Marked for Ethane Lipinski
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad13 Sep 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Merwan Zeghdane
65 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. US Forces Armees lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad13 Sep 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at US Forces Armees this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad13 Sep 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Ethane Lipinski is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Transfer targets13 Sep 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Stade Malien have kept their man, and US Forces Armees go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad13 Sep 2027
Sakhalou Niakaté 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.
Market13 Sep 2027
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at US Forces Armees has been clear about where Florent Guilavogui stands, which is more than many ever get.
The dugout13 Sep 2027
Sakhalou Niakaté asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
The dugout13 Sep 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.
Match13 Sep 2027
Continental football is in reach for US Forces Armees
40 points from position 6. The title is somebody else’s business and the drop is somebody else’s problem; what is left is the argument about passports.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad21 Jun 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at US Forces Armees this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 Jun 2027
At 19 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.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Quilma was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets21 Jun 2027
A loan enquiry to Real Bamako: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
The dugout21 Jun 2027
Moussa Touré has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at US Forces Armees 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.
Market21 Jun 2027
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Moussa Sissoko’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Match21 Jun 2027
Continental football is in reach for US Forces Armees
40 points from position 6. The title is somebody else’s business and the drop is somebody else’s problem; what is left is the argument about passports.
The dugout21 Jun 2027
Tidiane Traoré asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
Squad21 Jun 2027
The shrug has gone, the language is coming, and he now argues in training like somebody who expects to be here next year. Half a signing's value is this and none of it appears on a fee.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings15 Feb 2027
Nobody could get near Diby Keita
Successful dribbles: 25. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Aboubacar Camara 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.
Player ratings15 Feb 2027
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.95 on the card, and the US Forces Armees support went home talking about one name.
Squad15 Feb 2027
9 new faces, and US Forces Armees are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Tapji Dawit was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Market15 Feb 2027
He is 18, and nobody at US Forces Armees signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
Squad15 Feb 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Jérémy Bulaba and US Forces Armees agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Match13 Feb 2027
It needed Taddeus Nkeng to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Real Bamako, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.