Words at Pau FC training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tanguy Ndombele 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.
Jean Ruiz 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Pau FC know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
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.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
In brief
The dugoutOusmane Kanté knocks on the manager’s door
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.
Anthony Briançon 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.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Tanguy Ndombele. 2‑0 against EA Guingamp, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings12 Apr 2027
Tanguy Ndombele was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.14. 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Jean Boyer on a 2‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Brayan Nzita is on it.
2 in front and in complete control, and it finished with Le Mans FC the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that Pau FC will enjoy reviewing.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Leonardo Pais has, at Pau FC, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
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.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Noah Raveyre 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Tanguy Ndombele was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Anthony Briançon 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 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Souleymane Basse 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.
US Boulogne made Pau FC work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings8 Mar 2027
Tanguy Ndombele was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.36. 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.
The dugout8 Mar 2027
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.” Jean Boyer kept it short after the 2‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Pau FC have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
Everybody at Pau FC saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 37 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
1 for Tanguy Ndombele, marked 7.85, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
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.
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.
Anthony Briançon 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 is 19 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
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.
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.
Anthony Briançon and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad5 Oct 2026
12 new faces, and Pau FC are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Jean Boyer to a room that had heard them before.
Gastón Valente is 39 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
Olympique Lyonnais arrived with $1.8M and left with the best player in the building. The board will call it business; the queue at the ticket office will use other words.
Joseph Kalulu has gone, the accounts have $1.8M in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $9.5M — a club that wants Ilan Kebbal enough to be asked twice.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Pau FC asked and Club Brugge said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Edhy Zuliani 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pau FC this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
Player ratingsNobody on the pitch touched Edhy Zuliani