81 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Osasuna lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
37 days with the chair empty, a list of names that grows and shrinks by the day, and not one signature on anything. Every week that passes takes the best candidates off it.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Iván Leszczuk will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Osasuna the goodbyes have quietly begun.
At 21 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.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Osasuna hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Osasuna, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The words a physio says slowly. 30 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 last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. AJ Auxerre have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“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 The request is on a desk at AJ Auxerre, and it is not being withdrawn.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether AJ Auxerre can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
The phone has started ringing about Lamine Sy again, and this time the name on the line is RC Strasbourg. AJ Auxerre are listening politely and promising nothing.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Axel Tuanzebe was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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; AJ Auxerre are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AJ Auxerre can pretend not to have heard.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Axel Tuanzebe wants continental football; whether AJ Auxerre can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Robin Risser 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.
Squad17 Apr 2028
Words at AJ Auxerre training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Axel Tuanzebe 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.
“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; AJ Auxerre are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
He has had enough of the noise. Whether AJ Auxerre can be a quieter place for him, or whether the only cure is a move somewhere the phone-ins are gentler, is a question for the next few months.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at AJ Auxerre, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Nobody at AJ Auxerre 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 want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at AJ Auxerre hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
The name of Imad Riahi has come up in conversations AJ Auxerre were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Mathis Clément has just signed for AJ Auxerre, and for once the answer mattered.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Axel Tuanzebe was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. FC Lorient have kept their man, and AJ Auxerre go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Axel Tuanzebe was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Pierre Robin after 0‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
“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 AJ Auxerre know it.
Robin Risser 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.
The offer went to Paris FC this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Axel Tuanzebe was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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 AJ Auxerre know it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. AJ Auxerre know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.