The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at JS Kabylie is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Abdeldjalil Ould Ammar 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at JS Kabylie this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around JS Kabylie they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
24 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.
Ryad Boudebouz 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. Yakoub Guellati will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around JS Kabylie the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Marked 8.42 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
6 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.
27 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” JS Kabylie have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Youcef Izem has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Oussama Haroun will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around JS Kabylie the goodbyes have quietly begun.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 4 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at JS Kabylie this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
27 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
The offer from ES Setif for Walid Khermouche was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Ryad Boudebouz 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 Feb 2027
Words at JS Kabylie training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Billal Messaoudi 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.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 18 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Abdelhak Cherir and JS Kabylie agree another 4 years.
In brief
SquadThe manager has not finished forgetting Gaya Merbah's mistake
The offer from MB Rouissat for Abdelhak Cherir was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Ryad Boudebouz 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 name of Seif Benrabah has come up in conversations JS Kabylie were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
An error at the back is a moment; an error in goal is a goal. Gaya Merbah knows it, the crowd knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.95 at 36, and nobody on the pitch was better.
The offer from ASO Chlef for Oualid Malki was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Oussama Haroun has agreed terms with CS Constantine for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around JS Kabylie they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at JS Kabylie this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Ryad Boudebouz 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.
“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 JS Kabylie, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at JS Kabylie this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
“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; JS Kabylie are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
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.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against ES Setif? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
10 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.11 at 36, and nobody on the pitch was better.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at JS Kabylie this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Abdelhak Cherir is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
7 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
At 36 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.53 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
Abdeldjalil Ould Ammar 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 have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what JS Kabylie can pretend not to have heard.
The offer from Bloemfontein Celtic for Seif Benrabah was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at JS Kabylie this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The fee is $120.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. JS Saoura drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
A conversation is coming this week. JS Kabylie will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at JS Kabylie training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Koceila Ait Idir 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.