Abraham Asante 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Osman Djiku after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Ikenna Nkwazema is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Words at Wa All Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. a squad player 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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Wa All Stars, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“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 The request is on a desk at Wa All Stars, and it is not being withdrawn.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Wa All Stars, and both men came out saying it was fine.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Bernard Sulemana signs something — a contract at Wa All Stars or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at Wa All Stars the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
In brief
MatchNothing left to play for but pride at Wa All Stars
The offer from Heart of Lions for Felix Mensah 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.
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.
Abdul Wakaso 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 easiest signature of my career.” Abdul Nuhu and Wa All Stars agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Market23 Aug 2027
Wa All Stars and a squad player are talking past each other
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Squad23 Aug 2027
Words at Wa All Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. a squad player 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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Wa All Stars, and both men came out saying it was fine.
New Edubiase United arrived with $56.0K and left with the best player in the building. The board will call it business; the queue at the ticket office will use other words.
22 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Wa All Stars lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Kwadwo Schlupp has gone, the accounts have $56.0K in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
Bernard Sulemana 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.
The name of Felix Mensah has come up in conversations Wa All Stars were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Abraham Asante trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
Patrick Paintsil has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
In brief
MarketTalks stall between Wa All Stars and a squad player
29 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Wa All Stars lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 Wa All Stars, and it is not being withdrawn.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Wa All Stars will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
He will be fined, he will apologise, and he will play on Saturday. The order of those three tells you everything about what a football club actually values.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Felix Mensah will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Wa All Stars the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Wa All Stars has been clear about where Kwame Mensah stands, which is more than many ever get.
None of them will be seen by anybody outside the training ground for three years, most of them will never play a senior match, and one of them might change the club. That is the whole proposition, and it is why academies exist.
In brief
The dugoutWa All Stars keep their word to a squad player
A mark of 7.99 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
He is 21 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: a squad player. 2‑0 against Asante Kotoko, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
8 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Ikenna Nkwazema is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
5 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.70 for the rest of it.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Kwadwo Schlupp will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Wa All Stars the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Wa All Stars and Liberty Professionals, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Abeiku Afful will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Wa All Stars the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Osman Djiku after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Wa All Stars, and both men came out saying it was fine.
33 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Wa All Stars lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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 Wa All Stars have had the benefit of it.
Bernard Sulemana 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Amos Amoah. 2‑1 against New Edubiase United, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Position 11, 16 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Yaw Schlupp is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Abraham Asante trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Bernard Sulemana 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 goalkeeper’s error has no defender behind it to tidy it away. He knew before the ball crossed the line, the crowd knew a second later, and there is nothing anybody can say tonight.
“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 Wa All Stars, and 4 appearances in 12 say he has earned the hearing.
The dugout9 Nov 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 Osman Djiku to a room that had heard them before.
Market9 Nov 2026
Still no ink between Wa All Stars and a squad player
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Wa All Stars, another week without a signature from a squad player.