The words a physio says slowly. 45 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.71 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AS PSI can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AS PSI they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AS PSI this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad26 Nov 2040
Gabkala Daba 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.
20 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
The words a physio says slowly. 66 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.
1‑5 against US Moursal, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at AS PSI can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
AS Etat Major go through and AS PSI go home, 1‑3 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Balance sheets do not care about form or about who the manager was planning to build around. The board have decided a sale is required, and the only question left is which name ends up carrying it.
14 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
The words a physio says slowly. 73 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AS PSI can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at AS PSI is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AS PSI this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
The borrowing is past what the bank agreed, which is the line where a debt stops being how football is financed and starts being a problem. Every phone-in in this town will quote the figure for the next five years.
Nobody at AS PSI 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.
“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 AS PSI, 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 AS PSI this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
SquadGabkala Daba falls out with a teammate over standards
SquadGabkala Daba has become a man the manager trusts
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AS PSI can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AS PSI they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Ousmane Sambou 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.
Brahim Bechir scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑3 to AS Algoy, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Squad19 Mar 2040
Words at AS PSI training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gabkala Daba 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.
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Muhammad Hussain will call it something else in private.
Position 12, 7 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Player ratings16 Jan 2040
Elvis Onyango, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.04
A mark of 8.04 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AS PSI can pretend not to have heard.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.91 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AS PSI this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Jan 2040
Words at AS PSI training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Anthony Owusu 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Elvis Onyango 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Stallone Asaba signs something — a contract at AS PSI or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
32 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. AS PSI lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 AS PSI, 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 AS PSI this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody at AS PSI 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 84 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.
Position 13 and 9 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AS PSI they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Destaing Sikoula and AS PSI agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad9 May 2039
Words at AS PSI training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gabkala Daba 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.