Marked for Benoît Roche
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market2 Aug 2027
“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 The request is on a desk at Tours, and it is not being withdrawn.
Transfer targets2 Aug 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. FC Lorient have kept their man, and Tours go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad2 Aug 2027
A falling-out at Tours
Raymond Colin and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Patrick Lucas 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.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Too much change too quickly at Tours
6 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
The dugout2 Aug 2027
Émile Schmitt knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Émile Schmitt trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad19 Apr 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Hendricks Cakin
73 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Tours lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Words exchanged at Tours
Émile Schmitt 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.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Patrick Lucas 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 dugout19 Apr 2027
Raymond Colin gets picked when it counts
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Raymond Colin is on it.
Loan watch19 Apr 2027
31 appearances away from home and 6 goals to show for them. Every one of them makes next summer's conversation a little more expensive.
Market19 Apr 2027
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Tours know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Jean-Luc Jean has had enough of the bench
“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 Tours will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
The dugout19 Apr 2027
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
The dugout19 Apr 2027
Michel Vidal asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad18 Jan 2027
Defences have started doubling up on Raymond Colin
33 goals and a season average of 7.89 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Player ratings18 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 44. 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.
Match18 Jan 2027
Tours up to position 2
58 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Player ratings18 Jan 2027
A brace, and Pierre Huet takes the afternoon — 8.08
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Pierre Huet provided it, and the 8.08 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Squad18 Jan 2027
A falling-out at Tours
Patrick Lucas and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match16 Jan 2027
Three points for Tours, 3‑1 the final word against Bourg-Peronnas in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad18 Jan 2027
A row about effort at Tours
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Laurent Jacquet was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The terraces18 Jan 2027
Tours supporters have found a favourite in Émile Schmitt
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Émile Schmitt 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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Benoît Roche commits to Tours for another 4 years.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad11 Jan 2027
Defences have started doubling up on Raymond Colin
32 goals and a season average of 7.89 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 35. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 20 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market11 Jan 2027
Tours say no — this time
The offer from Olympique Lyonnais for Raymond Colin 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.
Match9 Jan 2027
The run is over for Tours
9 matches without defeat, and then Sochaux. Nobody at the ground pretended it would go on forever; nobody expected it to stop here either.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Benoît Roche is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad11 Jan 2027
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.
Match9 Jan 2027
Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
Raymond Colin was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.09. 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad28 Sep 2026
25 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Tours lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Match26 Sep 2026
No mercy from Tours
AC Ajaccio will want this one forgotten quickly: 4‑1, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Tours were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Squad28 Sep 2026
A fracture rules Stéphane Breton out for 132 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Tours will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match28 Sep 2026
Tours refuse to drop out of the race
Position 2, 19 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Two goals and a mark of 9.09 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Léo Botz, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.40
A mark of 8.40 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 23. 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Benoît Roche is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad28 Sep 2026
A falling-out at Tours
Émile Schmitt and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.