Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason USM Alger will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at USM Alger this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
SquadBaba Alhassan falls out with a teammate over standards
16 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. USM Alger lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at USM Alger 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 USM Alger this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad19 Jun 2028
Baba Alhassan 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 clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at USM Alger is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Shola Ogundana 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.
In brief
SquadBaba Alhassan falls out with a teammate over standards
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what USM Alger can pretend not to have heard.
Shola Ogundana 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.
Player ratings4 Oct 2027
Islam Merili was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.70. 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Bongani Sam is living that version at USM Alger, and it tends to show in the first month.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Yiğit Efe Demir is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Shola Ogundana 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.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Aimen Mahious has improved at 29, 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 22 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
6 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Hillal Benayada is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Azola Matrose 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Chippa United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
“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 Chippa United, 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 Chippa United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 May 2027
Words at Chippa United training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Antonio Van Wyk 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Chippa United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Words at Chippa United training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Antonio Van Wyk 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.
Azola Matrose 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.
6 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
Nobody at Chippa United 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Chippa United can pretend not to have heard.
Azola Matrose 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 fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Black Aces moved on, Sinakhokonke Mthembu reports back to Chippa United, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
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.
A 1‑0 win over Maritzburg United, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
17 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.