Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yves Colin 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Daniel Muller and Chamois Niortais agree another 2 years.
Philippe Bourgeois 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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Chamois Niortais are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The board have answered with money instead of encouragement, which is the only answer a manager ever wants. Spending it well is now entirely his problem.
“I watch every Chamois Niortais game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at RC Strasbourg runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The words a physio says slowly. 33 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.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.89 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
A season average of 7.35 with 15 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Marc Vidal 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.
“I did not go to Paris Saint-Germain to sit and watch. I want to come back to Chamois Niortais and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 12 matches say the rest.
AC Ajaccio will want this one forgotten quickly: 11‑1, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Chamois Niortais were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
41 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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.57 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
64 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.
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Chamois Niortais have 10 straight wins of it.
Match3 Oct 2026
Another one collected away from home
6 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Antonio De María y Campos has just signed for Chamois Niortais, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Yves Colin 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.” Daniel Muller and Chamois Niortais agree another 1 years.
“I did not go to Paris Saint-Germain to sit and watch. I want to come back to Chamois Niortais and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 8 matches say the rest.
80 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.
8 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.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 18 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Tours made Chamois Niortais work for it, but the scoreboard read 3‑2 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Marc Vidal 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.
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.