20 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. USM Alger lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” USM Alger have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at USM Alger is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Siphelele Mkhulise 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.
Squad26 Mar 2029
Words at USM Alger training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Isaac Hughes 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Gomolemo Kekana 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.
27 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. USM Alger lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what USM Alger can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at USM Alger is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at USM Alger this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 6 matches without defeat is a foundation USM Alger did not have in the autumn.
Squad19 Mar 2029
Words at USM Alger training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Zakaria Draoui 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.
34 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. USM Alger lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Rayane Abdelmadjid Mahrouz will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around USM Alger the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
Ousmane Ndong 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.
43 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. USM Alger lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at USM Alger is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Achref Abada has agreed terms with MC Alger for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at USM Alger this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 12 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The words a physio says slowly. 51 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what USM Alger can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around USM Alger they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
23 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at USM Alger this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.