71 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Djoliba lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 17 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“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 The request is on a desk at Djoliba, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Djoliba this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The name of Mahamadou Sissoko has come up in conversations Djoliba were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
In brief
SquadAhmida Zenasni falls out with a teammate over standards
78 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Djoliba lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 24 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
AS Bakaridjan will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Ebuka Ogbonna has pre-agreed a move to Djoliba, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Squad5 Jun 2028
Words at Djoliba training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Boulkassoum Diarra 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. 86 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Djoliba will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Mamadou Sissoko will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Djoliba the goodbyes have quietly begun.
The words a physio says slowly. 93 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Djoliba will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
101 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Djoliba lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Djoliba will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.