Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 15 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
7 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Red Star can tell you which week it ends in.
Balthazar Pierret 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.
In brief
SquadRyad Hachem falls out with a teammate over standards
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 22 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
6 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Red Star can tell you which week it ends in.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Red Star can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Red Star this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
11 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 29 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Red Star have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
5 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Quentin Beunardeau 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.
Squad29 Dec 2031
Ryad Hachem 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 19 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.
10 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 36 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“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 Red Star, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Red Star this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The words a physio says slowly. 26 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 43 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Red Star this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Squad15 Dec 2031
Words at Red Star training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hacène Benali 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Red Star will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.06 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Red Star this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Batuhan Yavuz and Red Star agree another 3 years.
Squad1 Sep 2031
9 new faces, and Red Star are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Red Star has been clear about where Josh Gidaree stands, which is more than many ever get.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Red Star is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Balthazar Pierret 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.
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.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Red Star will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Red Star has been clear about where Samy Id Taleb stands, which is more than many ever get.