Marked for Thomas Blanc
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad7 Sep 2026
Thomas Blanc 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 Ravenna this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match5 Sep 2026
Sambenedettese made Ravenna work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Thomas Blanc gets it from the manager
“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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Ravenna training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alessandro Bianconi 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.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Marked 7.66. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad31 Aug 2026
Gabriele Indragoli 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.
Match29 Aug 2026
A bad afternoon for Ravenna against Pineto
0‑1 to Pineto, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 18. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad31 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
5 new faces, and Ravenna 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Thomas Blanc has outgrown this division
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Ravenna know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad31 Aug 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Richard Poirier
112 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.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 37. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market31 Aug 2026
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Tours, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Tempers go at Tours
Louis Prévost 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.
Match29 Aug 2026
Clermont Foot left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad31 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Jean-Luc Rey
“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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at Tours training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Théodore Roussel 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.
Market31 Aug 2026
Tours have let the market know Olivier Morin can be had. No price in the advert, but everyone in the trade knows roughly what it says.
The terraces31 Aug 2026
Supporters make their feelings known about Daniel Sanchez
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.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Market17 Aug 2026
Tours sell their best player to Monaco
$14.4M is a serious amount of money and it does not play centre-forward. Everybody in the dressing room knows who used to be looked at when it went wrong.
Market17 Aug 2026
$660.0K — a new record at Tours
No footballer has ever cost this club more, and the number will be read out every time he misplaces a pass for the next two years.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Richard Poirier damages knee ligaments — 129 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 129 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.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 38. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market17 Aug 2026
Tours say no — this time
The offer from Paris FC for Rémy Simon 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.
The terraces17 Aug 2026
Supporters turn on the $14.4M sale of Frédéric Michel
He is going to Monaco, the club has $14.4M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Tempers go at Tours
Louis Prévost 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.
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.
The terraces17 Aug 2026
Tours spend $660.0K on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $660.0K for Yuliwes Bellache, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 53. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market3 Aug 2026
Pro Patria 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
Louis Prévost 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.
Squad3 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Tours training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jean-Luc Philippe 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.
The terraces3 Aug 2026
The crowd has taken to Rémy Simon
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Match1 Aug 2026
Three points for Tours, 1‑0 the final word against Dijon in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Market3 Aug 2026
The phone has started ringing about David Pierre again, and this time the name on the line is Stade Rennais. Tours are listening politely and promising nothing.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Patrick Aubry and Tours agree another 1 years.