Marked for Ali Youssef
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match8 Apr 2028
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 3‑0 against OGC Nice, and it could have been more.
Player ratings10 Apr 2028
A brace, and Ali Youssef takes the afternoon — 8.83
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Ali Youssef provided it, and the 8.83 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings10 Apr 2028
Dee-Shawn Jacinthe, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 8.00
A mark of 8.00 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Squad10 Apr 2028
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Stade Rennais have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad10 Apr 2028
Adrien Thomasson 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.
Squad10 Apr 2028
Words at Stade Rennais training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ludovic Blas 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.
Boardroom10 Apr 2028
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Jhoanner Chávez has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Stade Rennais have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Player ratings10 Apr 2028
Başar Önal runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings10 Apr 2028
A defender's afternoon for Djaoui Cissé
Defensive actions: 18. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market13 Mar 2028
“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.
Market13 Mar 2028
“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.
Squad13 Mar 2028
Adrien Thomasson 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.
Squad13 Mar 2028
Words at Stade Rennais training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lilian Brassier 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.
Squad13 Mar 2028
“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; Stade Rennais are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Player ratings13 Mar 2028
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 21 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Squad13 Mar 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Adrien Thomasson, and the manager let it.
Player ratings13 Mar 2028
20 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Player ratings13 Mar 2028
20 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings17 Jan 2028
Two goals and a mark of 8.50 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Market17 Jan 2028
Business is business: Ali Youssef goes
Stade Rennais paid $14.0M and FC Nantes took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
The terraces17 Jan 2028
Supporters turn on the $14.0M sale of Ali Youssef
He is going to Stade Rennais, the club has $14.0M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
Squad17 Jan 2028
Wesley Saïd in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at FC Nantes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad17 Jan 2028
Words at FC Nantes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Allan Saint-Maximin 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 Jan 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Johann Lepenant, and the manager let it.
Player ratings17 Jan 2028
Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Loan watch17 Jan 2028
“I did not go to Lugano to sit and watch. I want to come back to FC Nantes and fight for my place.” 9 appearances in 31 matches say the rest.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market17 Jan 2028
The fee is $14.0M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. FC Nantes drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Market17 Jan 2028
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Stade Rennais can pretend not to have heard.
Squad17 Jan 2028
A move Toni Silić 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. Toni Silić is living that version at Stade Rennais, and it tends to show in the first month.
Market17 Jan 2028
Every dressing room knows how to read a signing like this one. Başar Önal is not here to sit and wait indefinitely, and the man whose place he has been bought to take knows it better than anyone.
Player ratings17 Jan 2028
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.91 for the rest of it.
Market17 Jan 2028
Every dressing room knows how to read a signing like this one. Toni Silić is not here to sit and wait indefinitely, and the man whose place he has been bought to take knows it better than anyone.
Match15 Jan 2028
Facundo Medina among the goals in a wild afternoon
6 goals in one match, Facundo Medina on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Stade Rennais and Monaco.
Squad17 Jan 2028
Words at Stade Rennais training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lilian Brassier 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.
The terraces17 Jan 2028
Boards get told what they have done wrong for years and hear nothing on the days they get it right. This is one of those days: Ali Youssef from FC Nantes for $14.0M, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad10 Jan 2028
A fracture rules Ignatius Ganago out for 15 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason FC Nantes will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad10 Jan 2028
A one-man rearguard from Alban Lafont
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.
Player ratings10 Jan 2028
Successful dribbles: 26. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market10 Jan 2028
Add another name to the list: Stade Brestois have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Dehmaine Tabibou. The answer from FC Nantes has not changed — yet.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Allan Saint-Maximin 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.
Squad10 Jan 2028
“The easiest signature of my career.” Ali Youssef and FC Nantes agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Match8 Jan 2028
Olympique de Marseille left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Loan watch10 Jan 2028
“I did not go to Paris Saint-Germain to sit and watch. I want to come back to FC Nantes and fight for my place.” 1 appearances in 30 matches say the rest.
Player ratings10 Jan 2028
Marked 4.90. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad3 Jan 2028
A one-man rearguard from Alban Lafont
There were 12 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.
Squad3 Jan 2028
A fracture rules Ignatius Ganago out for 23 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason FC Nantes will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad3 Jan 2028
Ignatius Ganago: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” FC Nantes have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad3 Jan 2028
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. FC Nantes will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Market3 Jan 2028
“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.
