It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Galactik this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Galactik told Ezechiel Moustapha something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Mahamat Ngaradoumbe is on it.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Galactik would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
They sit in position 13 and they will be waiting. Away form is where a season shows its true character, and this side has a point to make about its own.
Abanga Mahamat Youssouf 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.
5 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Successful dribbles: 10. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
36 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Galactik lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 The request is on a desk at Galactik, and it is not being withdrawn.
Galactik had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Aiglons, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
The chase for Ezechiel Moustapha ended with $10.0K changing hands and AS Etat Major out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Galactik and Gazelle, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
The words a physio says slowly. 135 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.
“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 Etat Major can pretend not to have heard.
At 18 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.
Narcisse Mbaiguedem 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.
At 26 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 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.
5 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Abdramane Adoum has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Adam Souleymane has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Djibrine Ngaradoumbe is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
“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 Etat Major can pretend not to have heard.
The offer from Gazelle for Oumar Moustapha was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Ezechiel Moustapha reports back to AS Etat Major with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Issa Mahamat 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Abdoulaye Mbaiguedem and AS Etat Major agree another 3 years.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at AS Etat Major, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
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Deadline passes with 5 signed and 10 gone
That is the business done at AS Etat Major until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
AS Etat Major asked and Gazelle said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
At 24 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 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.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. a squad player is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
“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 Etat Major, and it is not being withdrawn.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Youssouf Allamine and AS Etat Major agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
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 Etat Major this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Issa Mahamat was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Adam Haroun has his answer from AS Etat Major; what he does with it is the next window’s story.