Marked for Édouard François
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match21 Dec 2026
Tours up to position 1
54 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Match19 Dec 2026
Chastening afternoon for Tours
A 1‑4 beating by Chamois Niortais was the sort of result that empties a stadium long before the final whistle.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Defences have started doubling up on Raymond Chevalier
20 goals and a season average of 7.58 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Squad21 Dec 2026
At 20, Jérôme Rodriguez is already the best thing here
An average of 7.14 in a first team he is several years too young for. Tours have something, and by now the whole division has noticed.
Market21 Dec 2026
“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.
Squad21 Dec 2026
A move Karamoko Keïta 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. Karamoko Keïta is living that version at Tours, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad21 Dec 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.
Boardroom21 Dec 2026
Nobody left the Tours dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
Market21 Dec 2026
The name of Raymond Chevalier keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Tours say nothing, which says plenty.
Back issues
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
Triumph
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 35. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad24 Aug 2026
The match ball belongs to Michel Colin, whose 3 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Market24 Aug 2026
Tours say no — this time
The offer from Pineto for Édouard François 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.
Market24 Aug 2026
Roger Lemoine hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Tours can pretend not to have heard.
Match22 Aug 2026
Tours make it 3 in a row
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Tours have 3 straight wins of it.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Ninety minutes of Michel Colin at his very best
Marked 9.68. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Tours.
Match22 Aug 2026
A 3‑1 win over AS Nancy, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad24 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.