Fee agreed, wages agreed, and AS DGSSIE waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Foullah Edifice is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Foullah Edifice is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Abdelaziz Issa 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.
At 19 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lebohang Mankga 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.
Squad25 Aug 2031
Gilbert Neossi has improved at 26, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Kita provided it, and the 9.32 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Foullah Edifice this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
9 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
AS Algoy will want this one forgotten quickly: 5‑2, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Foullah Edifice were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Kita provided it, and the 8.99 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“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 The request is on a desk at Foullah Edifice, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Foullah Edifice is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Foullah Edifice and AS Algoy, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
In brief
MatchAnother one collected away from home
SquadMathew Samuel falls out with a teammate over standards
8 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Foullah Edifice scored in the 91th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
“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 Foullah Edifice, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Foullah Edifice this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
SquadA move John Sadiq would have made for nothing
SquadWords at Foullah Edifice training over how hard people work