Marked for Nicolas Florival
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad22 Mar 2027
Stanis Idumbo 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 Mar 2027
Nicolas Florival is a better footballer than he was
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.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Rayane Bounida was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The terraces22 Mar 2027
At 21 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 ratings22 Mar 2027
Nobody on the pitch touched Stanis Idumbo
7.59, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. EA Guingamp had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
Player ratings22 Mar 2027
Successful dribbles: 15. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The dugout22 Mar 2027
Amine Hemia 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 dugout22 Mar 2027
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.” Paul Girard chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
Match20 Mar 2027
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. AS Nancy defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market11 Jan 2027
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Paradou waiting with a shirt. Nobody at EA Guingamp is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Market11 Jan 2027
“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 EA Guingamp, and it is not being withdrawn.
Transfer targets11 Jan 2027
Everything agreed with Olympique Lyonnais, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Transfer targets11 Jan 2027
No thanks: Antoine Mendy rejects the move
EA Guingamp had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at OGC Nice, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Transfer targets11 Jan 2027
$550.0K on the table at Stade Brestois. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Adam Masina 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.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Nicolas Florival is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad11 Jan 2027
At 21, Stanis Idumbo is already the best thing here
An average of 7.00 in a first team he is several years too young for. EA Guingamp have something, and by now the whole division has noticed.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad28 Dec 2026
There were 8 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.27 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Stanis Idumbo 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.
Squad28 Dec 2026
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.
Match26 Dec 2026
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about EA Guingamp and Clermont Foot in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Amine Hemia ran the middle of the pitch — 7.81
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 12 combined actions and a mark of 7.81, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
The terraces28 Dec 2026
He is 21 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 dugout28 Dec 2026
No hiding place for Alvinho
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Alvinho, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad14 Dec 2026
Stanis Idumbo and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad14 Dec 2026
At 20 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.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Rayane Bounida 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.
Match14 Dec 2026
Halfway: EA Guingamp sit in position 14
17 points at the turn. The first half of a season is a promise; the second is a bill, and the town is about to find out which of the two this one was.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Sohaib Naïr, and the manager let it.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
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.” Paul Girard chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
Looking ahead14 Dec 2026
EA Guingamp take on the side everybody is chasing
Stade de Reims arrive as leaders. A side at the top is beaten roughly once a month, and the club that does it gets a week it remembers for a year.
Match12 Dec 2026
Nil-nil, and few chances worth the name. Stade Lavallois came to defend and left with exactly what they came for.