between ASO Chlef and ES Setif, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Squad30 Dec 2030
Kokou Avotor 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.
Mohamed Atef 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.
29 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. ASO Chlef lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Edlin Essang-Matouti provided it, and the 9.08 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 ASO Chlef this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Dec 2030
Kokou Avotor 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.
36 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. ASO Chlef lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Kokou Avotor was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The dugout9 Dec 2030
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 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Riyad Benayada to a room that had heard them before.
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 43 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.
Kokou Avotor 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.
Successful dribbles: 21. 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.
Squad2 Dec 2030
Joss Didiba 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.
50 goals for this club, and somewhere in the stand there is a person who can still tell you where they were for most of them.
Player ratings2 Dec 2030
Kokou Avotor was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.23. 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 words a physio says slowly. 57 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.
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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; ASO Chlef are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at ASO Chlef has been clear about where Frédéric Yenang stands, which is more than many ever get.
71 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. ASO Chlef lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Ibrahim El Asyuti and ASO Chlef agree another 4 years.
Joss Didiba 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.
Squad4 Nov 2030
Kokou Avotor 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 were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Riyad Benayada after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
85 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. ASO Chlef lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. ASO Chlef scored in the 94th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
6 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.
Player ratings21 Oct 2030
Mehdi Mrezigue, 16, plays like he has been here for years — 7.67
A mark of 7.67 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 16-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Kokou Avotor 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.
JS Saoura made ASO Chlef work for it, but the scoreboard read 3‑2 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad21 Oct 2030
Words at ASO Chlef training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Joss Didiba 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.
At 16 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 14 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
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.
Houssem Benrahma scored, and precious little else went right: 2‑3 to ES Setif, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Squad16 Sep 2030
Words at ASO Chlef training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kokou Avotor 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.
Mohamed Atef 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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 2‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Successful dribbles: 13. 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. a squad player is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
The deal with MC Oran is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
$290.0K was the most the club would pay and CS Constantine 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.
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.
Squad26 Aug 2030
Kokou Avotor 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Olympique Akbou have kept their man, and ASO Chlef go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Amine Bensebaini and ASO Chlef agree another 4 years.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Mohamed Arab will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around ASO Chlef the goodbyes have quietly begun.
ASO Chlef had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Spartak Moscow, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
The offer went to ES Mostaganem 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.
Squad5 Aug 2030
Words at ASO Chlef training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kokou Avotor 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.
ASO Chlef asked and USM Alger said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Add another name to the list: MB Rouissat have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Amine Bensebaini. The answer from ASO Chlef has not changed — yet.
Carlos Frederico 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.
Zlate Moravce have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Kokou Avotor 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.
ASO Chlef asked and JS Kabylie said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.
ASO Chlef have made the call to Spartak Moscow. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
A loan enquiry to Ghazl El Mahalla: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.