Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 124 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.22 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
He is 21 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Zakaria Hadraf. 2‑0 against AS DGSSIE, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Taoufik Safsafi, and the manager let it.
The dugout21 Dec 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.” Adam Hissein kept it short after the 2‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason CotonTchad will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CotonTchad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Narcisse Ndoram 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.
6 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at CotonTchad, and both men came out saying it was fine.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. CotonTchad will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Mohamed Hamami 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 manager has re-ordered his thinking and Taoufik Safsafi has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
Marked 7.46 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, CotonTchad had the best player on the pitch.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Adam Hissein was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the CotonTchad dressing room was either.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Mohamed Hamami trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.07 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CotonTchad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Something was said to Anass Oublal and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
7 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
In brief
The dugoutHicham Nouali asks for a word with the manager
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mohamed Hamami was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Successful dribbles: 17. 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.
Marked 7.64. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Adam Hissein, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 11 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 CotonTchad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
8 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at CotonTchad training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Brahim Adoum 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.
Two hours a week with a tutor, which is the least glamorous thing at CotonTchad and the one that decides whether a foreign signing is still here in two years.
Yacine Wakili and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Words at CotonTchad training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mohamed Hamami 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Issa Mbaiguedem is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The board was up, the win was priced in, and then AS Etat Major scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
Marked 7.63 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, CotonTchad had the best player on the pitch.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Yacine Wakili's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
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.
Mohamed Hamami 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.
Successful dribbles: 20. 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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Hamza Asrir 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at CotonTchad, another week without a signature from Mohamed Hamami.
Four or five weekends of consistency, measured against everybody else in the division. A quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Adam Hissein chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
Yacine Wakili 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between CotonTchad and AS Algoy, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
The dugoutThe manager makes Anass Oublal a promise
12Edition
The CotonTchad Chronicle
19 Oct 2026
From our football correspondentTriumph
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
A brace, and Younes Rachid takes the afternoon — 8.42
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Younes Rachid provided it, and the 8.42 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Yacine Wakili 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.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 39 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
Successful dribbles: 20. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at CotonTchad training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hamza Asrir 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 here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad19 Oct 2026
14 new faces, and CotonTchad are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Signings arrive with a picture of the club in their head, and this one’s picture was bigger than the building. He will play well and he will be gone, in that order, and everybody knows it.
Everybody at CotonTchad saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 36 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Hamza Asrir 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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Moussa Abakar 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Djibrine Abba 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.
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and CotonTchad know which stage they are at.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. CotonTchad know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CotonTchad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Everybody at CotonTchad saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 38 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
1 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Brahim Souleymane 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.
He is doing his job and he is not settling. CotonTchad were supposed to be a step up in his own reckoning, and his own reckoning has been adjusted since he arrived.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. CotonTchad will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
Nothing about this will be in a press release. A plan went upstairs, came back rejected, and the version of the club that would have existed in three years' time just quietly stopped being possible.
El Mehdi El Bassil is 39 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Zaid Karouch signs something — a contract at CotonTchad or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nobody writes a headline about a tutor. Nobody has to be told, either, what happens to a signing who spends two years being the man nobody can talk to at lunch.
Yacine Wakili 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.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. CotonTchad know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
Zakaria Hadraf arrives at 36 with nothing left to prove and plenty left to pass on. Legs are a young man's currency; knowing where to stand never ages.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. CotonTchad know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
Squad14 Sep 2026
8 new faces, and CotonTchad are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 19 arrived, 0 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CotonTchad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. CotonTchad will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
Anass Oublal 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Imad Rqioui 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.
A call-up flatters the player and the club that produced him in the same breath. CotonTchad would like him back in one piece and know they will not be consulted.
Imad Rqioui and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at CotonTchad training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Zaid Karouch 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 CotonTchad has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
Imad Rqioui 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.
He signed expecting a bigger stage than the one he found. It has not taken long, and it has not taken the dressing room long to notice either.
Squad17 Aug 2026
7 new faces, and CotonTchad are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Imad Rqioui was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Brahim Ngaradoumbe 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Saleh Doungous 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Brahim Djimet 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.
Zaid Karouch 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.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. CotonTchad will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. CotonTchad will not keep him by pretending otherwise.