Marked for Jacques Leclerc
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match5 Sep 2026
Tours make it 5 in a row
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Tours have 5 straight wins of it.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Jacques Leclerc, 33, rolls back the years — 8.00
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.00 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Market7 Sep 2026
Ravenna 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.
Market7 Sep 2026
“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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Tempers go at Tours
Charles Nguyen 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.
Match5 Sep 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Arnaud Clément. 2‑0 against Valenciennes, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Arnaud Clément was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.41. 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 Sep 2026
Modeste Duku 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
The young player of the month award goes to a 20-year-old at Tours who has looked like the finished article for four weekends running. The next four are the ones that decide whether he is.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Market24 Aug 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.
Market24 Aug 2026
Louis Joly has left for Toulouse FC in a $2.6M deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Tempers go at Tours
Charles Nguyen 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.
Match22 Aug 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Arnaud Clément. 1‑0 against AS Nancy, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Arnaud Clément 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Roger Marchand
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Defensive actions: 17. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Market24 Aug 2026
Arzignano are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Tours will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Market17 Aug 2026
Tours say no — this time
The offer from Clermont Foot for Théodore Bonnet 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.
Market17 Aug 2026
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Raymond Arnaud reports back to Tours with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 28. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Jacques Leclerc, 33, rolls back the years — 8.19
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.19 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
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.
Market17 Aug 2026
Nimes paid $720.0K 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.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
Graduation day at Tours
4 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.
Squad17 Aug 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.
Market17 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Philippe Schneider has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.