The words a physio says slowly. 76 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Ikorodu City have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Shodeinde Moses 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.
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.
Shots: 6. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
83 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Ikorodu City lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Ikorodu City is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Plateau United go through and Ikorodu City go home, 0‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Shodeinde Moses 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Samuel Ezekiel. 1‑0 against Nasarawa United, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
16 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Olisa Kalu on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Nobody at Ikorodu City 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Shodeinde Moses will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Ikorodu City the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“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 Ikorodu City, and it is not being withdrawn.
Shodeinde Moses 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 Taiwo Alao 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 Timothy Atamenwan is on it.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Kun Khalifat had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Match11 Aug 2029
Taiwo Alao wins it after the whistle should have gone
94 minutes played. Taiwo Alao found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Barau went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
The clubs have shaken hands with Barau; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ikorodu City this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.