“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Santa Clara have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Gabriel Batista 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 21, he is averaging 7.21, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Santa Clara this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
1‑4 against LOSC Lille, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Mark McKenzie 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 wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Toulouse FC have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Marked 8.95 — 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Toulouse FC this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
127% of the income goes out in wages at Toulouse FC
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Cristian Cásseres trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.