3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at US Bougouni this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at US Bougouni has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Jesús Serrano 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.
Sipho Ngqakabana 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.
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.
7.87, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
4 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.
Suleiman Mojereola 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at US Bougouni training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jesús Serrano 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 a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. US Bougouba kept coming because nothing stopped them, and US Bougouni will be asked about the last half hour all week.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Sipho Ngqakabana did not need any: 8.07, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Waly Diabaté 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 Oct 2026
Waly Diabaté has improved at 32, 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.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Suleiman Mojereola did not need any: 7.80, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and US Bougouni know it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at US Bougouni this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Samukelo Mlaba is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Waly Diabaté has improved at 32, 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Jesús Serrano 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Sipho Ngqakabana is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at US Bougouni training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jesús Serrano 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 US Bougouni this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
Squad17 new faces, and US Bougouni are still learning each other
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at US Bougouni this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at US Bougouni training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jesús Serrano 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.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at US Bougouni has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
In brief
SquadQuestions about Pheko Phago on the training pitch
Waly Diabaté 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Jesús Serrano 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at US Bougouni this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. US Bougouni know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Suleiman Mojereola is living that version at US Bougouni, and it tends to show in the first month.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at US Bougouni this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at US Bougouni training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jesús Serrano 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.