It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Great Olympics kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Liberty Professionals will be asked about the last half hour all week.
Eric Oteng 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.
9.86. 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.
He laid on 3 and scored none, and would have been mildly offended to be asked why. The scorers get the headlines; the man who made them gets the respect of everybody who understood the match.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
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.” Samuel Baba chose the glass-half-full version of 4‑4; the supporters left with the other one.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Andrew Wakaso 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.
In brief
The dugoutEdmund Gyan asks for a word with the manager
Eric Oteng 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Emmanuel Baba was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Samuel Baba after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Successful dribbles: 14. 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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.94 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Liberty Professionals can pretend not to have heard.
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.
4 straight away victories. Sides that win away are usually sides that can defend and can counter, and the table has begun to reflect what those journeys have earned.
Eric Oteng 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.
Marked 7.96 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Liberty Professionals had the best player on the pitch.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Andrew Wakaso and Liberty Professionals agree another 3 years.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Samuel Baba could afford to be generous.
There is exactly one of these per career and it does not usually go like this. 1 on the scoresheet, 7.39 beside the name, and a crowd that had never seen him before chanting it by the end.
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.
He is 19 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑3 Samuel Baba left the room before anybody could ask which.
“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 Liberty Professionals, and it is not being withdrawn.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Umar Sadiq and Liberty Professionals agree another 1 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Emmanuel Baba 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.
It needed Patrick Mohammed to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Hasaacas, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Samuel Baba was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Liberty Professionals dressing room was either.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Liberty Professionals, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Going 2 down does something to a side, and what it usually does is finish them. Not here. Liberty Professionals rebuilt the afternoon goal by goal, and New Edubiase United had no answer to any of it.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The hardest thing about being 18 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Jeffrey Mensah did not need any: 7.66, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
He is 18 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.