Successful dribbles: 24. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Gennaro Tagliabue after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Derrick Fordjour is on it.
Every touch weighed, every quote parsed, every mistake replayed. Some players grow into that; some are quietly finished by it; nobody knows which until afterwards.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mohammed Yahaya provided it, and the 9.14 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Daniel Appiah did not need any: 8.15, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Medeama this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Medeama and Inter Allies in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Daniel Appiah has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
8.20. 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.
One lapse, one goal, and ninety minutes of honest work counting for nothing. That is the job at Medeama, and it is a cruel one.
The dugout21 Mar 2033
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Gennaro Tagliabue kept it short after the 6‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
In brief
The dugoutEmmanuel Asante has become a man the manager trusts
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Medeama this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Nobody at Medeama 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.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
26 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Medeama lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Medeama this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody at Medeama 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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Gennaro Tagliabue after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
In brief
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Patrick Essien
The words a physio says slowly. 34 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Gennaro Tagliabue after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Medeama they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
John Arthur 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.
It needed Emmanuel Asante to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against New Edubiase United, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Nobody at Medeama 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Medeama will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Medeama this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
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.
Nobody at Medeama 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Medeama will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Fuzy Taylor was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody at Medeama 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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Yusuf Mohammed’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Medeama needing him to play as if none of it matters.
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.
In brief
The dugoutGladson Annan asks for a word with the manager