Every club 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 it has been tried.
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Foullah Edifice than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Bechir Djimet signs something — a contract at Foullah Edifice or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The language has come, the shrug has gone, and he argues in training like a man who expects to be here next year. None of it shows up on a fee and all of it shows up on the pitch.
“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 The request is on a desk at Foullah Edifice, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
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.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Hassan Oumar kept it short after the 2‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
It is a small honour and it is not nothing: somebody watched every match in the division and decided that Mahamat Adda was the best thing in any of them.
Successful dribbles: 11. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
11 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.
At 23 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Mahamat Adda and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Marked 8.98 — 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.
At 23 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.
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. AS DGSSIE spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
At 31 the improving is meant to be over, and it is not: 3 points better than a year ago. It happens to the ones who take the boring parts seriously.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Yves Allarabaye was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.18. 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Said Aboubakar Souley is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Abdoulaye Mbainaissem 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.
At 25 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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Hassan Oumar after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Every debut is a small story about the future: Brahim Moustapha, 14 years old, off the academy pitches and into the first team. The parents in the stand will keep the programme.
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Foullah Edifice have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Kita provided it, and the 8.81 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
There is exactly one of these per career and it does not usually go like this. 0 on the scoresheet, 7.60 beside the name, and a crowd that had never seen him before chanting it by the end.
At 22 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
1 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Abdoulaye 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.
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.
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.
At 24 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.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. CotonTchad have kept their man, and Foullah Edifice go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Abdelaziz Issa has improved at 31, 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.
At 18 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. AS Algoy have kept their man, and Foullah Edifice go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Saleh Mbainaissem 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 deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 8 arrived, 0 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Florent Warna is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Kita has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
He used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.
“Ask me in the summer. I will know before anybody else does.” He is 34 with 0 appearances behind him, and Foullah Edifice have to plan for both answers.
Mahamat Adda was the name on every phone-in, and the club has gone and signed him for $21.0K. For one week the board can do no wrong, which is a week most boards never get.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Al Gaish have kept their man, and Foullah Edifice go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
$21.0K on the table at CotonTchad. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Foullah Edifice will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Foullah Edifice asked and Bechem United said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Constant Matoingue and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Gazelle Garoua have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Mahamat Allamine 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Brahim Moustapha 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. Djibrine Abakar has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Narcisse Mbaiguedem 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Foullah Edifice this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Constant Matoingue 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 was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Foullah Edifice has been clear about where Bicto Tyonga stands, which is more than many ever get.