The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
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.
Squad4 Sep 2028
Pentjie Zulu has improved at 38, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Squad4 Sep 2028
Words at AS Bakaridjan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mamady Condé 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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; AS Bakaridjan are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Keaton Murray 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. AS Bakaridjan know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Market4 Sep 2028
The window shut and Toyeeb Gidado is still in the building
AS Bakaridjan spent a month trying to move him and nobody rang back. He trains with a squad that has told him where he stands, and both sides start counting down to the next one.
Mamady Condé 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.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and AS Bakaridjan know it.
The words a physio says slowly. 29 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.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at AS Bakaridjan is running low.
49 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. AS Bakaridjan lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The terraces17 Jan 2028
The mood at AS Bakaridjan has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” AS Bakaridjan have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AS Bakaridjan 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.
Marked 8.48 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 10 combined actions and a mark of 7.57, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at AS Bakaridjan is running low.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Sakhile Mkhize is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
In brief
SquadThabiso Msane has improved at 28, which nobody expected
SquadWords at AS Bakaridjan training over how hard people work
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Julio Bandessi is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Bourama Diallo has improved at 28, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Words at AS Bakaridjan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mamady Condé 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 34 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AS Bakaridjan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Keaton Murray and AS Bakaridjan agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Mamady Condé 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.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against AS Korofina? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
The words a physio says slowly. 41 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.
“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 AS Bakaridjan, and it is not being withdrawn.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Keaton Murray is living that version at AS Bakaridjan, and it tends to show in the first month.
Aboubacar Haïdara 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Keaton Murray and AS Bakaridjan agree another 3 years.