“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 The request is on a desk at US Moursal, and it is not being withdrawn.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Moussa Moustapha was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Djibrine Ndoram signs something — a contract at US Moursal or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Moussa Moustapha was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
3 goals in 21 games at Elect Sport — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at US Moursal updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
3 goals in 23 games at AS DGSSIE — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at US Moursal updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Idriss Youssouf trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what US Moursal can pretend not to have heard.
Marius Mbaiguedem 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.
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 pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Idriss Adoum, and the manager let it.
The dugout5 Apr 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Narcisse Hissein to a room that had heard them before.
Successful dribbles: 15. 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.
2 appearances, 1 clean sheets, and a goalkeeper no further forward than the day he left. Whether that belongs to him, to the club that borrowed him or to the people who arranged it is the argument US Moursal will have this month.
In brief
MarketSaleh Mbaiguedem returns from a loan that taught him nothing
Mohamed El Ouardi 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.
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.
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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Moussa Haroun’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Galactik needing him to play as if none of it matters.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Ousmane Biani signs something — a contract at Galactik or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
They sit in position 10 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.
Mohamed El Ouardi 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.
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.
Something was said to Abdramane Abba and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Galactik know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
A call-up flatters the player and the club that produced him in the same breath. Galactik would like him back in one piece and know they will not be consulted.
Position 6 on 31 points, and the places that carry a European ticket are close enough to count. Seasons like this are decided by two results in April, and the club knows which two.
The language has come, the shrug has gone, and he argues in training like a man who expects to be here next year. None of it shows up on a fee and all of it shows up on the pitch.
Two goals and a mark of 8.59 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.85 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
US Moursal close the window on a squad of their own making
4 in and 3 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.
Hassan Allamine 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.
“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 US Moursal, and 2 appearances in 25 say he has earned the hearing.
Signings arrive with a picture of the club in their head, and this one’s picture was bigger than the building. He will play well and he will be gone, in that order, and everybody knows it.
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.
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 Ousmane Biani is on it.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Moussa Haroun’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Galactik needing him to play as if none of it matters.
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.
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 Ousmane Hissein is on it.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ousmane Hissein trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Somebody watched every match in the division at the weekend and decided he was the best thing in any of them. A small honour, and most careers end without one.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Renaissance? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
“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 US Moursal, and it is not being withdrawn.
“I watch every US Moursal game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Galactik runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
He is 27, he is from here, and the shirt he was raised to wear has gone to somebody bought for it. The academy staff have noticed, and so has the town.
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at US Moursal than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against AS Algoy in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Saleh Hissein signs something — a contract at US Moursal or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nobody at Galactik 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.
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Galactik have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Galactik have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Two goals and a mark of 8.98 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Abdelaziz Youssouf did not need any: 7.74, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
It finished 2‑0, and it was Ousmane Biani’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Galactik.
Squad26 Oct 2026
8 new faces, and Galactik 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.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑0, Mahamat Bechir could afford to be generous.
Squad26 Oct 2026
The division's best last weekend was a Galactik man
It is a small honour and it is not nothing: somebody watched every match in the division and decided that Ousmane Biani was the best thing in any of them.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Galactik, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 8 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
36 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
The plan went upstairs and came back down. Nothing about that will make a headline anywhere else, and everybody who works at the training ground will remember it for years.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Galactik, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Everything agreed with Renaissance, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Galactik had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at AS PSI, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Marius Djimet 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. Brahim Abba is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Issa Mahamat is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Ahmat Bechir 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.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what US Moursal can pretend not to have heard.
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 Moursal this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The phone has started ringing about Idriss Youssouf again, and this time the name on the line is Galactik. US Moursal are listening politely and promising nothing.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Oumar Youssouf was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
US Moursal have made the call to Foullah Edifice. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.