“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 The request is on a desk at Stars Jeunes Talents, and it is not being withdrawn.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Stars Jeunes Talents will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
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.
Mahamat Tokindang 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.
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.
He is 18 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“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 The request is on a desk at Stars Jeunes Talents, and it is not being withdrawn.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Stars Jeunes Talents will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Hassan Tokindang was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Stars Jeunes Talents, and 3 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Hassan Mbainaissem to a room that had heard them before.
14 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Stars Jeunes Talents lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 99 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Narcisse Haroun provided it, and the 8.28 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Narcisse Haroun. 2‑1 against US Moursal, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Ezechiel Abakar 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. Mahamat Moustapha is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Djibrine Ndoram 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.
21 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Stars Jeunes Talents lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
1 on the scoresheet on his first appearance and a mark of 7.44 beside it. Most debuts are got through; this one was enjoyed, by him and by everybody watching it.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 106 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
Narcisse Haroun 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 words a physio says slowly. 28 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.
At 20 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
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. 4 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Narcisse Haroun 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.
35 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Stars Jeunes Talents lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Ahmat Ngaradoumbe is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
“I watch every Stars Jeunes Talents game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Aiglons runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Mahamat Tokindang may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
“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.
In brief
Looking aheadLooking ahead: the trip to Elect Sport
That is the business done at Stars Jeunes Talents until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Mahamat Tokindang 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.
At 26 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.
Aiglons paid $3.0K and Stars Jeunes Talents took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
“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.
AS Etat Major have accepted the money. What Stars Jeunes Talents do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Hassan Tokindang was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Stars Jeunes Talents have made the call to AS Algoy. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. AS Etat Major have kept their man, and Stars Jeunes Talents go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Moussa Abakar was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Adam Adoum and Stars Jeunes Talents agree another 3 years.
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Narcisse Ngaradoumbe may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Stars Jeunes Talents have lost him in all but the paperwork.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Stars Jeunes Talents have done the hard part with AS Algoy, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Narcisse Haroun 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. AS Etat Major have kept their man, and Stars Jeunes Talents go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Stars Jeunes Talents 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.
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.
“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.
The deal with AS Etat Major is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Stars Jeunes Talents had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Foullah Edifice, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Saleh Ndoram and Stars Jeunes Talents agree another 3 years.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Hassan Tokindang was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Adam 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Issa Hissein is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.