42 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. MC Oran lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at MC Oran is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Yanis Hamache 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Ahmed Khaldi. 2‑0 against MB Rouissat, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad30 Sep 2030
Abu Tatu has improved at 24, 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.
Player ratings30 Sep 2030
Ahmed Khaldi was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.08. 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.
Player ratings30 Sep 2030
Ajak Riak was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.05. 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.
91 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. MC Oran lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around MC Oran people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at MC Oran 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 MC Oran this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
CS Constantine wanted more than $300.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
At 31 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Paradou have kept their man, and MC Oran go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. MC Oran will quote 14 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. MC Oran have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Ajak Riak has just signed for MC Oran, and for once the answer mattered.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around MC Oran they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. MC Oran have done the hard part with Cruzeiro, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Zaid Jaouhari 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.
Yanis Hamache 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.
MC Oran asked and Al Ahly 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 clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around MC Oran people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Kamel Soufi will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around MC Oran the goodbyes have quietly begun.
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. MC Oran had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
“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 MC Oran, and it is not being withdrawn.
Yanis Hamache and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad1 Jul 2030
Wilfred Nkaya 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.
MC Oran asked and Zamalek said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Ahmed Hassan 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around MC Oran they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at MC Oran can tell you which week it ends in.
Squad1 Apr 2030
Words at MC Oran training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rezki Hamroune 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.
“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 MC Oran, and it is not being withdrawn.
9 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and CS Constantine were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
7.56, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Ahmed Hassan 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ahmed Khaldi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Badreddine Touki. 1‑0 against CS Constantine, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Half the programme played, position 10, 19 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
In brief
Player ratingsNobody on the pitch touched Yanis Hamache
Player ratingsAhmed Khaldi beats them one at a time
33 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. MC Oran lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 MC Oran, and it is not being withdrawn.
5 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Abu Tatu is living that version at MC Oran, and it tends to show in the first month.
Yanis Hamache 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.
MC Alger will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Ammar El Orfi has pre-agreed a move to MC Oran, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.