“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Renaissance can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Renaissance they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Words at Renaissance training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hassan Allamine 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 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Renaissance know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Everything agreed with Elect Sport, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Youssef Dalouzi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Brahim Doungous 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Issa Ngaradoumbe 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Moussa Haroun 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. Adam Abakar is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Nobody at Renaissance will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Issa Souleymane and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad25 Mar 2030
Words at Renaissance training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Youssef Dalouzi 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Ousmane Hissein. 2‑0 against CotonTchad, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Idriss Allamine on a 2‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Appolinaire Djingabeye is on it.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Renaissance would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
In brief
The dugoutAhmat Allamine asks for a word with the manager
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Renaissance 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.
Nobody at Renaissance will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Hassan Allamine has written the date down.
A season average of 7.03 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Renaissance know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
Zakaria Ajoughlal 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.
At 36 the improving is meant to be over, and it is not: 3 points better than a year ago. It happens to the ones who take the boring parts seriously.
Squad10 Sep 2029
Words at Renaissance training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Youssef Dalouzi 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.
He is doing his job and he is not settling. Renaissance were supposed to be a step up in his own reckoning, and his own reckoning has been adjusted since he arrived.
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.