From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad12 Oct 2026
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Zakaria Saidi: 3 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Match7 Oct 2026
The small margins put ES Setif out
Out, 0‑0 to ES Ben Aknoun, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 43 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The terraces12 Oct 2026
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 8 of the 36 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Rachid Ghezzal, 34, rolls back the years — 7.81
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.81 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Sofiane Bendebka 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Kheir Eddine Toual is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match10 Oct 2026
Olympique Akbou left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad5 Oct 2026
A fracture rules Daniel Gnahoua out for 51 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason ES Setif will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Kiros wants to go home
“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 ES Setif know it.
Squad5 Oct 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at ES Setif this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad28 Sep 2026
A fracture rules Daniel Gnahoua out for 58 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason ES Setif will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 7.80, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad28 Sep 2026
A one-man rearguard from Brian Rowe
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Mohamed Messaoud Salem is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad28 Sep 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at ES Setif this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match26 Sep 2026
Three points for ES Setif, 2‑0 the final word against CR Belouizdad in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Defensive actions: 16. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
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.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 9. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad21 Sep 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at ES Setif this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Mehdi Boureghda is a better footballer than he was
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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Aldair Ferreira falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
18 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.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 18 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Squad21 Sep 2026
“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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match12 Sep 2026
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 3‑0 against ASO Chlef, and it could have been more.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Sofiane Bendebka 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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
A hand in 2 of them from Wilfred Nkaya — 7.95
Marked 7.95. There is a kind of forward whose value only shows up when you count what he was involved in rather than what he finished, and this is the day that argument makes itself.
The terraces14 Sep 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Carlos Abeldaño 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Aldair Ferreira, and the manager let it.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.66, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Kevin Akpoguma was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.12. 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.
Market14 Sep 2026
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at ES Setif, another week without a signature from Aldair Ferreira.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Mohamed Hamek dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad7 Sep 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at ES Setif this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
4 academy players handed senior numbers at ES Setif
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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Sofiane Bendebka 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Brian Rowe, and the manager let it.
Market7 Sep 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Abdelkader Bensebaini is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market7 Sep 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Mourad Belmadi is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market7 Sep 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Youcef Guedioura 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.
Market7 Sep 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Youcef Bounedjah 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
12 new faces, and ES Setif 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market31 Aug 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad31 Aug 2026
A muscle injury sidelines Rachid Ghezzal for 15 days
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. ES Setif will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Sofiane Bendebka 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market24 Aug 2026
Al-Faisaly come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and ES Setif did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Kevin Akpoguma gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Kevin Akpoguma has just signed for ES Setif, and for once the answer mattered.
Market24 Aug 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad17 Aug 2026
A move Aldair Ferreira would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Aldair Ferreira is living that version at ES Setif, and it tends to show in the first month.
Market17 Aug 2026
Add another name to the list: Al-Faisaly have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Daniel Gnahoua. The answer from ES Setif has not changed — yet.
Market17 Aug 2026
ES Setif say no — this time
The offer from Ismaily for John Okoli 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at ES Setif this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at ES Setif training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sofiane Bendebka 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
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. ES Setif will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market10 Aug 2026
$420.0K — a new record at ES Setif
No footballer has ever cost this club more, and the number will be read out every time he misplaces a pass for the next two years.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Rachid Ghezzal gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Rachid Ghezzal has just signed for ES Setif, and for once the answer mattered.
Market10 Aug 2026
Baniyas come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and ES Setif did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad10 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at ES Setif this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The terraces10 Aug 2026
ES Setif spend $420.0K on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $420.0K for Mohamed Messaoud Salem, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
Squad10 Aug 2026
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. ES Setif know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad3 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Akram Djahnit and ES Setif agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at ES Setif this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market3 Aug 2026
Add another name to the list: Baniyas have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Mohamed Benlebna. The answer from ES Setif has not changed — yet.
Market3 Aug 2026
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Market3 Aug 2026
49 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Kiros has outgrown this division
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. ES Setif know it, and so does everybody who watches him.