38 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Wa All Stars lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.18 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Andrew Amoah 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.
Squad20 Sep 2032
Words at Wa All Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Afriyie Sulemana 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.
Player ratings20 Sep 2032
Andre Mensah was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.16. 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.
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.
59 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Wa All Stars 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 Wa All Stars is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 37 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 9.43 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Andrew Amoah 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.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Great Olympics will make the call about Gladson Baba this week. Wa All Stars have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
In brief
Player ratingsThe pass was always on for Jeffrey Amoah
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Andrew Amoah wants continental football; whether Wa All Stars can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Andrew Amoah 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.
Nobody at Wa All Stars will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 34 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Wa All Stars heard it as anything else.
Andrew Amoah 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.
Squad1 Sep 2031
Words at Wa All Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Afriyie Sulemana 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 words a physio says slowly. 91 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.
Andrew Amoah 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.
9 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Squad24 Feb 2031
Words at Wa All Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Afriyie Sulemana 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 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Andrew Schlupp 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.
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. Great Olympics tried to reorganise, Wa All Stars did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
Marked 8.21 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.