Brahim Goudja was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.31. 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.
Minute 89, against Gazelle, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Djibrine Adoum after the 2‑2 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
He used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.
Two goals and a mark of 9.10 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Haroun Abakar 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.
The team at the top of the table next, and the honest measure of where this side actually is. Anybody can beat the club below them; the question is what happens against Gazelle.
Nobody at AS PSI is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
Ali Abba 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.
At 23 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.
At 31 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.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑1, Djibrine Adoum could afford to be generous.
In brief
Looking aheadAS PSI take on the side everybody is chasing
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
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. 4 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Brahim Goudja 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.
Everything agreed with US Moursal, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $42.4K — a club that wants Youssouf Doungous enough to be asked twice.
$2.0K on the table at Stars Jeunes Talents. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Ali Abba 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.
“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 AS Algoy, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Ali Haroun 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.
Foullah Edifice 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.
AS Algoy have made the call to Foullah Edifice. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Ali Haroun signs something — a contract at AS Algoy or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Ali Abba 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.
Add another name to the list: Aiglons have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Ezechiel Souleymane. The answer from AS PSI has not changed — yet.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation AS PSI are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
A season-long audition: AS Algoy still own him, but the shirt and the minutes are AS PSI's to give. A loan is a bet both clubs believe they are winning.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around AS Algoy people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AS Algoy can pretend not to have heard.
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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Ali Haroun 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.
The phone has started ringing about Brahim Bechir again, and this time the name on the line is Gazelle. AS Algoy are listening politely and promising nothing.
A loan enquiry to Foullah Edifice: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. AS PSI have done the hard part with AS Algoy, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Hasaacas have kept their man, and AS PSI go back to a list with one name crossed off 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 AS PSI this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. AS PSI will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
A season-long look at somebody else’s player: Marius Ndoram arrives from AS Algoy with something to prove and a return ticket in the drawer. Good loans make everybody richer; this one starts Saturday.
“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 AS Algoy, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer from AS PSI for Ali Abba 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.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at AS PSI is saying, and nobody at AS Algoy is enjoying the guessing.
The phone has started ringing about Adam Doungous again, and this time the name on the line is Gazelle. AS Algoy are listening politely and promising nothing.
Narcisse Hissein 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Abdramane Mahamat was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Stars Jeunes Talents 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.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” AS Algoy had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
The deal with AS Algoy is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
$29.0K was the most the club would pay and Stars Jeunes Talents 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Ezechiel Souleymane is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Hassan Ngaradoumbe has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AS Algoy 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 AS Algoy this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Moussa Bechir and AS Algoy agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at AS Algoy training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abdramane Mahamat 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.