At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.91 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Benoît Sida did not need any: 7.88, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Piotr Zieliński 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 8 goals between Le Havre AC and Olympique Lyonnais, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Words at Le Havre AC training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rassoul Ndiaye 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 directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Player ratings28 Aug 2028
Benoît Sida, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.87
A mark of 7.87 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Cristian Carrara is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Piotr Zieliński 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 Aug 2028
Words at Le Havre AC training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rassoul Ndiaye 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.
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Player ratings28 Aug 2028
Yassine Kechta was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.72. 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.
“I watch every Le Havre AC game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Stade Brestois runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Le Havre AC is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The offer from Derby County for Benoît Sida 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Le Havre AC this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 Jul 2028
Bas Kuipers 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.
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
“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 Le Havre AC, and it is not being withdrawn.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
Piotr Zieliński 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 Jul 2028
Reda Khadra 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.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Ayumu Seko scored, was marked 7.95, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
1 for Abdoulaye Touré, marked 6.93, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Words at Le Havre AC training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Reda Khadra 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.
N'dri Philippe Koffi 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.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Benoît Sida is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad13 Dec 2027
Reda Khadra 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Le Havre AC this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad18 Oct 2027
Reda Khadra 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Le Havre AC this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Noam Obougou Jacquet scored in the 87th minute, AJ Auxerre had already begun thinking about the journey home, and Le Havre AC took the lot.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Noam Obougou Jacquet did not need any: 8.88, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Successful dribbles: 22. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Reda Khadra 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Le Havre AC this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 23 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Le Havre AC this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Le Havre AC that is a harder question to answer.
Issa Soumaré 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Benoît Sida is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Words at Le Havre AC training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Reda Khadra 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.
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words at Le Havre AC training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Reda Khadra 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Le Havre AC this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
18 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
5 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.
5 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Le Havre AC can tell you which week it ends in.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Le Havre AC this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
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.
Squad23 Nov 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Ally Samatta's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
In brief
Player ratingsDahiss Mendy could not find anything
Player ratingsAn afternoon Ebroni Gnoan will want back