37 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.
Jérôme Schmitt 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 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.
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.
Still no offer on the table, and Quentin Bena’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
The terraces5 Oct 2026
Supporters make their feelings known about Philippe Robin
The speculation has reached the stands, and the stands have answered. Tours would like this settled before it becomes the only thing anybody asks about.
44 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.
20 goals and a season average of 7.67 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Antoine Durand, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.33
A mark of 8.33 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Tours they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Cesare Bertolini 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.
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.
RC Lens paid $780.0K and Tours took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Tours and US Creteil, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
The name of Antoine Durand has come up in conversations Tours were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
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.
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 offer from Pisa for Rémy Dubois 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.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Antoine Durand, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.84
A mark of 7.84 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.
Jérôme Schmitt 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 8 goals between Tours and Dijon, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.