The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Stars Jeunes Talents is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Balance sheets do not care about form or about who the manager was planning to build around. The board have decided a sale is required, and the only question left is which name ends up carrying it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Stars Jeunes Talents this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Djibrine Mbainaissem 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.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Stars Jeunes Talents will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Stars Jeunes Talents can pretend not to have heard.
The terraces8 Mar 2027
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 10 of the 31 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Stars Jeunes Talents is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Idriss Mbaiguedem and Stars Jeunes Talents agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Idriss Mbaiguedem 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 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.
“I did not go to Gazelle to sit and watch. I want to come back to Stars Jeunes Talents and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 30 matches say the rest.
The words a physio says slowly. 31 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Stars Jeunes Talents can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Stars Jeunes Talents this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 5.62. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
The words a physio says slowly. 73 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Stars Jeunes Talents can pretend not to have heard.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Brahim Tokindang will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Stars Jeunes Talents 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 Stars Jeunes Talents this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I watch every Stars Jeunes Talents game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Gazelle runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.