Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Narcisse Oumar will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Stars Jeunes Talents the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
Issa Abakar 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.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Ali Doungous signs something — a contract at Stars Jeunes Talents or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“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.
Player ratings5 Feb 2029
Saleh Abba, 18, plays like he has been here for years — 8.05
A mark of 8.05 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 18-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Stars Jeunes Talents they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Adam Tokindang 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 Stars Jeunes Talents this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 18 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.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Abdoulaye Allamine did not need any: 8.08, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Issa Abakar 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.
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. Abdoulaye Allamine had Stars Jeunes Talents level again within 4 minutes, and CotonTchad never got to play with a lead at all.
7 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.
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.
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.
Issa Abakar 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.
6 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Stars Jeunes Talents has to find a result from somewhere.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Stars Jeunes Talents 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. Saleh Djimet 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.
“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 Stars Jeunes Talents, and it is not being withdrawn.
Ali Doungous 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Adam Tokindang 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 Stars Jeunes Talents this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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 Stars Jeunes Talents, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings20 Nov 2028
Mahamat Adoum, 18, plays like he has been here for years — 7.82
A mark of 7.82 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 18-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Narcisse Oumar will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Stars Jeunes Talents the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Ali Doungous 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 18-year-old it feels ownership of. Mahamat Adoum 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Narcisse Oumar will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Stars Jeunes Talents the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad28 Aug 2028
Issa Abakar has improved at 29, which nobody expected
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Adam Tokindang 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Stars Jeunes Talents they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Stars Jeunes Talents can pretend not to have heard.
Oumar 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Brahim Tokindang 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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Stars Jeunes Talents, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Brahim Tokindang 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.
Squad5 Apr 2027
A place in the month's best eleven for Issa Abakar
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Issa Abakar has come out of that comparison in the side, and Stars Jeunes Talents have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
Market5 Apr 2027
Idriss Oumar returns from a loan that gave him nothing
0 appearances and 0 goals is not a season, it is a year somebody has lost. Whether that is his fault, the borrowing club's or the people who arranged it is the argument the next few weeks will have.