“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 The request is on a desk at AS Etat Major, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at AS Etat Major is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 60 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Mahamat Bechir will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around AS Etat Major the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Boardroom2 Oct 2028
5 academy players handed senior numbers at AS Etat Major
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Squad2 Oct 2028
Words at AS Etat Major training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Issa Moustapha 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Issa Allamine 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Abdoulaye Mahamat has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Abdramane Adoum 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 AS Etat Major this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
BoardroomNo investment in the facilities at AS Etat Major
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 10 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 AS Etat Major this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Ali Mahamat 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Ahmat Mahamat 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.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Player ratings15 Nov 2027
Ahmat Mahamat was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.02. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
“I watch every AS Etat Major game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at CotonTchad runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
At 16 he is being measured against the rest of the division's kids and coming out in front. The senior version of this award is where the club would like this to lead.
8 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.
Player ratings4 Oct 2027
Issa Adoum, 16, plays like he has been here for years — 7.72
A mark of 7.72 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 16-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Successful dribbles: 23. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Boardroom4 Oct 2027
5 academy players handed senior numbers at AS Etat Major
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 16-year-old it feels ownership of. Issa 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Djibrine Hissein 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. Narcisse Doungous 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. Narcisse Abakar is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.