Marked for Samuel Schlupp
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match10 Apr 2027
6 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.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Mxolisi Bhengu is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 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.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Words at Liberty Professionals training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Carlos Ohene 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.
Squad12 Apr 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 Liberty Professionals this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings12 Apr 2027
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.33, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Match10 Apr 2027
A 1‑1 draw with Ashanti Gold leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
The dugout12 Apr 2027
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Thomas Boakye chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
The dugout12 Apr 2027
Kamaldeen Owusu has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Liberty Professionals 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.
Player ratings12 Apr 2027
Successful dribbles: 13. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad23 Nov 2026
7 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Match21 Nov 2026
The first defeat in 9 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against BA All Stars; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
Match21 Nov 2026
1‑3 to BA All Stars, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Steven Nufour and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Divine Chidera, and the manager let it.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Words at Liberty Professionals training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Samuel Schlupp 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.
Looking ahead23 Nov 2026
The team at the top of the table next, and the honest measure of where this side actually is. Anybody can beat the club below them; the question is what happens against Aduana Stars.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Deruo Wisdom beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 12. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad31 Aug 2026
A fracture rules Isaac Boateng out for 84 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Liberty Professionals will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market31 Aug 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Liberty Professionals asked and Real Bamako said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Steven Nufour and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad31 Aug 2026
7 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Market31 Aug 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.