The mood at Wa All Stars has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
The words a physio says slowly. 16 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Kilian Patrick is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Mohamed Yassine Abouzra 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.
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.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Wa All Stars is running low.
The words a physio says slowly. 23 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 Wa All Stars can pretend not to have heard.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Joseph Mensah is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 30 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 Wa All Stars can pretend not to have heard.
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.
Mohamed Yassine Abouzra 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.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Words at Wa All Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Youssef El Omari 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 was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Wa All Stars has been clear about where Ernest Nuhu stands, which is more than many ever get.
The words a physio says slowly. 37 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.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
“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.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Yussif Moro Owusu is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
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.
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Wa All Stars know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
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.
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.
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.
The loan was meant to give him football. 2 games and 0 goals later he is back at Wa All Stars no further forward, and everybody involved will explain why it was not their doing.
In brief
BoardroomWa All Stars pull $156.2K back off the table
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Wa All Stars can pretend not to have heard.
Mohamed Yassine Abouzra 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.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Words at Wa All Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Youssef El Omari 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 have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Wa All Stars can pretend not to have heard.
Mohamed Yassine Abouzra 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
SquadWords at Wa All Stars training over how hard people work
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Wa All Stars 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 Wa 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Wa All Stars can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings22 Mar 2027
Up for the corner, and Abbey Benson delivers — 7.88
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Abbey Benson scored, was marked 7.88, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Wa All Stars know 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 Wa All Stars this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every long career reaches the week the player starts thinking about the last one. He would like it to be at the club that first put him on a pitch, and Wa All Stars now know that too.
“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 2 appearances in 29 say he has earned the hearing.
24 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
The terraces22 Feb 2027
14th and falling: the mood at Wa All Stars has gone
24 points and a position everybody in the ground can do the arithmetic on. The songs have stopped being about the team and started being about surviving, which is a different noise entirely.
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.
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.
27 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.
Position 14 and 15 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
The offer from Melbourne City for Ernest Bukari 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.
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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Wa All Stars and Medeama, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
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 8.50 — 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 58 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.
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.
“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 1 appearances in 17 say he has earned the hearing.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
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.
In brief
Player ratingsAn afternoon Nana Ofori will want back
87 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Wa All Stars will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Successful dribbles: 26. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Up for the corner, and Abbey Benson delivers — 7.88
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Abbey Benson scored, was marked 7.88, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
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.
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.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Ernest Bukari was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.27. 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.
117 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 56 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
5 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Nana Ofori, 17, plays like he has been here for years — 7.64
A mark of 7.64 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 17-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
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.
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.
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.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Ernest Djiku was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.29. 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.
Ernest Djiku had done his part in building a 2-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and WAFA were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Wa All Stars will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Two goals and a mark of 8.42 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 5 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
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.
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.
50 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ashanti Gold lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Richard Boadu 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Elvis Manu 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.
“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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Yussif Moro Owusu is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
“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.
The offer from Inter Allies for Albert Afful 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.
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.
Mohamed Yassine Abouzra 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Wa All Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maximiliano Planté 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.
The name of David Baba has come up in conversations Wa All Stars were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Wa All Stars will not keep him by pretending otherwise.