Marked for Kamel Chergui
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Age has not caught Kamel Chergui yet — 8.20
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.20 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Match24 Oct 2026
Whatever happens, ES Setif do not lose
6 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Match24 Oct 2026
Olympique Akbou made ES Setif work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Aïssa Boudechicha, and the manager let it.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Abdelhak Bounedjah kept it short after the 2‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Abdoulaye Niakaté 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.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 13. 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. ES Setif have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
Looking ahead26 Oct 2026
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Tarek Bousseder’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and ES Setif needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
No sign of nerves from Yacine Goudjil at 21 — 7.67
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Yacine Goudjil did not need any: 7.67, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Squad28 Sep 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at ES Setif this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Kamel Chergui did the work nobody counts — 6.84
13 combined actions and 6.84. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
Match26 Sep 2026
It finished 2‑0, and it was Riad Benayad’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to ES Setif.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.38, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
“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 dugout28 Sep 2026
“That is what I want every week. Not the result, the way they went about it.” The manager, after 2‑0, already talking about the next one.
Squad28 Sep 2026
A row about effort at ES Setif
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Abdoulaye Niakaté was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Looking ahead28 Sep 2026
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Merouane Zerrouki’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and ES Setif needing him to play as if none of it matters.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market31 Aug 2026
“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 ES Setif, and it is not being withdrawn.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
$63.0K was the most the club would pay and JS Kabylie were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
A loan move for Paul Argney is in the works
ES Setif have made the call to Le Havre AC. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Market31 Aug 2026
ES Mostaganem are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. ES Setif will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Market31 Aug 2026
ES Setif have made Mohamed Boukerma available for transfer. A career at this club is over in all but paperwork.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market24 Aug 2026
“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 ES Setif, and it is not being withdrawn.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
ES Setif have gone to Al-Ettifaq with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
$2.4M on the table at El Masry. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Boardroom24 Aug 2026
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $22.8K — a club that wants Mohammed Kerroum enough to be asked twice.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Stade Rennais is saying, and nobody at ES Setif is enjoying the guessing.
Squad24 Aug 2026
A falling-out at ES Setif
Yanis Hamache and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $113.8K — a club that wants Oualaa Moundhir Bouzekri enough to be asked twice.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. ES Setif have done the hard part with Stade Rennais, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words exchanged at ES Setif
Yanis Hamache 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.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
The offer went to JS Kabylie this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
ES Setif offered $110.0K; MC Alger said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Paradou have kept their man, and ES Setif go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Rodez AF keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Squad10 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at ES Setif this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Ahmed Soudani has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Market10 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Abderrahmane Medjani has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Karim Bennacer has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Market10 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Youcef Ounas has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Too much change too quickly at ES Setif
9 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Stade Rennais have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad3 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Riad Benayad and ES Setif agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
A row about effort at ES Setif
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Kamel Chergui was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad3 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at ES Setif this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Yanis Hamache has outgrown this division
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. ES Setif know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Monaco have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Rodez AF have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
MC Oran have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Market3 Aug 2026
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at ES Setif, another week without a signature from Mudasiru Salifu.