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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Abubakar Adams is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $5.6K — a club that wants Gladson Essien enough to be asked twice.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Afriyie Djiku and Wa All Stars agree another 3 years.
Afriyie Djiku 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.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Emmanuel Kudus has improved at 26, 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.
$5.0K was the most the club would pay and BA All Stars were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Emmanuel Kudus and Wa All Stars agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Afriyie Djiku 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 offer went to BA All Stars this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Wa All Stars asked and Javor-Matis said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Wa All Stars that is a harder question to answer.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 126 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Francis Waris was one of the reasons people came, and $97.0K does not replace that by itself.
The offer from Asante Kotoko for Abdul 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.
“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 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.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Ludogorets is saying, and nobody at Wa All Stars is enjoying the guessing.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” a squad player and Wa All Stars agree another 4 years.
Afriyie Djiku 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 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.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Hassan Adamu is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Amos Afful trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
0‑3 against Asante Kotoko, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 9.11, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings5 Apr 2027
A brace, and Friday Ubong takes the afternoon — 8.18
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Friday Ubong provided it, and the 8.18 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.82 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“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.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 8 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Patrick Addo did not need any: 8.25, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
“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.
Abdulaziz Dalhatu 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 particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Patrick Addo 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.
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.
The board have answered with money instead of encouragement, which is the only answer a manager ever wants. Spending it well is now entirely his problem.
Abdulaziz Dalhatu 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 players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Jonathan Annan could afford to be generous.
“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.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Words at Wa All Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kwadwo Schlupp 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 14 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Patrick Addo is on 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.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑2 Jonathan Annan left the room before anybody could ask which.
“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.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Afriyie Djiku is on it.
“I am not asking anybody to be better than they are. I am asking everybody to be as good as they are, every week.” Said out loud, in front of everybody, and the room at Wa All Stars was different afterwards.
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 85th, and BA All Stars spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
Abdulaziz Dalhatu 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.
He is 22 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.
A 1‑0 win over BA All Stars, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Friday Ubong was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.18. 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.
“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 Abdulaziz Dalhatu.
Squad2 Nov 2026
A place in the month's best eleven for Afriyie Djiku
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Afriyie Djiku has come out of that comparison in the side, and Wa All Stars have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Wa All Stars has been clear about where Abdul Nuhu stands, which is more than many ever get.
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.