Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Abdelaziz El Zoghbi will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around ENPPI the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at ENPPI this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 6.60 on 11 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Rafik Kabou 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.
Marked 6.81 on 13 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
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 one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what ENPPI can pretend not to have heard.
Rafik Kabou 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.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at ENPPI can tell you which week it ends in.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 6 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Rafik Kabou 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 is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. ENPPI told Ousseynou Bodian something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Smouha? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at ENPPI this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Mohamed Samir has his answer from ENPPI; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at ENPPI, and both men came out saying it was fine.