Marked for Ezechiel Hissein
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad28 Sep 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Saleh Hissein is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad28 Sep 2026
At 29 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market17 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market17 Aug 2026
The phone has started ringing about Idriss Bechir again, and this time the name on the line is AS DGSSIE. AS Algoy are listening politely and promising nothing.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Djibrine Ndoram 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Moussa Youssouf 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Ezechiel Hissein commits to AS Algoy for another 3 years.