The words a physio says slowly. 110 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.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Harrison Partey has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
The deal with Medeama is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Anderson Asiedu and Wa All Stars 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 Wa All Stars this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad8 Jul 2030
Words at Wa All Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Anderson Asiedu 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.
Abeiku Waris 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.
At 34, 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.
100 times in these colours, in all weathers and under four or five different managers. That kind of service is quietly disappearing from the game.
The dugout25 Mar 2030
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Harrison Partey left the room before anybody could ask which.
In brief
The dugoutDacosta Owusu knocks on the manager’s door
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Medeama keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Abeiku Waris 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Anderson Asiedu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
100 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
Successful dribbles: 39. 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.
Abeiku Waris 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Anderson Asiedu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout26 Nov 2029
Somebody else is better right now than Dacosta Owusu
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
A 1‑1 draw with Great Olympics leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
The dugout26 Nov 2029
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Harrison Partey was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Wa All Stars dressing room was either.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Wa All Stars has been clear about where Ernest Ofori stands, which is more than many ever get.
A brace, and Abeiku Waris takes the afternoon — 8.20
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Abeiku Waris provided it, and the 8.20 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.43 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“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 Wa All Stars, and it is not being withdrawn.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 10 arrived, 14 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
The deal with Medeama is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
6 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Berekum Chelsea waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Wa All Stars is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
$110.0K on the table at Asante Kotoko. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Squad23 Jul 2029
Words at Wa All Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Anderson Asiedu 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.
At 33, 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.
“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 Wa All Stars, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Wa All Stars they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Abeiku Waris 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 most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Wa All Stars will quote 15 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Maxwell Baakoh and Wa All Stars agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Anderson Asiedu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 17 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The offer from Berekum Chelsea for Kwame Paintsil 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Wa All Stars 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 Wa All Stars 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.