Marked for Owen Méndez
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market11 Jun 2029
Assane Ndiaye has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Valenciennes they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The terraces11 Jun 2029
Sebastián Olmedo has gone, the accounts have $830.0K in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
Transfer targets11 Jun 2029
The offer went to Olympique Lyonnais this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Market11 Jun 2029
The offer from Seraing for Abdelsamad Hachem was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Market11 Jun 2029
“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.
Transfer targets11 Jun 2029
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Transfer targets11 Jun 2029
The deal with Stade Brestois is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Transfer targets11 Jun 2029
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: RC Lens keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Market11 Jun 2029
FC Lorient paid $830.0K and Valenciennes took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad9 Apr 2029
Emiliano Reyes damages knee ligaments — 34 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 34 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.
Match7 Apr 2029
Valenciennes make home a hard place to visit
13 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Squad9 Apr 2029
Daou Diomandé and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout9 Apr 2029
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Daou Diomandé, and the manager let it.
Match7 Apr 2029
A 1‑0 win over US Boulogne, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings9 Apr 2029
A performance of 8.03 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Market9 Apr 2029
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Player ratings9 Apr 2029
Successful dribbles: 15. 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.
Squad9 Apr 2029
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Valenciennes are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad2 Apr 2029
A knee injury of the worst kind for Emiliano Reyes
41 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Valenciennes lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The dugout2 Apr 2029
Youssef Medani: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Valenciennes have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad2 Apr 2029
Ismaïl Aaneba 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.
Squad2 Apr 2029
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Valenciennes can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
The dugout2 Apr 2029
“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.
Squad2 Apr 2029
Owen Méndez and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Market2 Apr 2029
“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.
The dugout2 Apr 2029
Daou Diomandé knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Daou Diomandé trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Match2 Apr 2029
Continental football is in reach for Valenciennes
42 points from position 5. The title is somebody else’s business and the drop is somebody else’s problem; what is left is the argument about passports.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match2 Dec 2028
No end in sight to Valenciennes's wait for a win
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Valenciennes has to find a result from somewhere.
The dugout4 Dec 2028
Bahliseny Fofana: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Valenciennes have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad4 Dec 2028
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Naoufel Zerhouni commits to Valenciennes for another 2 years.
Squad4 Dec 2028
Daou Diomandé 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 dugout4 Dec 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.
The dugout4 Dec 2028
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Loan watch4 Dec 2028
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Valenciennes, and 5 appearances in 22 say he has earned the hearing.
The dugout4 Dec 2028
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Squad4 Dec 2028
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Valenciennes are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match30 Sep 2028
9 matches without a win, and then this, against Stade Briochin. Relief is a strange noise in a football ground and it was the only noise at the end.
Market2 Oct 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 Valenciennes, and it is not being withdrawn.
The dugout2 Oct 2028
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Valenciennes may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad2 Oct 2028
Daou Diomandé 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.
Match30 Sep 2028
It finished 1‑0, and it was Charles Abi’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Valenciennes.
The dugout2 Oct 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Samir Belloumou, and the manager let it.
Market2 Oct 2028
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Player ratings2 Oct 2028
Nobody on the pitch touched Eros Maddy
7.55, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Valenciennes had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
Squad2 Oct 2028
“The easiest signature of my career.” Cristiano Di Zio and Valenciennes agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.