The Tours Chronicle
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
A brace, and Richard Leroux takes the afternoon — 8.83
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Richard Leroux provided it, and the 8.83 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Yann Girard runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 29. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Diego Mascardi is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Defences have started doubling up on Richard Leroux
13 goals and a season average of 7.44 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Hervé Lopez 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 Tours this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match10 Oct 2026
Richard Leroux sends Tours past Sochaux
It finished 3‑2, and it was Richard Leroux’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Tours.
The terraces12 Oct 2026
The crowd has taken to Richard Renard
At 18 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.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Vincent Lemaire did the work nobody counts — 7.06
11 combined actions and 7.06. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
Squad12 Oct 2026
François Blanchard stays put
“The easiest signature of my career.” François Blanchard and Tours agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
In brief
- Market Hervé Lopez linked with a move away
- Player ratings David Le Gall ran the game
- Market The shop window has Joseph Fournier in it