108 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. AS DGSSIE lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Position 13 and 0 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 9 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
Successful dribbles: 19. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
“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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
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 DGSSIE this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Djibrine Haroun has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
In brief
The dugoutThe view from the dugout
Looking aheada squad player goes back to face US Moursal
“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 DGSSIE can pretend not to have heard.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” AS DGSSIE have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
At 18 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.
Mahamat Ndoram 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.
9 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Abdramane Haroun after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
In brief
Looking aheadAS DGSSIE take on the side everybody is chasing
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. US Moursal will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Djibrine Abakar, 16, plays like he has been here for years — 7.75
A mark of 7.75 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 16-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
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.
Ezechiel Ndoram 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.
“I did not go to AS DGSSIE to sit and watch. I want to come back to US Moursal and fight for my place.” 3 appearances in 9 matches say the rest.
The dugout19 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 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Mahamat Doungous to a room that had heard them before.
1 on the scoresheet on his first appearance and a mark of 7.62 beside it. Most debuts are got through; this one was enjoyed, by him and by everybody watching it.
“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 DGSSIE can pretend not to have heard.
At 21 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.
“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.
Nothing about this will be in a press release. A plan went upstairs, came back rejected, and the version of the club that would have existed in three years' time just quietly stopped being possible.
Squad5 Oct 2026
AS DGSSIE have started building around a squad player
He used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. a squad player is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
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.
AS DGSSIE offered $5.0K; AS Algoy said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
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.
Marius Djimet 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.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. AS DGSSIE have done the hard part with AS Etat Major, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. US Moursal have kept their man, and AS DGSSIE go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. AS DGSSIE will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. AS DGSSIE know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
A new face in his position, and Moubarak Djibrine suddenly has to win back what he thought he owned. AS DGSSIE have promised nothing — clubs rarely do at this stage.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. AS DGSSIE have done the hard part with AS Etat Major, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
AS DGSSIE offered $7.0K; US Moursal said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Brahim Ndoram is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Narcisse Doungous has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Brahim Mbainaissem is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Saleh Moustapha has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation AS DGSSIE are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
“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 US Moursal, and it is not being withdrawn.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. US Moursal will quote 18 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Marius Djimet 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 phone has started ringing about a squad player again, and this time the name on the line is AS DGSSIE. US Moursal are listening politely and promising nothing.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at US Moursal training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Idriss Abakar 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.