Marked for Harrison Mohammed
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad11 Mar 2030
A knee injury of the worst kind for Gérard Diarra
134 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. CotonTchad lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings11 Mar 2030
Marked 7.78 at 17, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Match9 Mar 2030
No end in sight to CotonTchad's wait for a win
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at CotonTchad has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad11 Mar 2030
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CotonTchad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom11 Mar 2030
The accounts make uncomfortable reading. Wages first and ambition second is the order of business at CotonTchad now.
Squad11 Mar 2030
A row about effort at CotonTchad
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Brahim Sabaouni was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Boardroom11 Mar 2030
Wages swallow 129% of the CotonTchad income
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
Squad11 Mar 2030
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Harrison Mohammed commits to CotonTchad for another 3 years.
Match9 Mar 2030
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad12 Mar 2029
A knee injury of the worst kind for Mohamed Hamami
133 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. CotonTchad lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings12 Mar 2029
No sign of nerves from Madaoua Tchiva at 21 — 8.47
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Madaoua Tchiva did not need any: 8.47, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Match10 Mar 2029
No end in sight to CotonTchad's wait for a win
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at CotonTchad has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad12 Mar 2029
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CotonTchad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Mar 2029
Words at CotonTchad training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Zaid Karouch 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 terraces12 Mar 2029
At 16 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.
Squad12 Mar 2029
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Harrison Mohammed and CotonTchad agree another 3 years.
Match10 Mar 2029
It needed Madaoua Tchiva to find the net to bring anything home at all: 2‑2 against AS DGSSIE, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Boardroom12 Mar 2029
The accounts are being read more closely than the results. Wages before ambition is the order of business now, and the manager has been told so.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad3 Jul 2028
A fracture rules Abdramane Bechir out for 17 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason CotonTchad will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad3 Jul 2028
Zaid Karouch 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.
Squad3 Jul 2028
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Harrison Mohammed has just signed for CotonTchad, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad3 Jul 2028
A row about effort at CotonTchad
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Brahim Sabaouni was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets3 Jul 2028
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Boardroom3 Jul 2028
CotonTchad release $7.2K for the manager
The board have put money on the table rather than an encouraging word. What happens to it now is somebody else's problem, and somebody else's job.
Transfer targets3 Jul 2028
Elect Sport have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Transfer targets3 Jul 2028
Elect Sport have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Market3 Jul 2028
Harrison Mohammed is 17, and CotonTchad have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.