Marked for Wassim El Abrougui
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings24 Jan 2028
Successful dribbles: 37. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market24 Jan 2028
“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 The request is on a desk at Stade Lavallois, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad24 Jan 2028
Mamadou Camara 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.
Squad24 Jan 2028
Junior Mwanga 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.
Squad24 Jan 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Gino Caoki, and the manager let it.
Squad24 Jan 2028
30 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad23 Aug 2027
29 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Stade Lavallois lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings23 Aug 2027
Successful dribbles: 31. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad23 Aug 2027
“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.
Squad23 Aug 2027
David Tebili is a better footballer than he was
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.
Squad23 Aug 2027
Thibaut Vargas 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.
Boardroom23 Aug 2027
5 academy players handed senior numbers at Stade Lavallois
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Market23 Aug 2027
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Luc Pérez is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market23 Aug 2027
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Dominique André has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Market23 Aug 2027
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Rémi Morin has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad16 Aug 2027
38 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Stade Lavallois lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings16 Aug 2027
Successful dribbles: 26. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Augusto Levrand is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad16 Aug 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 Stade Lavallois this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Aug 2027
A late step up for Sam Sanna
At 28 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
The terraces16 Aug 2027
The crowd has taken to Trévis Dago
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Player ratings16 Aug 2027
A mark of 7.95, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings9 Aug 2027
Successful dribbles: 54. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Wassim El Abrougui damages knee ligaments — 46 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 46 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.
Market9 Aug 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 Stade Lavallois can pretend not to have heard.
Match7 Aug 2027
No end in sight to Stade Lavallois's wait for a win
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Stade Lavallois has to find a result from somewhere.
Market9 Aug 2027
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Cyril Mandouki reports back to Stade Lavallois with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Thibaut Vargas 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.
Player ratings9 Aug 2027
A performance of 8.03 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad9 Aug 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Musiliu Odekunle, and the manager let it.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Macarrão wants to go home
“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 Stade Lavallois know it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market2 Aug 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.
Match31 Jul 2027
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Stade Lavallois are no longer polite ones.
Squad2 Aug 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 Stade Lavallois this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Words at Stade Lavallois training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Julien Maggiotti 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.
Match31 Jul 2027
Le Havre AC left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad2 Aug 2027
The manager makes an example of Mamadou Samassa
“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.
Player ratings2 Aug 2027
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market2 Aug 2027
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Peter Ouaneh has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Stade Lavallois.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market5 Jul 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.
Squad5 Jul 2027
He will be fined, he will apologise, and he will play on Saturday. The order of those three tells you everything about what a football club actually values.
Squad5 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 Stade Lavallois this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Raised voices on the training ground at Stade Lavallois
It involved Julien Maggiotti, it was loud enough to reach the car park, and it was over by lunch. Dressing rooms run hot; the ones that should worry you are the silent ones.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Yohan Tavares 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.
Market5 Jul 2027
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.