“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 The request is on a desk at Liberty Professionals, and it is not being withdrawn.
Two goals and a mark of 8.22 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. Thomas Baba did not need any: 7.69, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
“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 Liberty Professionals know it.
Leandro Soares 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.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Abdul Schlupp 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Thomas Baba has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
0‑3 to Medeama, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Liberty Professionals 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 Liberty Professionals this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abdul Schlupp 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.
“I did not go to Heart of Lions to sit and watch. I want to come back to Liberty Professionals and fight for my place.” 1 appearances in 23 matches say the rest.
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Liberty Professionals may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
“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 Liberty Professionals, and it is not being withdrawn.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Leandro Soares 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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Abdul Schlupp 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 watch every Liberty Professionals game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at New Edubiase United runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
2 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
The offer from Stade Malien for Andre Adjei 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 Liberty Professionals can pretend not to have heard.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Liberty Professionals have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
A season average of 7.16 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Liberty Professionals know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
Rivio Ayemwenre 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.
15 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Liberty Professionals lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
4‑0, and Thomas Baba took the headlines on an afternoon when everything Liberty Professionals tried came off. Days like this are retold all winter.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
A brace, and Thomas Baba takes the afternoon — 8.44
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Thomas Baba provided it, and the 8.44 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Liberty Professionals this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abdul Schlupp 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 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 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.
82 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Liberty Professionals lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Leandro Soares 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Abdul Schlupp 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.
89 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Liberty Professionals lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Liberty Professionals this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Liberty Professionals and WAFA in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hamza Bahaj 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.
103 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Liberty Professionals lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Successful dribbles: 29. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Thomas Baba, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.16
A mark of 8.16 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Liberty Professionals this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abdul Schlupp 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.
Leandro Soares 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Abdul Schlupp 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.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Liberty Professionals will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Liberty Professionals 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 Liberty Professionals this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abdul Schlupp 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.
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.