65 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Chamois Niortais lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Chamois Niortais can pretend not to have heard.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Amine Karraoui will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Chamois Niortais the goodbyes have quietly begun.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Amine Karraoui has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Squad6 Mar 2028
Mathieu Boyer 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Vincent Guyot and Chamois Niortais agree another 2 years.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Chamois Niortais this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The words a physio says slowly. 73 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Chamois Niortais have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mathieu Boyer 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Mattia Angelicchio has just signed for Chamois Niortais, and for once the answer mattered.
At 22 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.
Mattia Angelicchio is 18, and Chamois Niortais have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
Successful dribbles: 34. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings25 Oct 2027
A brace, and Jacques Leroy takes the afternoon — 9.19
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Jacques Leroy provided it, and the 9.19 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Chamois Niortais this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Benoît Berger 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.
Nobody at Chamois Niortais will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Chamois Niortais know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Stéphane Sparagna has just signed for Chamois Niortais, and for once the answer mattered.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Chamois Niortais this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 29 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Jacques Leroy in the middle of it, and Olympique de Marseille unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
In brief
Player ratingsNinety minutes of Didier Muller at his very best
Two goals and a mark of 9.17 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
5 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
12 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.
Jacques Leroy 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.
At 29 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Match21 Aug 2027
Another one collected away from home
4 on the bounce on the road for Chamois Niortais. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Stade Brestois paid $1.4M and Chamois Niortais took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Jacques Leroy 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.
Marked 9.46 — 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Benoît Berger has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Two goals and a mark of 8.98 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“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 Chamois Niortais hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Chamois Niortais this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The name of Julien Arnaud has come up in conversations Chamois Niortais were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Thomas Perrin 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 finished 2‑1, and it was Jacques Leroy’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Chamois Niortais.
Squad3 Aug 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Mathieu Boyer'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 ratingsThe cruellest goal, and it is Louis Clément's