The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 91th minute. Kano Pillars will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Player ratings25 Mar 2030
A brace, and Joseph Abah takes the afternoon — 8.43
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Joseph Abah provided it, and the 8.43 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Hilary Gong 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.
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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Rangers International told Ifeanyi Assurance something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
The dugout25 Mar 2030
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Abraham Onyekuru kept it short after the 2‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
In brief
The dugoutGaniyu Gberefu has become a man the manager trusts
The offer from Kwara United for Godwin Asiriuwa was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
“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 The request is on a desk at Rangers International, and it is not being withdrawn.
The board have signed the man in the dugout to a longer contract, which says more than any statement of support. Stability is easy to promise and costly to keep.
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Rangers International has to find a result from somewhere.
11 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Rangers International can tell you which week it ends in.
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.
Ifeanyi Okechukwu 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.
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.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Hilary Gong is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Olaniyi Saheed trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Hilary Gong signs something — a contract at Rangers International or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Joseph Abah has written the date down.
Hilary Gong and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ganiyu Gberefu 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.
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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Rangers International, another week without a signature from Joseph Abah.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Joseph Abah trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Hilary Gong 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ganiyu Gberefu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Chimobi Igwilo is on it.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ganiyu Gberefu 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.
Sodiq Rasheed and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Nobody at Rangers International 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.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Rangers International will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Hilary Gong signs something — a contract at Rangers International or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.