85 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Wa All Stars lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Gladson Boakye did not need any: 7.90, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
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. Wa All Stars will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Wa All Stars have 3 straight wins of it.
Player ratings3 Jan 2028
Mohammed Atiemo was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.23. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
The hardest thing about being 17 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Harrison Baba did not need any: 7.98, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.44 at 36, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Emmanuel Asante 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.
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings11 Oct 2027
Emmanuel Asante was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.95. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
At 17 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.
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. Wa All Stars will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Patrick Asamoah and Wa All Stars agree another 4 years.
Emmanuel Asante 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.
27 appearances and 1 goals away from here, and a player the manager did not have in August. Loans are sent out hoping for exactly this and most of them do not deliver it.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Ernest Ayew 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.
None of them will be seen by anybody outside the training ground for three years, most of them will never play a senior match, and one of them might change the club. That is the whole proposition, and it is why academies exist.
Boards get told what they have done wrong for years and hear nothing on the days they get it right. This is one of those days: Kennedy Mensah from Berekum Chelsea for $110.0K, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Carlinhos 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.
Add another name to the list: Bechem United have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Kwame Paintsil. The answer from Wa All Stars has not changed — yet.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Wa All Stars, and 0 appearances in 21 say he has earned the hearing.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Wa All Stars this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Wa All Stars know it.
“I did not go to Great Olympics to sit and watch. I want to come back to Wa All Stars and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 17 matches say the rest.
In brief
SquadWords at Wa All Stars training over how hard people work
Emmanuel Asante 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.
“I watch every Wa All Stars game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Great Olympics runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
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.
Nana Inusah was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.37. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Words at Wa All Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Carlinhos 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.
“I did not go to Great Olympics to sit and watch. I want to come back to Wa All Stars and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 9 matches say the rest.
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.
4 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.
Emmanuel Asante 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.
Marked 8.82 — 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.
“I watch every Wa All Stars game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Great Olympics runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Ernest Ayew 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.
A mark of 7.61 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Great Olympics this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 16 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.