Fee agreed, wages agreed, and AS Korofina waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Binga is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
US Forces Armees wanted more than $5.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Binga asked and Djoliba said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
A goalkeeper's career is counted in the games nobody scored in, and Massiré Gassama now has 25 of them across 145 appearances. Nothing about that number was luck.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
The dugout10 Feb 2031
Somebody else is better right now than Cheick Diallo
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
The team at the top of the table next, and the honest measure of where this side actually is. Anybody can beat the club below them; the question is what happens against Stade Malien.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Afrique Foot Elite? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 8 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Mahman Nourou 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.
Stade Malien left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout18 Nov 2030
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 0‑2 Tomás Cruz left the room before anybody could ask which.
Nobody at Binga 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Binga know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Lassana Sidibe trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
In brief
MarketThe clock does Agwar Micheal’s negotiating for him
The dugoutAgwar Micheal unhappy with how he is being used
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Binga have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Binga this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 8.02 — 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.
The dugout21 Oct 2030
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 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Tomás Cruz to a room that had heard them before.
FC Diarra next, and one man in the Binga dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Played out of position, hooked on the hour, asked to be somebody he is not — the details vary and the mood does not. Binga have a player doing his work under protest.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Binga can pretend not to have heard.
Everything agreed with Stade Malien, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Binga asked and Djoliba said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Stade Malien have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
In brief
The dugoutAires Nanque asks for a word with the manager
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
“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 Binga, and it is not being withdrawn.
Falaye Doumbia 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Binga know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Binga can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Binga they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Mahman Nourou 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.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Binga pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Tomás Cruz after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
24 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Binga lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Moussa Dembele will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Binga the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Tomás Cruz after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Binga, and both men came out saying it was fine.
In brief
Looking aheadBinga take on the side everybody is chasing
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and AS Police waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Binga is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Djoliba have kept their man, and Binga go back to a list with one name crossed off it.