Marked for Patrick Philippe
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match4 Jan 2027
38 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Market4 Jan 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad4 Jan 2027
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Chamois Niortais will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Match2 Jan 2027
8 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Words at Chamois Niortais training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Didier Guillot 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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Laurent Legrand 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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
“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.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
7.82, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Chamois Niortais had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match7 Dec 2026
Position 2 and 32 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Laurent Legrand 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.
Loan watch7 Dec 2026
“I did not go to Stade Lavallois to sit and watch. I want to come back to Chamois Niortais and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 17 matches say the rest.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match9 Nov 2026
Position 3 and 25 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Laurent Legrand 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.
Loan watch9 Nov 2026
“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 0 appearances in 13 say he has earned the hearing.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
7.65, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Chamois Niortais had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
There was one mistake and it ended in the net. Defenders are judged on the worst thing they did rather than on the eighty-nine minutes either side of it, which is unfair and is also the job.
Match7 Nov 2026
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad19 Oct 2026
Julien Maggiotti damages knee ligaments — 73 days out
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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Stade Lavallois may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Owen Kouassi in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Stade Lavallois this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Patrick Philippe is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Nobody could get near Eros Maddy
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
The afternoon belonged to Sam Sanna
A mark of 7.68, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match12 Oct 2026
Position 3 and 20 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Laurent Legrand, 34, rolls back the years — 7.94
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.94 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Match10 Oct 2026
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words at Chamois Niortais training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Didier Guillot 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Laurent Legrand 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.
Loan watch12 Oct 2026
“I did not go to Stade Lavallois to sit and watch. I want to come back to Chamois Niortais and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 9 matches say the rest.
Match10 Oct 2026
A 2‑0 win over Nimes, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Ninety minutes of Roger Guillot at his very best
Marked 8.02. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Chamois Niortais.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 13. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad21 Sep 2026
Julien Maggiotti damages knee ligaments — 103 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 103 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.
Match16 Sep 2026
A 2‑0 win over LOSC Lille, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
A debut Ethan Tandu will not forget — 7.29
There is exactly one of these per career and it does not usually go like this. 1 on the scoresheet, 7.29 beside the name, and a crowd that had never seen him before chanting it by the end.
Match16 Sep 2026
6 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
There were 7 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
No sign of nerves from Ethan Clavreul at 20 — 7.82
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Ethan Clavreul did not need any: 7.82, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Owen Kouassi in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Stade Lavallois this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Patrick Philippe is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
The terraces21 Sep 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Mathys Houdayer 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad14 Sep 2026
Daouda Guindo 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 terraces14 Sep 2026
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.
Match12 Sep 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Laurent Cousin. 1‑0 against US Creteil, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Timothée Pembélé 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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Marked 7.83. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
Loan watch14 Sep 2026
“I did not go to Stade Lavallois to sit and watch. I want to come back to Chamois Niortais and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 5 matches say the rest.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
14 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Squad14 Sep 2026
The first one is the one every signing is asked about until it arrives. It has arrived, and he can stop being asked.