Market3 Jan 2028
Hugo Novoa wants European nights
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Match1 Jan 2028
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Loan watch3 Jan 2028
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at FC Nantes, and 6 appearances in 24 say he has earned the hearing.
Market3 Jan 2028
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Rémy Descamps has his answer from FC Nantes; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad15 Nov 2027
A fracture rules Ignatius Ganago out for 84 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason FC Nantes will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match13 Nov 2027
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Ali Youssef will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at FC Nantes escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
Squad15 Nov 2027
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad15 Nov 2027
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Player ratings15 Nov 2027
Up for the corner, and Ali Youssef delivers — 7.77
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Ali Youssef scored, was marked 7.77, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Squad15 Nov 2027
Words at FC Nantes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Allan Saint-Maximin 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.
Player ratings15 Nov 2027
Marked 8.91 — 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.
Player ratings15 Nov 2027
Matthis Abline was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.56. 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.
Match13 Nov 2027
It finished 3‑3, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad25 Oct 2027
A fracture rules Ignatius Ganago out for 109 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason FC Nantes will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match23 Oct 2027
5 matches without a win for FC Nantes
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around FC Nantes are no longer polite ones.
Player ratings25 Oct 2027
Up for the corner, and Ali Youssef delivers — 7.33
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Ali Youssef scored, was marked 7.33, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Squad25 Oct 2027
Wesley Saïd 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 ratings25 Oct 2027
Successful dribbles: 22. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market25 Oct 2027
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Squad25 Oct 2027
Allan Saint-Maximin 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.
Match23 Oct 2027
2‑3 to Stade Rennais, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad25 Oct 2027
“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
Steady
Squad30 Aug 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” FC Nantes may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Match28 Aug 2027
Still nobody has beaten FC Nantes
The unbeaten run reaches 8. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Match28 Aug 2027
4 matches without a win for FC Nantes
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around FC Nantes are no longer polite ones.
Squad30 Aug 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at FC Nantes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Musunda Mwamba is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad30 Aug 2027
“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 FC Nantes know it.
Player ratings30 Aug 2027
Successful dribbles: 20. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings30 Aug 2027
A performance of 8.39 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings30 Aug 2027
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.08, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market2 Aug 2027
The fee is $3.9M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. OGC Nice drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Squad2 Aug 2027
130 appearances across 8 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
Boardroom2 Aug 2027
The FC Nantes board want somebody sold
The instruction has come from upstairs rather than from the dugout, which is the version of this conversation no manager enjoys. Somebody in that squad is now available whether the man who picks the team thinks so or not.
Squad2 Aug 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Arnaud Bodart and FC Nantes agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad2 Aug 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at FC Nantes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Quentin Forget is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Market2 Aug 2027
The name of Dehmaine Tabibou has come up in conversations FC Nantes were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Loan watch2 Aug 2027
“I did not go to Paris Saint-Germain to sit and watch. I want to come back to FC Nantes and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 7 matches say the rest.
Market2 Aug 2027
No place for Ali Youssef in the plan
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Ali Youssef has his answer from FC Nantes; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad21 Jun 2027
Eliezer Mayenda is a better footballer than he was
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.
Market21 Jun 2027
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Arnaud Bodart wants continental football; whether FC Nantes can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad21 Jun 2027
“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 FC Nantes know it.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Jordan Amavi in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at FC Nantes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 Jun 2027
At 25 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 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.
Market21 Jun 2027
The name of Ignatius Ganago keeps appearing in other people's back pages. FC Nantes say nothing, which says plenty.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match26 Dec 2026
Beaten 0‑3 by RC Strasbourg, and beaten everywhere it matters. The inquest starts on the training pitch on Monday morning.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Mohamed Kaba: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” FC Nantes have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Match26 Dec 2026
No end in sight to FC Nantes's wait for a win
6 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at FC Nantes has to find a result from somewhere.
Match26 Dec 2026
No clean sheets in sight for FC Nantes
6 games now with at least two against. The back line has been rearranged, the goalkeeper has been backed publicly, and the goals keep going in anyway.
Squad28 Dec 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 FC Nantes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Boardroom28 Dec 2026
Nobody left the FC Nantes dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words at FC Nantes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Fabien Centonze 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.
Squad28 Dec 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Ali Youssef, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 23. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Jordan Amavi in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at FC Nantes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match31 Oct 2026
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad2 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Ali Youssef, and the manager let it.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Nabil Fekir 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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
When it matters, Ali Youssef plays
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.