Marked for Héraba Gassama
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings20 Sep 2027
Ilies Belmokhtar, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 7.93
A mark of 7.93 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.
Squad20 Sep 2027
At 22 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.
Squad20 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 Nantes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Ibrahima Sissoko has improved at 29, which nobody expected
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.
Squad20 Sep 2027
A move Mohamed Niaré 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. Mohamed Niaré is living that version at FC Nantes, and it tends to show in the first month.
Player ratings20 Sep 2027
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The dugout20 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad26 Jul 2027
A fracture rules Federico Castro out for 30 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Olympique Lyonnais will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market26 Jul 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Olympique Lyonnais can pretend not to have heard.
Squad26 Jul 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 Olympique Lyonnais this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets26 Jul 2027
Olympique Lyonnais have gone to RC Lens 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.
Squad26 Jul 2027
Héraba Gassama gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Héraba Gassama has just signed for Olympique Lyonnais, and for once the answer mattered.
Transfer targets26 Jul 2027
Olympique Lyonnais asked and Stade Brestois said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad26 Jul 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Clinton Mata was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout26 Jul 2027
Abu Francis gets it from the manager
“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 dugout26 Jul 2027
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Olympique Lyonnais. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad19 Jul 2027
38 days out for Federico Castro after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Olympique Lyonnais will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Market19 Jul 2027
MC Alger come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Olympique Lyonnais did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Transfer targets19 Jul 2027
The deal with FC Nantes is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Squad19 Jul 2027
Tyler Morton 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.
Market19 Jul 2027
Business is business: Rémi Himbert goes
FC Nantes paid $610.0K and Olympique Lyonnais took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Transfer targets19 Jul 2027
RC Lens wanted more than $69.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Transfer targets19 Jul 2027
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.
Squad19 Jul 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Felix Bacher was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Loan watch19 Jul 2027
“I did not go to Nimes to sit and watch. I want to come back to Olympique Lyonnais and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 5 matches say the rest.