The words a physio says slowly. 46 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.
A 3‑1 win over ES Ben Aknoun, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Mohamed Benlebna, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.76
A mark of 8.76 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.
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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Issam Abdelhamid Naim is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Mohamed Benlebna 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 8.65 — 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.
27 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. ES Setif lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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; ES Setif are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Mohamed Benlebna is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
36 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. ES Setif lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Adama Niane 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 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.
43 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. ES Setif lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
There is exactly one of these per career and it does not usually go like this. 0 on the scoresheet, 7.43 beside the name, and a crowd that had never seen him before chanting it by the end.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Oussama Bouguerri is 20, 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 ES Setif this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at ES Setif training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kamohelo Mokotjo 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Adama Niane. 1‑0 against USM Alger, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 8 of the 32 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
Akram Djahnit 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Ala Eddine Bouaoune is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
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.
Shots: 5. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
The offer from Al Gaish for Daniel Gnahoua 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 ES Setif this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
5 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at ES Setif training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Merouane Zerrouki 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 fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Omar 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Ahmed Bellahcene 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Abdelkader Belkebla is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
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.
Adama Niane 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.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at ES Setif has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Maritzburg United will make the call about Daniel Gnahoua this week. ES Setif have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
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.
In brief
SquadWords at ES Setif training over how hard people work
Add another name to the list: Maritzburg United have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Daniel Gnahoua. The answer from ES Setif has not changed — yet.
Akram Djahnit 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 terraces17 Aug 2026
ES Setif spend $640.0K on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $640.0K for Abdellah Meddah, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
5 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.
Akram Djahnit 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 injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 15 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at ES Setif this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
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.