The words a physio says slowly. 69 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.
New Edubiase United will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Wa All Stars were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.03 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Junaid Sait 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 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 ratings13 Dec 2027
Mohammed Djiku was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.46. 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.
8.23. 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.
In brief
SquadSimon Obonde falls out with a teammate over standards
The terracesThe press cannot get enough of Mohammed Djiku
The words a physio says slowly. 76 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.
“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 The request is on a desk at Wa All Stars, and it is not being withdrawn.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 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. 83 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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Gladson Paintsil provided it, and the 9.02 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Junaid Sait 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.
It finished 2‑1, and it was Gladson Paintsil’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Wa All Stars.
Player ratings29 Nov 2027
Joseph Wakaso was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.12. 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.
In brief
SquadSimon Obonde falls out with a teammate over standards
The words a physio says slowly. 90 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 97 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 2-goal deficit was real and so was the recovery. Gladson Paintsil was at the centre of it, Liberty Professionals were at the end of it, and everybody who left early will hear about this one for years.
23 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Junaid Sait 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.
8 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Wa All Stars and Ashanti Gold in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
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 ratings1 Nov 2027
Joseph Wakaso was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.10. 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.
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.
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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Francis Sulemana and Wa All Stars agree another 4 years.
6 goals in one match, Gladson Paintsil on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Wa All Stars and Hasaacas.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 61 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Ernest Appiah reports back to Wa All Stars with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
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.
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.
In brief
Player ratingsThe afternoon belonged to Kwame Asamoah
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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 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.
Junaid Sait 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.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Abbey Benson has improved at 29, 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.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
5 academy players handed senior numbers at Wa All Stars
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Kwame Addo has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Albert Asante is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Francis Annan has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
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.
The offer from Melbourne City for Joseph Wakaso 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.
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Joseph Wakaso will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Wa All Stars escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Wa All Stars have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Junaid Sait 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.
69 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Player ratings1 Mar 2027
Joseph Wakaso was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.26. 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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.06 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Junaid Sait 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.
15 goals in 18 games at New Edubiase United — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Wa All Stars updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Words at Wa All Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abraham Afful 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 unglamorous genius of a well-written contract. Ernest Addo is somebody else's player now, and $66.0K has arrived because the people who sold him thought further ahead than the transfer window.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Gladson Paintsil provided it, and the 9.09 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
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 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.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Mohammed Djiku was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.20. 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Junaid Sait 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.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Wa All Stars and Great Olympics in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Boardroom9 Nov 2026
Nobody left the Wa All Stars dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Francis Sulemana trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
In brief
Player ratingsOff the bench and decisive: Thomas Boakye
Player ratingsThe pass was always on for Joseph Wakaso
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Wa All Stars they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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 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 Abbey Benson.
In brief
SquadAbraham Afful falls out with a teammate over standards
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Gladson Paintsil will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Wa All Stars escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
Two goals and a mark of 8.67 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
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.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Bernard Boateng has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
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.
Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Mohammed Djiku scored in the 86th minute, Hasaacas had already begun thinking about the journey home, and Wa All Stars took the lot.
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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Baba Atiemo 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.
Three points for Wa All Stars, 1‑0 the final word against Hasaacas in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Abraham Afful 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.
“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.