Marked for Philippe Pierre
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad8 Feb 2027
Noah Nartey 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.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Words at Stade Lavallois training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dylan Mbayo 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.
Squad8 Feb 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting William Bianda's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad1 Feb 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Antoine Clément
38 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.
Market1 Feb 2027
Louis Duval wants to know where this is going
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Tours hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Market1 Feb 2027
Tours get their man
The chase for Lenny Leonil ended with $670.0K changing hands and US Creteil out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Squad1 Feb 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.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Emmanuel Joly 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 terraces1 Feb 2027
Tours spend $670.0K on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $670.0K for Lenny Leonil, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market4 Jan 2027
Monaco come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Tours did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
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. Tours will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Squad4 Jan 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Tours may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad4 Jan 2027
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 16 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Squad4 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.
Match2 Jan 2027
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Marcel Bertrand. 1‑0 against Stade Lavallois, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
Marked 8.37 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.03, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Market4 Jan 2027
Still no ink between Tours and Ruly
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Tours, another week without a signature from Ruly.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match12 Dec 2026
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 10 matches without defeat is a foundation Stade Lavallois did not have in the autumn.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Julien Maggiotti 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.
Match12 Dec 2026
9 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Squad14 Dec 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting William Bianda's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Match12 Dec 2026
Nil-nil, and few chances worth the name. Dijon came to defend and left with exactly what they came for.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 10. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad7 Dec 2026
A season average of 7.42 with 23 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Squad7 Dec 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Benoît Julien and Tours agree another 2 years.
Squad7 Dec 2026
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.
Loan watch7 Dec 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 Tours, and 0 appearances in 17 say he has earned the hearing.
Match5 Dec 2026
Valenciennes made Tours work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Marcel Bertrand was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.25. 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.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Jacques Masson was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.18. 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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
“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.
Boardroom7 Dec 2026
$153.3K on the table at Tours
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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market9 Nov 2026
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Tours heard it as anything else.
Squad9 Nov 2026
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.
Loan watch9 Nov 2026
“I did not go to Stade Lavallois to sit and watch. I want to come back to Tours and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 13 matches say the rest.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 28. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Philippe Pierre: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Stade Lavallois have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Owen Kouassi 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Nicolas Mathieu is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad12 Oct 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Trévis Dago and Stade Lavallois agree another 5 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
A performance of 8.23 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 50. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.05 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Match10 Oct 2026
Nobody wants to play Tours right now
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
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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Defences have started doubling up on Jacques Masson
15 goals and a season average of 7.22 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Loan watch12 Oct 2026
“I did not go to Stade Lavallois to sit and watch. I want to come back to Tours and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 9 matches say the rest.
Match10 Oct 2026
It finished 2‑0, and it was Jacques Masson’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Tours.
Squad12 Oct 2026
5 new faces, and Tours are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Squad12 Oct 2026
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad14 Sep 2026
The match ball belongs to Jacques Masson, whose 3 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Squad14 Sep 2026
The medical room confirms 39 days on the sidelines for François Meunier, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Market14 Sep 2026
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Tours heard it as anything else.
Match12 Sep 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Jacques Masson. 3‑1 against Nimes, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Match12 Sep 2026
Tours settle it inside twenty minutes
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Nimes spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
A performance of 8.14 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
A performance of 8.06 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Loan watch14 Sep 2026
“I did not go to Stade Lavallois to sit and watch. I want to come back to Tours and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 5 matches say the rest.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Tours training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. David Masson 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.