It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cotonsport Garoua this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Moussa Limane 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Abdul Aziz Moubarak is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Oscar Marchant 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.
In brief
SquadKhalid Serroukh falls out with a teammate over standards
Félix Oukiné 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Félix Oukiné has improved at 26, 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. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Khalid Serroukh 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 Cotonsport Garoua, and 0 appearances in 7 say he has earned the hearing.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cotonsport Garoua this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Cotonsport Garoua know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Cotonsport Garoua would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at BA All Stars 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.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. BA All Stars will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
The offer from Djoliba for Kamaldeen Ofori 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.
Samuel Acquah 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.
The phone has started ringing about Ernest Essien again, and this time the name on the line is Inter Allies. BA All Stars are listening politely and promising nothing.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Kamaldeen Annan and BA All Stars agree another 2 years.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at BA All Stars, another week without a signature from Abraham Afful.