$6.0M is a serious amount of money and it does not play centre-forward. Everybody in the dressing room knows who used to be looked at when it went wrong.
The words a physio says slowly. 90 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.
He is going to Hamburger SV, the club has $6.0M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
The offer from El-Kanemi Warriors for Yaw Kyereh 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.
“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.
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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Liberty Professionals, another week without a signature from Rivio Ayemwenre.
“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 The request is on a desk at Liberty Professionals, and it is not being withdrawn.
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. 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.
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. 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.
“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.
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.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Hamza Bahaj 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.
In brief
SquadThomas Baba has become a man the manager trusts
SquadThe manager has not finished forgetting Edmund Boakye's mistake
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.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Hamza Bahaj 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.
At 23 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.
“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.
In brief
SquadThomas Baba has become a man the manager trusts
8 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Liberty Professionals has to find a result from somewhere.
4 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
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.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Hamza Bahaj 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 found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Liberty Professionals pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
“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 Liberty Professionals, and 4 appearances in 26 say he has earned the hearing.
“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.
The words a physio says slowly. 23 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.
Involvement in 2 goals, from a player who spent the ninety minutes doing the thing a manager actually wants: being where the ball was going to end up. 7.81 beside his name.
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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Liberty Professionals and Inter Allies, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Inter Allies left with the points after a 2‑4 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Hamza Bahaj 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 am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Liberty Professionals, and 4 appearances in 18 say he has earned the hearing.
In brief
Player ratingsThe pass was always on for Thomas Baba
59 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of 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 Liberty Professionals this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 8 goals between Liberty Professionals and Wa All Stars, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Abraham Owusu 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 am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Liberty Professionals, and 4 appearances in 13 say he has earned the hearing.
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.
Ashanti Gold go through and New Edubiase United go home, 0‑0 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
0-3, and long before the end the away end had switched from encouragement to something considerably more pointed. Nobody rings a phone-in about losing narrowly.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
5 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” New Edubiase United 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 New Edubiase United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at New Edubiase United can tell you which week it ends in.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Amr Moussa 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.
3 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Benjamín García will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Liberty Professionals escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Thomas Baba did not need any: 8.11, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
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. 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-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.
At 25 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at New Edubiase United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Youssef El Omari 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.