88 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. CotonTchad lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 The request is on a desk at CotonTchad, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings27 Mar 2028
Kafiatur Rizky, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.92
A mark of 8.92 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Francisco Ayala 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Kafiatur Rizky. 2‑1 against Gazelle, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Kafiatur Rizky has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Player ratings27 Mar 2028
Finn McKenlay was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.57. 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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Adama Coulibaly, and the manager let it.
Squad27 Mar 2028
Words at CotonTchad training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dedi Kusnandar 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.
In brief
Boardroom108% of the income goes out in wages at CotonTchad
95 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. CotonTchad 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 CotonTchad is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The terraces20 Mar 2028
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 5 of the 25 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
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.
8 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.
102 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. CotonTchad lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Madaoua Tchiva did not need any: 7.64, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Francisco Ayala 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.
109 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. CotonTchad lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings6 Mar 2028
Madaoua Tchiva, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.73
A mark of 8.73 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.86 at 38, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Mikael Tata will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around CotonTchad the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
Marked 8.00 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
116 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. CotonTchad lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 CotonTchad, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings28 Feb 2028
Madaoua Tchiva, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.30
A mark of 8.30 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Francisco Ayala 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 21 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Foullah Edifice made CotonTchad work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings28 Feb 2028
Yannick Masra was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.48. 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.
Squad28 Feb 2028
Words at CotonTchad training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dedi Kusnandar 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.
In brief
Boardroom116% of the income goes out in wages at CotonTchad
123 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. CotonTchad 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 CotonTchad is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
5 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.
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.
19 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.
Squad21 Feb 2028
Words at CotonTchad training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Darius Msagha 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.
Ali Bechir is 19, and CotonTchad have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
130 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. CotonTchad lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings14 Feb 2028
Madaoua Tchiva, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.54
A mark of 8.54 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Esaie Djikoloum 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Kwadwo Paintsil has just signed for CotonTchad, and for once the answer mattered.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Madaoua Tchiva has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
He is 19, and nobody at CotonTchad signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
137 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. CotonTchad lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what CotonTchad can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at CotonTchad 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 CotonTchad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
66 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. CotonTchad lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 CotonTchad, and it is not being withdrawn.
The terraces31 Jan 2028
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 7 of the 25 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
The offer from AS PSI for Fikri Arjidan was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Francisco Ayala 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.
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Boardroom31 Jan 2028
104% of the income goes out in wages at CotonTchad
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Squad31 Jan 2028
Darius Msagha 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.
73 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. CotonTchad lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Herman Mwambegu provided it, and the 8.35 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Madaoua Tchiva did not need any: 8.92, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around CotonTchad they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“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 CotonTchad, 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 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.
80 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. CotonTchad lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
34 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Madaoua Tchiva did not need any: 9.97, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
At 38 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.32 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Francisco Ayala 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.
87 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. CotonTchad lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” CotonTchad have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
At 22 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.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Renaissance will make the call about Madaoua Tchiva this week. CotonTchad have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
The words a physio says slowly. 94 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
The name of Madaoua Tchiva has come up in conversations CotonTchad were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
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 words a physio says slowly. 101 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” CotonTchad have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Esaie Djikoloum 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.
5 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.
10 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.
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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Yannick Masra, and the manager let it.
Player ratings20 Dec 2027
Yannick Masra was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.01. 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.
Squad20 Dec 2027
Words at CotonTchad training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Darius Msagha 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.
Player ratingsMadaoua Tchiva spends the afternoon fouling
72Edition
The CotonTchad Chronicle
13 Dec 2027
From our football correspondentUneasy
Player ratings13 Dec 2027
Madaoua Tchiva, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.14
A mark of 8.14 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Francisco Ayala 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Madaoua Tchiva has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Squad13 Dec 2027
Words at CotonTchad training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dedi Kusnandar 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 at CotonTchad 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Esaie Djikoloum signs something — a contract at CotonTchad or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
In brief
MarketThe clock does Bob Cetric’s negotiating for him
BoardroomThe CotonTchad board put their names to it
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at CotonTchad 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 CotonTchad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The board have put money on the table rather than an encouraging word. What happens to it now is somebody else's problem, and somebody else's job.
Squad6 Dec 2027
Words at CotonTchad training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. John Owira 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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. CotonTchad scored in the 93th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” CotonTchad have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Francisco Ayala 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.
At 22 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.
Marked 8.55 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what CotonTchad can pretend not to have heard.
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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
7.55, 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.
Yannick Masra 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around CotonTchad they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Francisco Ayala and CotonTchad agree another 2 years.
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.
A brace, and Finn McKenlay takes the afternoon — 9.29
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Finn McKenlay provided it, and the 9.29 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
At 36 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.67 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” CotonTchad have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Francisco Ayala 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Finn McKenlay. 3‑1 against AS Etat Major, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
At 22 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.
18 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. CotonTchad lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 CotonTchad, and it is not being withdrawn.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Madaoua Tchiva did not need any: 7.70, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
At 36 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.88 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Akobirjon Ahmadjonov is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
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.
