Hamidou Hamza 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 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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
11 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Colombe du Dja et Lobo 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 Colombe du Dja et Lobo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Arthur Yene 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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
25 goals and a season average of 7.43. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Player ratings10 Feb 2042
A brace, and Eric Oyongo takes the afternoon — 8.19
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Eric Oyongo provided it, and the 8.19 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Hamidou Hamza 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.
A conversation is coming this week. Colombe du Dja et Lobo will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Squad10 Feb 2042
Arthur Yene 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 13 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Colombe du Dja et Lobo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Arthur Yene 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.
Nobody at Colombe du Dja et Lobo 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.
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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Andre Onguene will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Colombe du Dja et Lobo the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Arthur Yene 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.
Squad21 Oct 2041
Hamidou Hamza 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.
15 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 10 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.