A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. OFI will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Successful dribbles: 27. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Boardroom2 Sep 2030
OFI close the window on a squad of their own making
12 in and 8 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Roméo Garnier is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Samuele Marini 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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Ilias Chatzitheodoridis and OFI agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Thiago Nuss 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 clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at OFI is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ismaïl Aaneba will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Paris FC the goodbyes have quietly begun.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
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 FC this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Pasquale Esposito has, at Paris FC, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Squad28 May 2029
Ilan Kebbal 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.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Michele Diana has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Paris FC have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
16 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Paris FC lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“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 FC, and it is not being withdrawn.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Paris FC have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Boardroom5 Feb 2029
Deadline passes with 2 signed and 2 gone
That is the business done at Paris FC until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
The deal with AS Nancy 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Paris FC they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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 FC this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Feb 2029
Words at Paris FC training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luca Koleosho 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 words a physio says slowly. 23 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.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 93th minute. Valenciennes will replay every second of the added time for a week.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Pablo Pagis was one of the reasons people came, and $29.4M does not replace that by itself.
AS Nancy have accepted the money. What Paris FC do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Successful dribbles: 38. 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 31 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Paris FC can pretend not to have heard.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and US Creteil waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Paris FC is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Samir Chergui will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Paris FC the goodbyes have quietly begun.
The clubs have shaken hands with AS Nancy; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.07 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Add another name to the list: KAA Gent have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Pablo Pagis. The answer from Paris FC has not changed — yet.
Diego Coppola 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.
38 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Paris FC lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Paris FC can pretend not to have heard.
7 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 Maxime Lopez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The words a physio says slowly. 45 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.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Paris FC people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Paris FC asked and Paris Saint-Germain said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Paris FC they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Paris FC had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at OGC Nice, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
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 FC this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.