99 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Chamois Niortais will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Chamois Niortais have had the benefit of it.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Chamois Niortais they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Thomas Perrin 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Thomas Perrin signs something — a contract at Chamois Niortais or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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. Marcelo Fonseca 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.
The offer from OGC Nice for Arnaud Leclercq 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Marc Pons will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Chamois Niortais the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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 Chamois Niortais this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Add another name to the list: OGC Nice have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Arnaud Leclercq. The answer from Chamois Niortais has not changed — yet.
“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 Chamois Niortais, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
Lion Lauberbach 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Spezia have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Petko Hristov 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.
Vincent Guyot 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.
“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 Chamois Niortais, and 2 appearances in 16 say he has earned the hearing.
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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
A place in the month's best eleven for Didier Muller
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Didier Muller has come out of that comparison in the side, and Chamois Niortais have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
A mark of 7.61 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 18-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Filippo Bandinelli 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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words at Spezia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Petko Hristov 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.
“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 Spezia, and 0 appearances in 17 say he has earned the hearing.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 18-year-old it feels ownership of. Christian Comotto 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.
“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 Spezia will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Spezia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
3 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.
0‑1 to Südtirol, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Words at Spezia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jérémy Oyono 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.
Petko Hristov 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 31 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Spezia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Spezia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Empoli moved on, Giuseppe Ciocci reports back to Spezia, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
It finished 1‑0, and it was Giuseppe Di Serio’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Spezia.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Spezia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jérémy Oyono 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.
8.00. 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 respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
$1.6M is a serious amount of money and it does not play centre-forward. Everybody in the dressing room knows who used to be looked at when it went wrong.
“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 Chamois Niortais, and it is not being withdrawn.
He is going to Angers SCO, the club has $1.6M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
The offer from Lecco for Frédéric Durand 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 Chamois Niortais this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.