Marked for Abdullahi Yusuf
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom31 Jul 2028
Pressure builds in the Jomo Cosmos boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Squad31 Jul 2028
Abdullahi Yusuf is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
Squad31 Jul 2028
At 25 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 4 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom5 Jun 2028
Pressure builds in the Jomo Cosmos boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Boardroom5 Jun 2028
the manager has until the next board meeting
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Jomo Cosmos can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Squad5 Jun 2028
Sifiso Nkosi breaks a bone — 45 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 45 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad5 Jun 2028
95 appearances across 8 seasons in these colours. Careers like that are not built any more, and Jomo Cosmos know what they have.
Market5 Jun 2028
Brad Norman has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Jomo Cosmos they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Boardroom5 Jun 2028
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Hamzaxon Xo'jayev 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.
Squad5 Jun 2028
Edward Maova 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.
Squad5 Jun 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Jomo Cosmos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market5 Jun 2028
Abdullahi Yusuf is 19, and Jomo Cosmos have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.