Marked for Jules Fourcroy
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad20 Sep 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Salikou Diarra
68 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. AS Police lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad20 Sep 2027
A fracture rules Donté Apinsa out for 66 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason AS Police will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Oumar Koné in a row with a teammate
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 Police this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad20 Sep 2027
At 36, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
Transfer targets20 Sep 2027
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Market20 Sep 2027
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Jules Fourcroy has his answer from AS Police; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad6 Sep 2027
Salikou Diarra damages knee ligaments — 82 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 82 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.
Squad6 Sep 2027
81 days out for Donté Apinsa after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. AS Police will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Moussa Fofana has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
Emergency meeting at AS Police
The whole football department in one room on a weekday morning. Nothing was announced afterwards, which is what a board announces when it has run out of patience.
Market6 Sep 2027
Ilyes Oularbi hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AS Police can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
AS Police close the window on a squad of their own making
26 in and 2 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Words exchanged at AS Police
Oumar Koné 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.
Transfer targets6 Sep 2027
AS Police asked and Real Bamako said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Ahmed El Arabi 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces19 Jul 2027
Supporters organise against the AS Police board
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Boardroom19 Jul 2027
Pressure builds in the AS Police boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Match19 Jul 2027
AS Police are in real trouble now
Position 13, 13 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Market19 Jul 2027
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and US Forces Armees waiting with a shirt. Nobody at AS Police is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Squad19 Jul 2027
Oumar Koné 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.
Transfer targets19 Jul 2027
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad19 Jul 2027
Iddrisu Shaibu 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.
The dugout19 Jul 2027
“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 dugout19 Jul 2027
Yaya Konaté has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at AS Police 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad14 Jun 2027
Abdoulaye Coulibaly and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Time is catching up with Oumar Koné
Everybody at AS Police saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 36 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Mubarak Lawan 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.
The dugout14 Jun 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Jules Fourcroy, and the manager let it.
The dugout14 Jun 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.
Squad14 Jun 2027
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad3 May 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Seydou Diallo
29 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. AS Police lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Boardroom3 May 2027
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Moussa Fofana has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
The dugout3 May 2027
“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.
Squad3 May 2027
Abdoulaye Coulibaly 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.
Squad3 May 2027
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at AS Police can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Squad3 May 2027
A row about effort at AS Police
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Iddrisu Shaibu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout3 May 2027
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout3 May 2027
Malick Berthé knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at AS Police, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Market3 May 2027
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.