“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Ben Ahmed Kohili had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Everything agreed with Montpellier HSC, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
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.
Toufik Moussaoui 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.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Ben Ahmed Kohili, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.69
A mark of 7.69 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
He is 21, he is averaging 7.01, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
Marked 8.13 — 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.
Marked 8.06. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Paradou.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Omar Tahrat, on a 2‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“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 music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑3 Omar Tahrat left the room before anybody could ask which.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Ben Ahmed Kohili. 1‑0 against ES Mostaganem, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 7.99 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Paradou had the best player on the pitch.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Omar Tahrat, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Nobody at Paradou 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 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.
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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against ES Ben Aknoun in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Toufik Moussaoui 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 20 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Omar Tahrat chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Amayas Boudedja’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Paradou needing him to play as if none of it matters.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
10 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.
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.
The offer from MC Alger for Taha Yassine Tahar 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Paradou can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 13 signed and 1 gone
That is the business done at Paradou until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Paradou asked and Montpellier HSC 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 manager has re-ordered his thinking and Lalaina Rafanomezantsoa has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
The plan went upstairs and came back down. Nothing about that will make a headline anywhere else, and everybody who works at the training ground will remember it for years.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Mohamed Aït El Hadj’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Paradou needing him to play as if none of it matters.