“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 The request is on a desk at Nimes, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Woobens Pacius will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Nimes the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jared Khasa was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Ammar El Orfi 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.
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.
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad6 Oct 2031
Jared Khasa 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.
“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; Nimes are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Banou Cissé 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 have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Nimes can pretend not to have heard.
Nimes had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Toulouse FC, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nimes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad8 Sep 2031
Samba Konaté 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.
“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 Nimes, and it is not being withdrawn.
The phone has started ringing about Woobens Pacius again, and this time the name on the line is Stade Brestois. Nimes are listening politely and promising nothing.
The offer from AS Nancy for Lenny Leonil was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Valters Lūsis has just signed for Nimes, and for once the answer mattered.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Toulouse FC is saying, and nobody at Nimes is enjoying the guessing.
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.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Nimes people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The offer from Stade Brestois for Woobens Pacius was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Nimes can pretend not to have heard.
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.
Everything agreed with Paris Saint-Germain, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Michel Ndary Adopo 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Georgije Bukejlović is living that version at Nimes, and it tends to show in the first month.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Issam Eddine Tahouri has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Nimes have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
“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 Nimes, and it is not being withdrawn.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Michel Ndary Adopo 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.
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.
Add another name to the list: US Creteil have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Thimothé David. The answer from Nimes has not changed — yet.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Hocine Boulegroun has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Nimes have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Stade Brestois waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Nimes is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Nimes can pretend not to have heard.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Chihab El Mehdi has just signed for Nimes, and for once the answer mattered.
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.
Banou Cissé 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.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
“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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Nimes is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Mateusz Hołownia has, at Nimes, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Jake Clarke-Salter 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Sochaux have kept their man, and Nimes go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Nimes will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The words a physio says slowly. 31 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Nimes they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Maxime Colin 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.
“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; Nimes are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Nobody at Nimes 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.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 58 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“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 Nimes, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have shaken hands with AS Nancy; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Nimes is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Melchior Anrich has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bryan Reynolds 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nimes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Nimes heard it as anything else.
Marked 8.16 — 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.
“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 Nimes know it.
The award is a small thing with a heavy meaning: for four weeks nobody in this division did his job better. Nimes have the trophy on a shelf and the player in the side.
The dugout2 Dec 2030
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑2 Charles Louis left the room before anybody could ask which.
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.
32 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Nimes lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Nimes is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Maxime Colin 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 have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Nimes can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
77 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Nimes lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Nimes can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Nimes is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Nimes asked and Olympique Lyonnais said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.
“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 Nimes know it.
Nimes have made the call to Clermont Foot. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
In brief
Transfer targetsA loan move for David Gauthier is in the works
The words a physio says slowly. 21 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 offer went to RC Strasbourg 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Thimothé David will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Nimes the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Nimes heard it as anything else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nimes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
$68.0K on the table at US Creteil. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Squad3 Jun 2030
Mazire Soula 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.