At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.68 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Nimes have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“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.
“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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mohamed Bayo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Idris Bounaas 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.
“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.
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.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Mohamed Bayo signs something — a contract at Nimes or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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.
Iza 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jamal Gonzaga 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 manager has re-ordered his thinking and Cláudio Falcão has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Nimes has been clear about where Mansour Dia stands, which is more than many ever get.
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.
“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.
Squad31 Mar 2031
Mohamed Bayo 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Nimes, another week without a signature from Ismaëlo Ganiou.
10 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Iza trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Iza 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.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Nimes will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Squad10 Mar 2031
Mohamed Bayo 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.
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.
“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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Nimes have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jamal Gonzaga 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.
Nicolas Garcia 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.
10 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
“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 Nimes, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
46 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.
“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.
“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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jamal Gonzaga was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Two goals and a mark of 10.00 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“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 deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 22 arrived, 20 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
11 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
$330.0K on the table at Monaco. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.