26 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Wa All Stars lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Abraham Asante will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Wa All Stars the goodbyes have quietly begun.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Wa All Stars people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“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.
The deal with Great Olympics is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Two goals and a mark of 8.70 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
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.
Bernard Sulemana 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.
At 22 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.
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. Hasaacas tried to reorganise, Wa All Stars did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
20 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Berekum Chelsea waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Wa All Stars is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The name of Patrick Paintsil has come up in conversations Wa All Stars were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
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.
Wa All Stars asked and WAFA said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“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.
There were 85 minutes on the clock and New Edubiase United had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and Wa All Stars did not stop to explain themselves.
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.
Abraham Asante 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 Wa All Stars game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Berekum Chelsea runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Abraham Asante 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.