The hardest thing about being 18 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Francis Appiah did not need any: 8.05, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
“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 The request is on a desk at BA All Stars, and it is not being withdrawn.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 BA All Stars this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: a squad player. 3‑1 against WAFA, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
He is 18 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
“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 The request is on a desk at BA All Stars, and it is not being withdrawn.
13 goals and a season average of 7.35 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Words at BA All Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. a squad player 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.
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.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Samuel Mensah was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.09. 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what BA All Stars can pretend not to have heard.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 21 combined actions and a mark of 7.55, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Amos Asamoah 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.
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.13, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at BA All Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jonathan Baba 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Amos Asamoah trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
In brief
Squada squad player scores his first for BA All Stars
14 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. BA All Stars lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Daniel Kudus and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
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.
Successful dribbles: 18. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.