Marked for Marcel Renault
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad24 May 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Édouard François
29 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.
Squad24 May 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.
Squad24 May 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.
In brief
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Squad
Words at Tours training over how hard people work
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Market
The Marcel Renault story refuses to die
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Loan watch
The goals keep arriving from Émile Huet’s exile
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad26 Apr 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Édouard François
59 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.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Tempers go at Tours
Raymond Chevalier 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.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Words at Tours training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Róbson 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad29 Mar 2027
Édouard François damages knee ligaments — 89 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 89 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.
Market29 Mar 2027
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Tempers go at Tours
Sébastien Leroy 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad1 Mar 2027
Édouard François damages knee ligaments — 119 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 119 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.
Squad1 Mar 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 Mar 2027
A muscle injury sidelines Raymond Bonnet for 16 days
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Tours will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market1 Feb 2027
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Tours have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Émile Legrand: 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.” Tours have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market1 Feb 2027
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Tempers go at Tours
Sébastien Leroy 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.
Loan watch1 Feb 2027
“I did not go to Zulte Waregem to sit and watch. I want to come back to Tours and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 24 matches say the rest.
Squad1 Feb 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Idris Bounaas, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad11 Jan 2027
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Market11 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.
Market11 Jan 2027
The deal that would have taken Raymond Chevalier to Barcelona has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Tours with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Michel Colin is in the form of his life
A season average of 7.56 with 18 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Squad11 Jan 2027
A move Ilann Garin would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Ilann Garin is living that version at Tours, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Tempers go at Tours
Raymond Chevalier 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.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
Marked 8.15 — 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.
Match9 Jan 2027
A 2‑2 draw with Sochaux leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
Market11 Jan 2027
Junior Ngambi is 20, and Tours have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match26 Dec 2026
No mercy from Tours
AC Ajaccio will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Tours were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Defences have started doubling up on Raymond Chevalier
21 goals and a season average of 7.59 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 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 28. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match26 Dec 2026
Nobody wins at Tours
11 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Tempers go at Tours
Raymond Chevalier 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.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Ninety minutes of Sébastien Leroy at his very best
Marked 8.29. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Tours.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Jean-Baptiste Simon was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.14. 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.
Squad28 Dec 2026
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Amine Karraoui will call it something else in private.
Squad28 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.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 41. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match26 Oct 2026
Tours up to position 1
36 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Market26 Oct 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.84 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Match24 Oct 2026
Nobody wants to play Tours right now
6 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
A season average of 7.39 with 14 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Squad26 Oct 2026
At 20, Jérôme Rodriguez is already the best thing here
An average of 7.05 in a first team he is several years too young for. Tours have something, and by now the whole division has noticed.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Tempers go at Tours
Sébastien Leroy 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.
Match24 Oct 2026
Three points for Tours, 2‑1 the final word against Red Star in a contest settled by the finer margins.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match16 Sep 2026
The cup run ends for Tours
0‑2 against Olympique Lyonnais, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 25. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Tempers go at Tours
Raymond Chevalier 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.
Match19 Sep 2026
A 2‑1 win over Chamois Niortais, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Gabriel Royer has improved at 26, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Sébastien Leroy was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.20. 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 ratings21 Sep 2026
A performance of 8.19 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Loan watch21 Sep 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 5 say he has earned the hearing.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match15 Aug 2026
9‑0, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Squad17 Aug 2026
4 goals in one game. The first was taken well, the second was taken greedily, and by the third the crowd were simply waiting for him to get the ball.
Market17 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad17 Aug 2026
3 goals in one afternoon from one man. The other players were also present, a witness confirmed.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Jérôme Rodriguez, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.38
A mark of 8.38 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Squad17 Aug 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.
Match15 Aug 2026
Marc Roussel among the goals in a wild afternoon
9 goals in one match, Marc Roussel on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Tours and US Creteil.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Marked 9.77 — 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.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
Graduation day at Tours
2 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market10 Aug 2026
OGC Nice 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Jean-Baptiste Simon commits to Tours for another 3 years.
Squad10 Aug 2026
64 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad10 Aug 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at Tours training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Charles Paul 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.