Marked for Rayane Messi
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings6 Mar 2028
No sign of nerves from Julián Vignolo at 21 — 8.38
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Julián Vignolo did not need any: 8.38, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Market6 Mar 2028
Aron Dønnum wants to know where this is going
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Toulouse FC hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Market6 Mar 2028
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Toulouse FC is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad6 Mar 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 Toulouse FC this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad6 Mar 2028
Words at Toulouse FC training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Cristian Cásseres 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 terraces6 Mar 2028
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.
Match4 Mar 2028
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Rayane Messi. 2‑0 against FC Lorient, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings6 Mar 2028
Nobody could get near Yann Gboho
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad6 Mar 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Okan Erdoğan, and the manager let it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market17 Jan 2028
Business is business: Kjetil Haug goes
FC Metz paid $3.1M and Toulouse FC took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Match15 Jan 2028
4 matches without a win for Toulouse FC
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Toulouse FC are no longer polite ones.
Squad17 Jan 2028
Thibault Lemaire 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.
Squad17 Jan 2028
A muscle injury sidelines Abu Francis for 14 days
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Toulouse FC will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Squad17 Jan 2028
Djibril Sidibé 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.
Squad17 Jan 2028
“The easiest signature of my career.” Hamza Boujida and Toulouse FC agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Match15 Jan 2028
A 2‑2 draw with RC Strasbourg leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
Player ratings17 Jan 2028
Rayane Messi turns it into his own net
Nobody's fault and entirely his: a goal that goes into the book with his name against it and nothing about it intended. Toulouse FC deserved better, and so did he.
Player ratings17 Jan 2028
Successful dribbles: 12. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market10 Jan 2028
Business is business: Natanaël Thio goes
Le Havre AC paid $3.9M and Toulouse FC took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Boardroom10 Jan 2028
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Jean Chrétien has agreed terms with Valenciennes for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Squad10 Jan 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 Toulouse FC this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market10 Jan 2028
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Toulouse FC heard it as anything else.
Squad10 Jan 2028
“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.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Words at Toulouse FC training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Djibril Sidibé 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.
Player ratings10 Jan 2028
Marked 8.09 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Player ratings10 Jan 2028
Aron Dønnum was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.06. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Market10 Jan 2028
Dijon are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Toulouse FC will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings3 Jan 2028
Two goals and a mark of 8.45 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Market3 Jan 2028
Chelsea come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and RC Strasbourg did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad3 Jan 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 RC Strasbourg this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Jan 2028
Ben Chilwell 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.
Match1 Jan 2028
The unbeaten run reaches 6. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Player ratings3 Jan 2028
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match1 Jan 2028
Monaco held the lead for 2 minutes, which is not long enough to enjoy it. RC Strasbourg answered before the celebration had properly finished, and the shape of the afternoon changed with it.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad14 Sep 2026
Mohau Nkota takes the match ball home
5 goals in one afternoon from one man. The other players were also present, a witness confirmed.
Match9 Sep 2026
A 9‑0 win over Ohod, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Squad14 Sep 2026
The match ball belongs to Rayane Messi, whose 3 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
A brace, and Georginio Wijnaldum takes the afternoon — 8.18
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Georginio Wijnaldum provided it, and the 8.18 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Mohau Nkota, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.42
A mark of 8.42 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Market14 Sep 2026
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Yasir Al-Shammari reports back to Al-Ettifaq with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Market14 Sep 2026
Marek Rodák wants to know where this is going
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Al-Ettifaq hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Rodrigo Bareiro 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.
Match9 Sep 2026
9 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Al-Ettifaq and Ohod in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.