Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Onze Createurs is running low.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Mehdi Boureghda is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Malick Traoré 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.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Onze Createurs can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
Malick Traoré 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 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.
Every squad has men who were signed by a particular manager and men who were merely inherited. Mehdi Boureghda is in the first group, and the man who wanted him here is no longer in the building.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Onze Createurs they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Onze Createurs this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad26 Jul 2027
Words at Onze Createurs training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Idrissa Guindo 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.
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.
Nobody at Onze Createurs 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 25 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Onze Createurs can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Malick Traoré 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 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.
None of them will be seen by anybody outside the training ground for three years, most of them will never play a senior match, and one of them might change the club. That is the whole proposition, and it is why academies exist.
Every squad has men who were signed by a particular manager and men who were merely inherited. Idrissa Guindo is in the first group, and the man who wanted him here is no longer in the building.
14 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. ES Setif lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason ES Setif will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around ES Setif 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 ES Setif this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 49 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around ES Setif they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The words a physio says slowly. 107 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason ES Setif will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around ES Setif they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The words a physio says slowly. 140 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. 49 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at ES Setif is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Fernando Madrigal 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason ES Setif will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
14 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at ES Setif 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 ES Setif this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 100 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
A brace, and Mauro Molina takes the afternoon — 8.69
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mauro Molina provided it, and the 8.69 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what ES Setif can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at ES Setif this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The board have put money on the table rather than an encouraging word. What happens to it now is somebody else's problem, and somebody else's job.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Words at ES Setif training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Francisco Rabago 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.
5 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 107 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“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 ES Setif, and it is not being withdrawn.
12 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Mehdi Boureghda 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at ES Setif is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Fernando Madrigal 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 ES Setif training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aldair Ferreira 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason ES Setif will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Fernando Madrigal 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Merouane Zerrouki. 1‑0 against ASO Chlef, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Defensive actions: 18, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at ES Setif training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mohammed Kerroum 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.
8 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.
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.
9 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Aldair Ferreira is living that version at ES Setif, and it tends to show in the first month.
Estudiantes did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $1.8M for Mauro Molina, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at ES Setif this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The terraces17 Aug 2026
ES Setif spend $1.8M on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $1.8M for Mauro Molina, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at ES Setif training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aldair Ferreira 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 phone has started ringing about John Okoli again, and this time the name on the line is Police Union. ES Setif are listening politely and promising nothing.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Yanis Hamache has just signed for ES Setif, and for once the answer mattered.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at ES Setif this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. ES Setif know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at ES Setif, another week without a signature from Yanis Hamache.