97 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. BA All Stars lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. BA All Stars have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The clubs have shaken hands with Medeama; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Kamaldeen Essien is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Jeffrey Annan 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.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Dehinde Ibrahim trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
111 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. BA All Stars lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at BA All Stars this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Jeffrey Annan is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Francis Appiah trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
125 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. BA All Stars lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at BA All Stars is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The offer from Wadi Degla for Kwadwo Wakaso was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Jeffrey Annan 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.
Squad26 Jul 2027
Words at BA All Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Albert Bukari 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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager has not finished forgetting Youssouf Toure's mistake
The words a physio says slowly. 135 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.
“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 BA All Stars, and it is not being withdrawn.
Everything agreed with Heart of Lions, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Dehinde Ibrahim 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.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Words at BA All Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abdul Afful 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.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Kwadwo Wakaso is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Kwadwo Wakaso trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Position 12, 30 points, safe from one end and out of reach of the other. The last weeks are about next season now, and the team sheet has started saying so.
BA All Stars and Hasaacas have settled on $210.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
“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 BA All Stars, and it is not being withdrawn.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Albert Bukari was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at BA All Stars, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Abdul Afful’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.
Jeffrey Annan 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Albert Bukari was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Abdul Mumini Salifu trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Baba Adjei has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Jeffrey Annan 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.
Squad3 May 2027
Words at BA All Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abdul Afful 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 change in the dugout is not one story, it is twenty-five of them. This is Abdul Afful's: he was somebody's player, and now he has to be somebody else's, starting from nothing.
The dugout3 May 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Youssouf Toure'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.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Kwadwo Wakaso is on it.
Jeffrey Annan 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.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Words at BA All Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abdul Afful 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.
Squad5 Apr 2027
A place in the month's best eleven for Jeffrey Annan
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Jeffrey Annan has come out of that comparison in the side, and BA All Stars have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
In brief
The dugoutKwadwo Wakaso has become a man the manager trusts
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason BA All Stars will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Two goals and a mark of 10.00 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings15 Mar 2027
A brace, and Osman Partey takes the afternoon — 9.55
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Osman Partey provided it, and the 9.55 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
A season average of 7.90 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. BA All Stars know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Jeffrey Annan 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.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about BA All Stars and New Edubiase United in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Osman Partey. 4‑2 against New Edubiase United, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“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 BA All Stars, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Jeffrey Annan, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.73
A mark of 7.73 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Albert Bukari 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.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Kamaldeen Afful commits to BA All Stars for another 1 years.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Abdul Afful 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Baba Adjei after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Abdul Afful is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.