Marked for Kamaldeen Ofori
From our football correspondent
Steady
Boardroom3 Jul 2028
This is the season the town will measure the next twenty against. The trophy travels home with the squad, and the route through the streets was agreed days ago.
Match3 Jul 2028
AS PSI are in among the leaders
Position 1 and 52 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Squad3 Jul 2028
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and AS PSI have had the benefit of it.
Market3 Jul 2028
“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.
Squad3 Jul 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 AS PSI this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Jul 2028
Félix Noubara 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.
Squad3 Jul 2028
The manager makes an example of Félix Noubara
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Market3 Jul 2028
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. AS PSI will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
Boardroom3 Jul 2028
Intake day at the AS PSI academy
4 arrivals, an average age nobody would call a squad, and a set of parents being shown around a building their sons will spend more time in than at home. The scouting has already happened; today is only the paperwork.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market12 Jun 2028
Brahim Goudja hands in a written request
“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 PSI can pretend not to have heard.
Squad12 Jun 2028
Joël Djingar: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” AS PSI have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market12 Jun 2028
AS PSI say no — this time
The offer from AS Etat Major for Muhammad Ubaydullayev 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.
Squad12 Jun 2028
Tempers go at AS PSI
Brahim Goudja 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.
Squad12 Jun 2028
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad12 Jun 2028
Fabrice Djimhoué 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market23 Aug 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Wa All Stars is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad23 Aug 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Kamaldeen Owusu is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad23 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 Wa All Stars this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad23 Aug 2027
At 34 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.
Squad23 Aug 2027
Hamza Asrir 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.
Market23 Aug 2027
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Wa All Stars know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.