Wa All Stars ended it 2‑3. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
Player ratings6 Oct 2031
A brace, and Albert Boakye takes the afternoon — 8.83
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Albert Boakye provided it, and the 8.83 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Player ratings6 Oct 2031
Daniel Schlupp, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 7.73
A mark of 7.73 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Great Olympics they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Chinedu Chukwu and Great Olympics agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Eric Oteng 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Great Olympics and Hearts of Oak, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
“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 The request is on a desk at Great Olympics, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Edmund Essien will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Great Olympics the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
Senior shirt numbers handed to boys the coaches have known since they were twelve. Most will not make it and all of them have already done the hard part.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Eric Oteng was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Great Olympics asked and Asante Kotoko said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Ernest Nuhu has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Great Olympics is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Evans Mensah and Great Olympics agree another 2 years.
Joseph Ablorh 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.
Squad5 May 2031
Eric Oteng 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.
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.
20 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Great Olympics lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Great Olympics will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Mustafa Yahaya 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 Eric Oteng was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.