Marked for Daniel Kudus
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad26 Dec 2044
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Player ratings26 Dec 2044
Age has not caught Enoch Dzeble yet — 7.89
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.89 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad26 Dec 2044
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Asante Kotoko this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings26 Dec 2044
Successful dribbles: 15. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad26 Dec 2044
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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad5 Dec 2044
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad5 Dec 2044
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Asante Kotoko may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market5 Dec 2044
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Asante Kotoko they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad5 Dec 2044
“The easiest signature of my career.” Alfred Odinaka and Asante Kotoko agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad5 Dec 2044
Rodrick Tcheuna 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.
Player ratings5 Dec 2044
Bakary Haidara was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.35. 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings21 Nov 2044
Alfred Odinaka, 37, rolls back the years — 8.32
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.32 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Market21 Nov 2044
Only the photograph left for Osman Partey
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Osman Partey will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Asante Kotoko the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad21 Nov 2044
Enoch Dzeble 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 Nov 2044
Words at Asante Kotoko training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rodrick Tcheuna 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.
Match19 Nov 2044
It finished 2‑2, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Squad21 Nov 2044
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Lukas Duda, and the manager let it.
Squad21 Nov 2044
The first one is the one every signing is asked about until it arrives. It has arrived, and he can stop being asked.
Player ratings21 Nov 2044
He was not in the side at half past three and he had settled it before five. Half an hour, and Asante Kotoko had a different afternoon.
Player ratings21 Nov 2044
Successful dribbles: 7. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market31 Oct 2044
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Juan Martín López will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Asante Kotoko the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Match29 Oct 2044
No end in sight to Asante Kotoko's wait for a win
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Asante Kotoko has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad31 Oct 2044
Enoch Dzeble 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.
Squad31 Oct 2044
Words at Asante Kotoko training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rodrick Tcheuna 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.
Match29 Oct 2044
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Player ratings31 Oct 2044
Successful dribbles: 12. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market26 Sep 2044
Osman Partey has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Asante Kotoko they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad26 Sep 2044
Enoch Dzeble in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Asante Kotoko this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad26 Sep 2044
Rodrick Tcheuna 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.
Squad26 Sep 2044
Nnamdi Awaziem has improved at 26, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Match24 Sep 2044
Berekum Chelsea left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Boardroom26 Sep 2044
Nobody left the Asante Kotoko dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
Squad26 Sep 2044
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Mateo Herrera, and the manager let it.
Player ratings26 Sep 2044
Shots: 9, enough of them from close enough that a striker in form scores two. He is not a striker in form.
Player ratings26 Sep 2044
Successful dribbles: 11. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings19 Sep 2044
Alfred Odinaka, 37, rolls back the years — 7.80
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.80 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Market19 Sep 2044
Abeiku Djiku has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Asante Kotoko they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad19 Sep 2044
Enoch Dzeble 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.
Squad19 Sep 2044
Words at Asante Kotoko training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rodrick Tcheuna 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.
The terraces19 Sep 2044
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Match17 Sep 2044
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Daniel Kudus. 2‑0 against New Edubiase United, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings19 Sep 2044
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.24, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad19 Sep 2044
A late step up for Duro
At 30 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Squad19 Sep 2044
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Promise Itoro, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom5 Sep 2044
Hands off: Persija circle the manager
Asante Kotoko have received the call every well-run club eventually receives — somebody bigger has noticed the manager. Saying no is easy; keeping him convinced is the actual work.
Match3 Sep 2044
5 matches without a win for Asante Kotoko
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Asante Kotoko are no longer polite ones.
Market5 Sep 2044
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad5 Sep 2044
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. DeAndre Sargent is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Player ratings5 Sep 2044
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Boardroom5 Sep 2044
12 academy players handed senior numbers at Asante Kotoko
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Squad5 Sep 2044
“The easiest signature of my career.” Promise Itoro and Asante Kotoko agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad5 Sep 2044
Words at Asante Kotoko training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rodrick Tcheuna 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.
Market5 Sep 2044
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Albert Bukari is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.