Marked for Abdullahi Simon
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Transfer targets9 Jun 2031
The clubs have shaken hands with Kano Pillars; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
The dugout9 Jun 2031
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Bendel Insurance may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market9 Jun 2031
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Bendel Insurance can pretend not to have heard.
Market9 Jun 2031
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Emmanuel Awaziem will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Bendel Insurance the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad9 Jun 2031
Yusuf Mannase and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match7 Jun 2031
Beaten 1‑3, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout9 Jun 2031
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 1‑3, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
The dugout9 Jun 2031
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 Emmanuel Akpan is on it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match23 Apr 2031
Plateau United ended it 3‑3. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
Player ratings28 Apr 2031
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.62, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad28 Apr 2031
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Oscar Destiny: 1 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Player ratings28 Apr 2031
Abdullahi Simon, 17, plays like he has been here for years — 8.32
A mark of 8.32 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 17-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Player ratings28 Apr 2031
Successful dribbles: 26. 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.
Player ratings28 Apr 2031
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.67 for the rest of it.
The dugout28 Apr 2031
Victor Onuachu: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Bendel Insurance have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad28 Apr 2031
Yusuf Mannase 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.
The terraces28 Apr 2031
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 17-year-old it feels ownership of. Abdullahi Simon 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
The dugout17 Feb 2031
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Bendel Insurance may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market17 Feb 2031
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Emmanuel Awaziem will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Bendel Insurance the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad17 Feb 2031
Yusuf Mannase and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match15 Feb 2031
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Uche Collins. 2‑1 against Rangers International, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings17 Feb 2031
Ninety minutes of Yusuf Mannase at his very best
Marked 8.18. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Bendel Insurance.
Player ratings17 Feb 2031
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The dugout17 Feb 2031
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Chukwuma Abacha, on a 2‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
The dugout17 Feb 2031
The manager makes an example of Alex Sunga
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout17 Feb 2031
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Alex Oweilayefa trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad17 Dec 2029
48 days out for Temple Emekayi after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Bendel Insurance will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Market17 Dec 2029
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Bendel Insurance is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad17 Dec 2029
Yusuf Maigoro 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.
Squad17 Dec 2029
Emmanuel Dung 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.
The dugout17 Dec 2029
Emmanuel Akpan knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Emmanuel Akpan trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The dugout17 Dec 2029
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 Alex Oweilayefa is on it.