Marked for Konrad Kasprzyk
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad18 Sep 2028
27 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. FC Fleury 91 lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Boardroom18 Sep 2028
The interim tag comes off Louis Aubry
FC Fleury 91 interviewed the field and appointed the corridor: Louis Aubry keeps the job he had been doing in all but title. Sometimes the safest pair of hands is the one already holding the wheel.
Match16 Sep 2028
9 matches without a win for FC Fleury 91
The run now stands at 9, and the questions being asked around FC Fleury 91 are no longer polite ones.
Match16 Sep 2028
4 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.
Player ratings18 Sep 2028
Successful dribbles: 22. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad18 Sep 2028
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 Fleury 91 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad18 Sep 2028
Gaël Alette 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.
Transfer targets18 Sep 2028
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
The dugout18 Sep 2028
The manager makes an example of Khalil Gannoun
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad11 Sep 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Khalil Gannoun
34 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. FC Fleury 91 lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market11 Sep 2028
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at FC Fleury 91 is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Transfer targets11 Sep 2028
No thanks: Amal Boura rejects the move
FC Fleury 91 had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Monaco, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Grégoire Lefebvre 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.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Liel 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.
Squad11 Sep 2028
“The easiest signature of my career.” Paul Jawa and FC Fleury 91 agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
The dugout11 Sep 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Konrad Kasprzyk, and the manager let it.
Looking ahead11 Sep 2028
Paris 13 Atletico next, and one man in the FC Fleury 91 dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Market11 Sep 2028
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at FC Fleury 91, another week without a signature from Valentin Lavigne.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad26 Jun 2028
116 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. FC Fleury 91 lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The dugout26 Jun 2028
This is not rotation. Morgan Jean-Pierre has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at FC Fleury 91 is pretending otherwise.
Squad26 Jun 2028
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 Fleury 91 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets26 Jun 2028
$11.0K on the table at Dijon. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Transfer targets26 Jun 2028
FC Fleury 91 have gone to FC Lorient with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Transfer targets26 Jun 2028
FC Metz wanted more than $4.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Squad26 Jun 2028
The medical room confirms 46 days on the sidelines for Paul Jawa, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Squad26 Jun 2028
Words at FC Fleury 91 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Konrad Kasprzyk 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 dugout26 Jun 2028
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Khalil Gannoun has written the date down.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The dugout29 May 2028
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” FC Fleury 91 may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
The dugout29 May 2028
This is not rotation. Morgan Jean-Pierre has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at FC Fleury 91 is pretending otherwise.
Squad29 May 2028
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 Fleury 91 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad29 May 2028
Enis Ulusoy gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Enis Ulusoy has just signed for FC Fleury 91, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad29 May 2028
Stéphane Lambèse 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.
Squad29 May 2028
Everybody at FC Fleury 91 saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 35 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings14 Feb 2028
Successful dribbles: 24. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad14 Feb 2028
Grégoire Lefebvre and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad14 Feb 2028
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Stéphane Lambèse was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad14 Feb 2028
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at FC Fleury 91 can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Match12 Feb 2028
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Boardroom14 Feb 2028
The accounts are being read more closely than the results. Wages before ambition is the order of business now, and the manager has been told so.
The dugout14 Feb 2028
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Rémi Morel chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
The dugout14 Feb 2028
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at FC Fleury 91, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Squad14 Feb 2028
No place for Jamie Grimes in the new shape
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation FC Fleury 91 are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings22 Nov 2027
Successful dribbles: 41. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market22 Nov 2027
“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.
Squad22 Nov 2027
Stéphane Lambèse 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.
Squad22 Nov 2027
Kévin Farade 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.
The terraces22 Nov 2027
He is 22 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.
The dugout22 Nov 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Khalil Gannoun, and the manager let it.
Squad22 Nov 2027
25 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Market22 Nov 2027
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at FC Fleury 91, another week without a signature from Gaël Alette.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad13 Sep 2027
The knee: Bobby Allain out for 55 days
55 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. FC Fleury 91 lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Squad13 Sep 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Nadir Homssa commits to FC Fleury 91 for another 4 years.
Squad13 Sep 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 Fleury 91 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad13 Sep 2027
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
The dugout13 Sep 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.
The dugout13 Sep 2027
Nadir Homssa knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Nadir Homssa trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The dugout13 Sep 2027
Rubio Fidalgo has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at FC Fleury 91 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.
Looking ahead13 Sep 2027
Paris 13 Atletico next, and one man in the FC Fleury 91 dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The dugout13 Sep 2027
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.