Marked for Damien Bricks
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match23 Oct 2027
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 6 matches without defeat is a foundation Great Olympics did not have in the autumn.
Squad25 Oct 2027
Amadu Abdulai and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout25 Oct 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Samuel Boamah Quansah, and the manager let it.
Match23 Oct 2027
A 1‑1 draw with WAFA leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
The dugout25 Oct 2027
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 dugout25 Oct 2027
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Amos Asante after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Squad25 Oct 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Godfred Asiamah was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout25 Oct 2027
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Player ratings25 Oct 2027
The pass was always on for Evans Mensah
Chances created: 8. Somebody has to open a door before anybody can walk through it, and he spent the afternoon opening doors.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match2 Oct 2027
It had gone 10 games. The players did not celebrate like men who had won a match; they celebrated like men who had been let out of something.
Squad4 Oct 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Michel Babatunde commits to Great Olympics for another 2 years.
Match2 Oct 2027
Great Olympics are shipping goals every week
Two or more conceded in each of the last 5 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
Match2 Oct 2027
A 3‑2 win over Hasaacas, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings4 Oct 2027
A performance of 8.01 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Market4 Oct 2027
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Jonah Aryeetey has his answer from Great Olympics; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
The dugout4 Oct 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Jonah Aryeetey, and the manager let it.
Player ratings4 Oct 2027
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Great Olympics are still strangers to each other
5 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match18 Sep 2027
No end in sight to Great Olympics's wait for a win
9 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Great Olympics has to find a result from somewhere.
Player ratings20 Sep 2027
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 6.36, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Match18 Sep 2027
It finished 2‑2, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
The dugout20 Sep 2027
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
The dugout20 Sep 2027
George Micheal has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Great Olympics 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.
The dugout20 Sep 2027
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Amos Asante after the 2‑2 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Squad20 Sep 2027
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Great Olympics have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
Player ratings20 Sep 2027
Successful dribbles: 12. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The dugout10 May 2027
Seidu Ismaila: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Great Olympics have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad10 May 2027
Isaac Frimpong and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout10 May 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Simon Obonde, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad30 Nov 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for William Apenteng
86 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Great Olympics lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad30 Nov 2026
David Benjamin 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.
Match28 Nov 2026
0‑2 to Wa All Stars, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of George Micheal
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Amos Asante after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 15. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
Something was said to Damien Bricks and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Looking ahead30 Nov 2026
Ashanti Gold next, and one man in the Great Olympics dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
Bernard Somuah knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Bernard Somuah trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad12 Oct 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for William Apenteng
136 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Great Olympics lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad12 Oct 2026
David Benjamin 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 dugout12 Oct 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Simon Obonde's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words at Great Olympics training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Godfred Asiamah 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 dugout12 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Damien Bricks, and the manager let it.