A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Paris 13 Atletico will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Jordan Poha and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad22 Apr 2030
Noa Donat 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.
Clermont Foot left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout22 Apr 2030
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Djordje Radonjic to a room that had heard them before.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Paris 13 Atletico will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Noa Donat was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Alexis Calant 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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Paris 13 Atletico, and both men came out saying it was fine.
In brief
The dugoutHubert Matynia dropped after a run of poor form
19 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Paris 13 Atletico lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Toulouse FC keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Jordan Poha and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad21 Jan 2030
Noa Donat 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Monaco have kept their man, and Paris 13 Atletico go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
He is 23 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 words a physio says slowly. 47 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.
8 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Noa Donat was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
The dugout24 Dec 2029
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Djordje Radonjic was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Paris 13 Atletico dressing room was either.
“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 Paris 13 Atletico, 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 Paris 13 Atletico this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Paris 13 Atletico know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Paris 13 Atletico, another week without a signature from Coli Saco.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Paris 13 Atletico, and both men came out saying it was fine.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Yannick Etilé signs something — a contract at Paris 13 Atletico or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Paris 13 Atletico will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Paris 13 Atletico will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.26 for the rest of it.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Federico Peralta and Paris 13 Atletico agree another 4 years.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Bjorn Veldhuis was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
The dugout12 Mar 2029
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑4 Pierre Martinez left the room before anybody could ask which.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Paris 13 Atletico this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Oct 2028
Noa Donat 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.
6 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 was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Paris 13 Atletico has been clear about where Djamal Berrabha stands, which is more than many ever get.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Valenciennes in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
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.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Paris 13 Atletico. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Albin Ekdal 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Oscar Villarreal has just signed for Paris 13 Atletico, and for once the answer mattered.
Paris 13 Atletico asked and Clermont Foot said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Noa Donat 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.
7 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.