“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Boardroom2 Nov 2026
An order from above at Aiglons: somebody has to go
Balance sheets do not care about form or about who the manager was planning to build around. The board have decided a sale is required, and the only question left is which name ends up carrying it.
Youssouf Moustapha and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Issa Hassaballah 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.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Yannick Masra is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Aiglons 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 Aiglons this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Brahim Djimet trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 8 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
“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 The request is on a desk at AS Etat Major, and it is not being withdrawn.
0 on the scoresheet on his first appearance and a mark of 7.27 beside it. Most debuts are got through; this one was enjoyed, by him and by everybody watching it.
A mark of 7.65 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 17-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Narcisse Hissein is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 18 arrived, 0 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Yannick Saleh 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.
Aiglons ran out of time with Stars Jeunes Talents. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
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.
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 Aiglons would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” AS Bakaridjan had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Aiglons can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs have shaken hands with Stars Jeunes Talents; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Yannick Masra 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
5 new faces, and Aiglons are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at Aiglons training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Djibrine 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.
29 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. AS Etat Major lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“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.
Add another name to the list: Aiglons have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Youssouf Moustapha. The answer from AS Etat Major has not changed — yet.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Abdoulaye Ngaradoumbe and AS Etat Major agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at AS Etat Major training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ahmat Abakar 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.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Aiglons have done the hard part with AS Etat Major, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at AS Algoy is saying, and nobody at Aiglons is enjoying the guessing.
Aiglons have made the call to AS Etat Major. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Idriss Djimet commits to Aiglons for another 3 years.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Aiglons training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Djibrine 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.