Marked for Ezechiel Moustapha
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad10 Jan 2028
18 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Aiglons lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match8 Jan 2028
Whatever happens, Aiglons do not lose
7 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Player ratings10 Jan 2028
Successful dribbles: 22. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Words at Aiglons training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Miraziz Mahamadaliyev 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.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Abraham Faruk 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.
Match8 Jan 2028
A 1‑1 draw with AS DGSSIE leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings3 Jan 2028
Successful dribbles: 35. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad3 Jan 2028
Ezechiel Moustapha damages knee ligaments — 25 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 25 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.
Squad3 Jan 2028
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Aiglons may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad3 Jan 2028
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Aiglons will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Market3 Jan 2028
“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 The request is on a desk at Aiglons, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market3 Jan 2028
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Nodirbek Ahmadjonov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Aiglons the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad3 Jan 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Aiglons this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match1 Jan 2028
Still nobody has beaten Aiglons
The unbeaten run reaches 6. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Match1 Jan 2028
The run at home goes on for Aiglons
8 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad27 Dec 2027
Ezechiel Moustapha damages knee ligaments — 32 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 32 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.
Match25 Dec 2027
3‑0, and Abdoulaye Difane took the headlines on an afternoon when everything Aiglons tried came off. Days like this are retold all winter.
Match27 Dec 2027
Aiglons are in among the leaders
Position 3 and 22 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Match25 Dec 2027
Aiglons make it 5 in a row
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Aiglons have 5 straight wins of it.
Player ratings27 Dec 2027
No sign of nerves from Fabien Djedanoum at 21 — 7.97
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Fabien Djedanoum did not need any: 7.97, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Squad27 Dec 2027
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 terraces27 Dec 2027
At 22 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.
Player ratings27 Dec 2027
Marked 8.33 — 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.
Squad27 Dec 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Aiglons this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad20 Dec 2027
Ezechiel Moustapha damages knee ligaments — 39 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 39 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.
Squad20 Dec 2027
There were 7 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Player ratings20 Dec 2027
Fabien Djedanoum, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.77
A mark of 7.77 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Match18 Dec 2027
Nobody wants to play Aiglons right now
4 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Squad20 Dec 2027
Yannick Saleh 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.
Match18 Dec 2027
It finished 3‑2, and it was Miraziz Mahamadaliyev’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Aiglons.
Squad20 Dec 2027
Words at Aiglons training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Miraziz Mahamadaliyev 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 terraces20 Dec 2027
At 21 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.
Player ratings20 Dec 2027
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market14 Jun 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Ousmane Biani 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.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Words at Galactik training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Saleh Tokindang 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad17 May 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Djibrine Adoum
15 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Galactik lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad17 May 2027
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad17 May 2027
Azamat Komilov 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad22 Mar 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Ezechiel Adoum
40 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Aiglons lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings22 Mar 2027
Successful dribbles: 31. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match20 Mar 2027
The wait goes on for Aiglons
6 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.
Player ratings22 Mar 2027
Ahmat Mbaiguedem, 15, plays like he has been here for years — 7.67
A mark of 7.67 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 15-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
The terraces22 Mar 2027
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 15-year-old it feels ownership of. Ahmat Mbaiguedem 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.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Abraham Faruk 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.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Boardroom22 Mar 2027
Wages eat 92% of everything Aiglons earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Match20 Mar 2027
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 40. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match26 Dec 2026
Aiglons win it in stoppage time
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 94th minute. Galactik will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.82 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
The hardest thing about being 15 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Ezechiel Moustapha did not need any: 7.63, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Squad28 Dec 2026
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad28 Dec 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 Aiglons this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match26 Dec 2026
Galactik made Aiglons work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
The terraces28 Dec 2026
At 15 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.
Boardroom28 Dec 2026
117% of the income goes out in wages at Aiglons
Every club in football 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 somebody has tried it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match5 Dec 2026
2‑6 to Gazelle, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Squad7 Dec 2026
There were 8 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Match5 Dec 2026
4 matches without a win for Aiglons
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Aiglons are no longer polite ones.
Match5 Dec 2026
Djibrine Hissein among the goals in a wild afternoon
8 goals in one match, Djibrine Hissein on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Aiglons and Gazelle.
Squad7 Dec 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.
Boardroom7 Dec 2026
Nobody left the Aiglons dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Djibrine Ngaradoumbe has come out of that comparison in the side, and Aiglons have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
Squad7 Dec 2026
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
Market7 Dec 2026
It is the least glamorous business a club does and the reason seasons do not collapse in February. Miraziz Mahamadaliyev is here for the weeks when three men are injured and somebody still has to play.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match31 Oct 2026
4‑0, and Youssouf Abdraman took the headlines on an afternoon when everything Galactik tried came off. Days like this are retold all winter.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
A brace, and Youssouf Abdraman takes the afternoon — 8.57
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Youssouf Abdraman provided it, and the 8.57 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Djibrine Mbaiguedem, 17, plays like he has been here for years — 8.08
A mark of 8.08 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 17-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Squad2 Nov 2026
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad2 Nov 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 Galactik this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The terraces2 Nov 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Hasanboy Tojiboyev 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.
Squad2 Nov 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.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad5 Oct 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Andrew Abalogu and Aiglons agree another 1 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Issa Tokindang is a better footballer than he was
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.
Squad5 Oct 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 Aiglons this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Oct 2026
At 26 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.
Match3 Oct 2026
AS PSI left with the points after a 1‑3 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
125% of the income goes out in wages at Aiglons
Every club in football 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 somebody has tried it.
Market5 Oct 2026
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
Aiglons turn down the training-ground plan
It is the quietest way a club tells you what its ambitions are. The money was asked for, the money was refused, and the people who work there every day now know exactly where they stand.
Market5 Oct 2026
11 months to run and not a word offered. A club that lets the calendar negotiate for it usually ends up losing to the calendar.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad5 Oct 2026
There were 13 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Match3 Oct 2026
2‑5 to Foullah Edifice, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Youssouf Abdraman, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.91
A mark of 7.91 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Market5 Oct 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Galactik can pretend not to have heard.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Azamat Komilov is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad5 Oct 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Azamat Komilov commits to Galactik for another 3 years.
Match3 Oct 2026
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Galactik and Foullah Edifice in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Squad5 Oct 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 Galactik this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
Nobody left the Galactik dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.