Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AS Etat Major they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
Squad27 Dec 2027
Hassan Adoum 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.
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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Hassan Allamine will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around AS Etat Major the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
Squad13 Dec 2027
Hassan Adoum 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.
0‑4 to Gazelle, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Position 11 and 5 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AS Etat Major they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at AS Etat Major is running low.
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 games now with at least two against. The back line has been rearranged, the goalkeeper has been backed publicly, and the goals keep going in anyway.
Squad29 Nov 2027
Words at AS Etat Major training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ali Mbainaissem 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 words a physio says slowly. 22 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.
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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AS Etat Major they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
Squad15 Nov 2027
Words at AS Etat Major training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ali Mbainaissem 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.
Boardroom15 Nov 2027
Nobody left the AS Etat Major dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
The words a physio says slowly. 64 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. Ali Mbainaissem will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around AS Etat Major the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“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.
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.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Hassan Adoum 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Djibrine Moustapha 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Hassan Abakar is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
In brief
BoardroomA promise the AS Etat Major board did not keep
The words a physio says slowly. 92 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.
Position 13 and 2 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ali Mbainaissem will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around AS Etat Major the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AS Etat Major can pretend not to have heard.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Idriss Abakar is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
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.
At 27 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 34 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. Ali Mbainaissem will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around AS Etat Major the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AS Etat Major can pretend not to have heard.
Add another name to the list: AS DGSSIE have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Hassan Souleymane. The answer from AS Etat Major has not changed — yet.
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
SquadHassan Adoum falls out with a teammate over standards
12 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 103 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AS Etat Major can pretend not to have heard.
Oybek Shomurodov 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.
In brief
BoardroomNobody left the AS Etat Major dressing room in a hurry
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Hassan Adoum 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.
Oybek Shomurodov 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.