25 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. CotonTchad lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Two goals and a mark of 8.82 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Francisco Ayala 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Finn McKenlay has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Marked 8.46 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Squad18 Oct 2027
Words at CotonTchad training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dedi Kusnandar 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.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Esaie Djikoloum signs something — a contract at CotonTchad or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
32 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. CotonTchad lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Madaoua Tchiva will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around CotonTchad the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
5 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.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against US Moursal? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
8 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.
The board have signed the man in the dugout to a longer contract, which says more than any statement of support. Stability is easy to promise and costly to keep.
Francisco Ayala 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.
Boardroom4 Oct 2027
5 academy players handed senior numbers at CotonTchad
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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Moussa Abba is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Abdramane Moustapha is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Moussa Ngaradoumbe 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Ahmat Tokindang 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what CotonTchad can pretend not to have heard.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Akobirjon Ahmadjonov is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Adama Coulibaly is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Esaie Djikoloum 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.
At 27 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 4 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.
In brief
SquadWords at CotonTchad training over how hard people work
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Madaoua Tchiva will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around CotonTchad the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Kafiatur Rizky is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
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.
At 29 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 4 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Tom Shelah signs something — a contract at CotonTchad or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 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.
Francisco Ayala 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.
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.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Words at CotonTchad training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dedi Kusnandar 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 board have answered with money instead of encouragement, which is the only answer a manager ever wants. Spending it well is now entirely his problem.
The offer from Elect Sport for Madaoua Tchiva was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 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 CotonTchad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Adama Coulibaly is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
A season average of 7.26 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. CotonTchad know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
Francisco Ayala 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Herman Mwambegu has just signed for CotonTchad, and for once the answer mattered.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Kafiatur Rizky is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
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.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Yannick Masra 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.
Nobody sells a season ticket on a signing like this. Every manager who has been through a bad October wants one anyway, and CotonTchad have gone and got theirs early.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Tom Shelah signs something — a contract at CotonTchad or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Reuben Otieno is living that version at CotonTchad, and it tends to show in the first month.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Finn McKenlay is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Yannick Masra 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.
“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 Reuben Otieno.
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.
A season average of 7.26 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. CotonTchad know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
Francisco Ayala 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 Jul 2027
Words at CotonTchad training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dedi Kusnandar 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 offer from AS DGSSIE for Madaoua Tchiva was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
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.
In brief
SquadFinn McKenlay has become a man the manager trusts
Francisco Ayala 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 phone has started ringing about Madaoua Tchiva again, and this time the name on the line is Renaissance. CotonTchad are listening politely and promising nothing.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. CotonTchad will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
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.
3 arrivals, an average age nobody would call a squad, and a set of parents being shown around a building their sons will spend more time in than at home. The scouting has already happened; today is only the paperwork.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what CotonTchad can pretend not to have heard.
The offer from Elect Sport for Madaoua Tchiva was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
The offer from Elect Sport for Mahamat Adda was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what CotonTchad can pretend not to have heard.
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.
Nobody at CotonTchad 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 did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and CotonTchad will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what CotonTchad can pretend not to have heard.
Francisco Ayala 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.
Nobody at CotonTchad 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 CotonTchad can pretend not to have heard.
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.
AS PSI will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Hasanboy Tojiboyev has pre-agreed a move to CotonTchad, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Roy Katri has his answer from CotonTchad; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
He is 21, he is averaging 7.26, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
Francisco Ayala 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
BoardroomWages eat 85% of everything CotonTchad earn
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.
Nobody at CotonTchad 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.
Francisco Ayala 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.
Nobody at CotonTchad 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.
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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
A season average of 7.26 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. CotonTchad know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
Esaie Djikoloum 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.
Bicto Tyonga 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.
Nobody at CotonTchad 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.
“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.
Position 2, 42 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking 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 CotonTchad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Francisco Ayala 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.
Nobody at CotonTchad 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.
He is 21, he is averaging 7.26, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Francisco Ayala and CotonTchad agree another 2 years.
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.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.81 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Francisco Ayala 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.
It finished 1‑0, and it was Goukouni Abakar’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to CotonTchad.
Player ratings29 Mar 2027
Goukouni Abakar was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.16. 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.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
In brief
BoardroomWages eat 87% of everything CotonTchad earn
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Finn McKenlay did not need any: 7.64, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
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 a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Finn McKenlay has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Esaie Djikoloum 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.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Nobody at CotonTchad 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.
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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Goukouni Abakar provided it, and the 8.68 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Finn McKenlay did not need any: 7.81, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.01 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
He is 21, he is averaging 7.24, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Esaie Djikoloum and CotonTchad agree another 2 years.
Bicto Tyonga 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.
Francisco Ayala 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 mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; CotonTchad are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
35 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Player ratings22 Feb 2027
Finn McKenlay, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.61
A mark of 7.61 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Foullah Edifice will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Kafiatur Rizky has pre-agreed a move to CotonTchad, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Three points for CotonTchad, 1‑0 the final word against AS PSI in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Player ratings22 Feb 2027
Goukouni Abakar was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.15. 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.
