Marked for David Pierre
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 44. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad19 Oct 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Richard Poirier
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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
A fracture rules Didier Gérard out for 72 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Tours will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Yannick Dodo, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 7.75
A mark of 7.75 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Squad19 Oct 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.
Match17 Oct 2026
A 3‑1 win over Bourg-Peronnas, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
The terraces19 Oct 2026
At 19 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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Tours training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rémy Simon 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 ratings19 Oct 2026
Marked 7.85 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Tours had the best player on the pitch.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad21 Sep 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Richard Poirier
89 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.
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.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 32. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market21 Sep 2026
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Tours heard it as anything else.
Squad21 Sep 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.
Match19 Sep 2026
3 matches without a goal for Tours
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Match19 Sep 2026
Chamois Niortais left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad21 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Richard Poirier, and the manager let it.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Yuliwes Bellache 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings14 Sep 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.
Match12 Sep 2026
4 matches without a win for Stade Rennais
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Stade Rennais are no longer polite ones.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Yassir Zabiri 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Sebastian Szymański, and the manager let it.
Match12 Sep 2026
It finished 2‑2, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Squad14 Sep 2026
David Pierre 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 Stade Rennais this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market10 Aug 2026
Ludovic Blas 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 Stade Rennais hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Breel Embolo and Stade Rennais agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Valentin Rongier 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Randall Rodríguez has just signed for Stade Rennais, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Yassir Zabiri 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Stade Rennais, another week without a signature from Issa Soumaré.
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.