Marked for Ezechiel Bechir
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market19 Jul 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Transfer targets19 Jul 2027
Galactik and Stars Jeunes Talents have settled on $110.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
Transfer targets19 Jul 2027
$200.00 on the table at US Moursal. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Transfer targets19 Jul 2027
No deal for Ali Djimet at that price
Galactik offered $33.0K; US Moursal said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Transfer targets19 Jul 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. AS Etat Major have kept their man, and Galactik go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Market19 Jul 2027
He signed expecting a bigger stage than the one he found. It has not taken long, and it has not taken the dressing room long to notice either.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad22 Feb 2027
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Player ratings22 Feb 2027
Marked 6.85 on 15 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
Transfer targets22 Feb 2027
Galactik asked and Aigle Royal de Moungo said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Match20 Feb 2027
CotonTchad left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Words at Galactik training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Djibrine Abba 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 dugout22 Feb 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Brahim Djimet left the room before anybody could ask which.
Squad22 Feb 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Ezechiel Bechir commits to Galactik for another 3 years.
The dugout22 Feb 2027
Oumar Ndoram gets it from the manager
“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.
Squad22 Feb 2027
“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 Galactik will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad15 Feb 2027
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Squad15 Feb 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.
Transfer targets15 Feb 2027
Galactik asked and Elect Sport said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Match13 Feb 2027
Stars Jeunes Talents left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Youssouf Adoum, and the manager let it.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Brahim Djimet to a room that had heard them before.
Squad15 Feb 2027
One booking too many, and Achraf El Khannouss sits out. Galactik lose him for the sort of avoidable reason that makes a manager's week longer.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Every debut is a small story about the future: Ezechiel Bechir, 14 years old, off the academy pitches and into the first team. The parents in the stand will keep the programme.
Player ratings15 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 11. 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
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
A mark of 7.61 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.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Oumar Ndoram is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Transfer targets8 Feb 2027
Galactik asked and Aiglons said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Market8 Feb 2027
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Ezechiel Bechir is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Squad8 Feb 2027
A row about effort at Galactik
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Djibrine Abba was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad8 Feb 2027
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Four or five weekends of consistency, measured against everybody else in the division. A quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Match6 Feb 2027
It needed Ousmane Biani to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against US Moursal, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout8 Feb 2027
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Brahim Djimet chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.