“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what APS Bomet can pretend not to have heard.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. APS Bomet have done the hard part with Shabana, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at APS Bomet this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A loan enquiry to Mathare United: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Hillary Otieno signs something — a contract at APS Bomet or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at APS Bomet. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
The shrug has gone, the language is coming, and he now argues in training like somebody who expects to be here next year. Half a signing's value is this and none of it appears on a fee.
19 graduates, from a department now rated 7 out of 20. Nothing about the academy appears in a result, and nothing about the club’s future exists without it.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what APS Bomet 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 APS Bomet this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Emad El Mohamady is living that version at APS Bomet, and it tends to show in the first month.
Every club in football 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 somebody has tried it.
“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 Mosta, and it is not being withdrawn.
Mosta asked and Sliema Wanderers said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Julián Balbuena 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.
Add another name to the list: Hamrun Spartans have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Simone Foti. The answer from Mosta has not changed — yet.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Mosta, and both men came out saying it was fine.
A month in which every rumour is possible and most of them are nonsense. The manager has a list, the board has a number, and neither is telling the other the whole of it.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Mosta will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes Sfundo Shezi a promise
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.
Emmanuel Ugwu 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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Mosta are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Mosta, and both men came out saying it was fine.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Mosta would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
The best deals are the ones the accountants never notice. Khama Khune arrives at Mosta with his wages the only cost and something to prove the only clause.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Ibrahim Halliru has written the date down.
Pentjie Zulu damages knee ligaments — 105 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 105 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.
Everything agreed with Orlando Pirates, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Platinum Stars asked and Free State Stars said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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 Bongani Mothiba is on it.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Platinum Stars are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Gift Mothiba and Platinum Stars agree another 5 years.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Bongani Mothiba was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Evidence Erasmus has moved up it.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Platinum Stars. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Orlando Pirates watched Kermit Hlatshwayo again at the weekend, and this time they did not bother hiding it. Clubs only stop hiding when they want the price to start moving.