Akobirjon Ahmadjonov 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.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Dedi Kusnandar will call it something else in private.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“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 CotonTchad, and it is not being withdrawn.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.10 at 36, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Francisco Ayala 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Adamu Mohammad is living that version at CotonTchad, and it tends to show in the first month.
A touch he did not want, a bounce he could not have read, and his name in the wrong column. There is no consoling a man after one of these, and CotonTchad will not try tonight.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Renaissance moved on, Mahamat Adda reports back to CotonTchad, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.33 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
He is 21, he is averaging 7.22, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
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.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Finn McKenlay is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.24 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
Finn McKenlay, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.07
A mark of 8.07 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
The phone has started ringing about Mahamat Adda again, and this time the name on the line is Renaissance. CotonTchad are listening politely and promising nothing.
Francisco Ayala 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.
3 away wins in a row. Travelling support is the truest kind, and this season it is being repaid in the only currency that counts.
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
Goukouni Abakar was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.05. 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 figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
In brief
SquadSeth Clark has become a man the manager trusts
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.69 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
27 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Player ratings25 Jan 2027
Finn McKenlay, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.65
A mark of 7.65 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
The terraces25 Jan 2027
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 4 of the 20 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
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 hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Finn McKenlay did not need any: 8.02, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
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.
At 21 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Goukouni Abakar. 1‑0 against AS Algoy, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 8.33 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 14 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Finn McKenlay did not need any: 7.91, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what CotonTchad can pretend not to have heard.
He is 21, he is averaging 7.15, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. CotonTchad told Rúnar Gissurarson something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. CotonTchad will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
The phone has started ringing about Mahamat Adda again, and this time the name on the line is Galactik. CotonTchad are listening politely and promising nothing.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Léger Djimrangar signs something — a contract at CotonTchad or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.57 at 39, and nobody on the pitch was better.
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.
Gazelle made CotonTchad work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Goukouni Abakar was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.62. 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.
Nobody at CotonTchad is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
In brief
The terracesThe press cannot get enough of Louai Taha
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” CotonTchad have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
At 38 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.68 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Finn McKenlay did not need any: 7.61, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Francisco Ayala 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.
15 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
6 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.
Nobody at CotonTchad is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.36 at 38, and nobody on the pitch was better.
He is 21, he is averaging 7.07, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at CotonTchad, and 5 appearances in 17 say he has earned the hearing.
Esaie Djikoloum 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.
“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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Finn McKenlay is the division's best young player this month
At 21 he has spent a month being better than everybody his age in the league, which is a different and harder thing than one good afternoon. CotonTchad will try very hard not to make too much of it.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.82 at 38, and nobody on the pitch was better.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Finn McKenlay did not need any: 8.03, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
23 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.
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.
Bicto Tyonga 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Finn McKenlay has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
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.
Francisco Ayala 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.
“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 CotonTchad know it.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 15 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
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.
18 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
9 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.
“I watch every CotonTchad game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Elect Sport runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Akobirjon Ahmadjonov 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.
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.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Finn McKenlay did not need any: 9.20, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Francisco Ayala 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.
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.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Finn McKenlay, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.90
A mark of 8.90 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
At 38 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.99 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“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 CotonTchad, 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 CotonTchad 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.
A 2‑0 win over AS Etat Major, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 20 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.30 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” CotonTchad have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Francisco Ayala 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.
At 21 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.
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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Bicto Tyonga has improved at 25, 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. 4 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
At 22 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at CotonTchad, and 1 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 55 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.82, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
A brace, and Mahamat Adda takes the afternoon — 8.32
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mahamat Adda provided it, and the 8.32 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.15 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Seth Clark 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. 4 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 71 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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 CotonTchad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
3 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.
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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 78 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Finn McKenlay is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
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.
In brief
Squad15 new faces, and CotonTchad are still learning each other
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 85 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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.
At 25 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at CotonTchad, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at CotonTchad would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Francisco Ayala 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Seth Clark has improved at 25, 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.
“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 CotonTchad, and it is not being withdrawn.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Adama Coulibaly is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
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.
Francisco Ayala is 37 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.
Esaie Djikoloum 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 Aug 2026
9 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.
A new face in his position, and Louai Taha suddenly has to win back what he thought he owned. CotonTchad have promised nothing — clubs rarely do at this stage.
Bicto Tyonga 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.
A new face in his position, and Esaie Djikoloum suddenly has to win back what he thought he owned. CotonTchad have promised nothing — clubs rarely do at this stage.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at CotonTchad would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Esaie Djikoloum 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.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at CotonTchad would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
“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 CotonTchad, and it is not being withdrawn.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. CotonTchad will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
The phone has started ringing about Madaoua Tchiva again, and this time the name on the line is Elect Sport. CotonTchad are listening politely and promising nothing.
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.
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.
“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 Mahamat Adda.
7 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.