Marked for Brahim Abakar
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match18 Mar 2028
Whatever happens, Paradou do not lose
28 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Match20 Mar 2028
Paradou refuse to drop out of the race
Position 1, 64 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Player ratings20 Mar 2028
Successful dribbles: 31. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match18 Mar 2028
Paradou make home a hard place to visit
15 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Squad20 Mar 2028
Adel Bouzida 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.
Squad20 Mar 2028
Words at Paradou training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Victor Adeboyejo 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.
Match18 Mar 2028
It finished 1‑0, and it was Adel Bouzida’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Paradou.
Player ratings20 Mar 2028
A performance of 8.23 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad20 Mar 2028
4 goals and a season average of 7.36. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match12 Feb 2028
Whatever happens, Paradou do not lose
23 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Player ratings14 Feb 2028
Successful dribbles: 42. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad14 Feb 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Paradou this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Loan watch14 Feb 2028
“I watch every Paradou game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Union Espanola runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Player ratings14 Feb 2028
Ten men and a goalkeeper behind him, and it still finished in the net. He knew before anybody told him, and nobody at Paradou needed to.
Squad14 Feb 2028
Defences have started doubling up on Adel Bouzida
2 goals and a season average of 7.34 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Match12 Feb 2028
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
Squad14 Feb 2028
The manager has not finished forgetting Moussa Benzaid's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Squad14 Feb 2028
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings31 Jan 2028
Successful dribbles: 32. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match29 Jan 2028
The run at home goes on for Paradou
11 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Match29 Jan 2028
Nobody wants to play Paradou right now
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Squad31 Jan 2028
Adel Bouzida in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Paradou this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad31 Jan 2028
Brahim Abakar gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Brahim Abakar has just signed for Paradou, and for once the answer mattered.
Market31 Jan 2028
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Paradou have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad31 Jan 2028
Victor Adeboyejo 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.
Match29 Jan 2028
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Lalaina Rafanomezantsoa. 2‑0 against MC Oran, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings31 Jan 2028
Adel Bouzida was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.18. 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad30 Aug 2027
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason AS Etat Major will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market30 Aug 2027
“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.
Market30 Aug 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Djibrine Abakar is a better footballer than he was
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.
Market30 Aug 2027
Only the photograph left for Brahim Abakar
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Brahim Abakar will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around AS Etat Major the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad30 Aug 2027
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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad23 Aug 2027
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason AS Etat Major will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market23 Aug 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market23 Aug 2027
“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.
Squad23 Aug 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Florent Warna is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad23 Aug 2027
Florent Warna 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.
Squad23 Aug 2027
Djibrine Hissein has improved at 28, which nobody expected
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. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match9 Aug 2027
Position 11, 11 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 51 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market9 Aug 2027
“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.
Market9 Aug 2027
Saleh Djimet has one foot out of the door
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.
Market9 Aug 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Saleh Abakar 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.