“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 The request is on a desk at Dynamo Douala, and it is not being withdrawn.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 Dynamo Douala this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad22 May 2028
Daniel Itodo 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dynamo Douala this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad15 May 2028
Words at Dynamo Douala training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Denis Chigozie 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 Dynamo Douala 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 Dynamo Douala this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad20 Mar 2028
Words at Dynamo Douala training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Daniel Itodo 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Dynamo Douala will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“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 The request is on a desk at Dynamo Douala, and it is not being withdrawn.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Moussa Aoudou is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Pierre Akono 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 26 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Samuel Acquah is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Bernard Waris 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 27 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mário Junior 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 WAFA, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
The words a physio says slowly. 48 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” WAFA have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at WAFA is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Taoufik Safsafi 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.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Mário Junior 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.