Adel Bouzida 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.
Squad25 Sep 2028
Tobi Alagbe 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.
Marked 9.14 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
At 30 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Paradou will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Paradou have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Ahmed Aït-Abdesslem 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.
28 appearances away from home and 15 goals to show for them. Every one of them makes next summer's conversation a little more expensive.
Squad20 Mar 2028
Words at Paradou training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mustapha Soukkou 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Paradou, and 1 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
5 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
Ahmed Aït-Abdesslem 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 watch every Paradou game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at ES Ben Aknoun runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Ahmed Aït-Abdesslem 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.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Tobi Alagbe 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Ben Ahmed Kohili has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Paradou have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Paradou this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Paradou has been clear about where Mohamed Aït El Hadj stands, which is more than many ever get.
Still no offer on the table, and Erick Dala’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Erick Dala is living that version at Paradou, and it tends to show in the first month.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Nwanna Okechukwu reports back to Paradou with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Paradou this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Tobi Alagbe has improved at 27, which nobody expected
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. 4 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
5 academy players handed senior numbers at Paradou
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Youcef Soudani is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.