Marked for Marcel Blanc
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match18 Jan 2027
Tours refuse to drop out of the race
Position 1, 52 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Match16 Jan 2027
Nobody wins at Tours
12 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Market18 Jan 2027
Tours say no — this time
The offer from Nimes for Christophe Laurent 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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Tempers go at Tours
Roger Marty 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.
Boardroom18 Jan 2027
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Simon Couillot has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Tours have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Getting past Marcel Blanc has become the hardest job in the division
11 clean sheets and counting. Forwards used to back themselves here; now they shoot early, shoot wide, and look for somebody to blame.
Squad18 Jan 2027
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Karim Azamoum will call it something else in private.
Squad18 Jan 2027
The manager makes an example of Luc Netten
“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 ratings18 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match26 Dec 2026
Still nobody has beaten Tours
The unbeaten run reaches 9. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
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
Frédéric Le Gall 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.
Match26 Dec 2026
Three points for Tours, 3‑2 the final word against AC Ajaccio in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad28 Dec 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Marcel Blanc, and the manager let it.
Match26 Dec 2026
Tours settle it inside twenty minutes
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. AC Ajaccio spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Roger Marty was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.44. 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
Words at Tours training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jean-Baptiste Gauthier 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.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Too much change too quickly at Tours
7 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match21 Dec 2026
Tours refuse to drop out of the race
Position 1, 45 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Market21 Dec 2026
The phone has started ringing about Pedro Godoy again, and this time the name on the line is Santos. Tours are listening politely and promising nothing.
Match19 Dec 2026
Whatever happens, Tours do not lose
8 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Market21 Dec 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 Dec 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.
Squad21 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.
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.31, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Tuomas Ollila 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.
Squad21 Dec 2026
11 clean sheets and counting. Strikers leave this ground muttering his name, which is exactly how a goalkeeper measures a good season.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market7 Dec 2026
Tours say no — this time
The offer from Internacional for Pedro Godoy 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.
Squad7 Dec 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.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 22. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match5 Dec 2026
Still nobody has beaten Tours
The unbeaten run reaches 6. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Loan watch7 Dec 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 17 say he has earned the hearing.
The terraces7 Dec 2026
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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Karim Azamoum, and the manager let it.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Getting past Marcel Blanc has become the hardest job in the division
10 clean sheets and counting. Forwards used to back themselves here; now they shoot early, shoot wide, and look for somebody to blame.
Boardroom7 Dec 2026
$263.3K on the table at Tours
The board have answered with money instead of encouragement, which is the only answer a manager ever wants. Spending it well is now entirely his problem.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad30 Nov 2026
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.
Match28 Nov 2026
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Tours scored in the 91th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
Match28 Nov 2026
Tours cannot stop winning
5 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Tempers go at Tours
Frédéric Le Gall 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.
Match28 Nov 2026
Tours make home a hard place to visit
9 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Match28 Nov 2026
It finished 1‑0, and it was Rémi Julien’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Tours.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Words at Tours training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tuomas Ollila 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.
Squad30 Nov 2026
33 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Loan watch30 Nov 2026
“I watch every Tours game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Stade Lavallois runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad2 Nov 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.
Market2 Nov 2026
Pedro Godoy 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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Karim Azamoum 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.
Squad2 Nov 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.
Match31 Oct 2026
Tours get the job done against Dijon
A 2‑0 win over Dijon, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Marked 8.04 — 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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
The award is a small thing with a heavy meaning: for four weeks nobody in this division did his job better. Tours have the trophy on a shelf and the player in the side.
Loan watch2 Nov 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 12 say he has earned the hearing.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Defensive actions: 15, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad19 Oct 2026
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Tempers go at Tours
Frédéric Le Gall 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.
Match17 Oct 2026
1‑2 to Bourg-Peronnas, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad19 Oct 2026
The manager makes an example of Marcel Blanc
“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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Tours training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tuomas Ollila 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
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Market24 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.
Market24 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
The medical room confirms 37 days on the sidelines for Jean-Baptiste Morel, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
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
Frédéric Le Gall 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 ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market24 Aug 2026
The phone has started ringing about Rémi Carpentier again, and this time the name on the line is Dijon. Tours are listening politely and promising nothing.
Match22 Aug 2026
A 1‑0 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
Words at Tours training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jean-Baptiste Gauthier 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
Triumph
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.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
A brace, and Frédéric Le Gall takes the afternoon — 8.33
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Frédéric Le Gall provided it, and the 8.33 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Market17 Aug 2026
Toulouse FC pay $7.1M, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
The terraces17 Aug 2026
Supporters turn on the $7.1M sale of Jean Arnaud
He is going to Toulouse FC, the club has $7.1M 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
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.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
5 academy players handed senior numbers at Tours
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Match15 Aug 2026
Three points for Tours, 3‑1 the final word against US Creteil in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad17 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Marcel Blanc
“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.
Market17 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Yann Muller has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market10 Aug 2026
Villarreal 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Tours have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Frédéric Le Gall commits to Tours for another 4 years.
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.
Market10 Aug 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at Tours training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Karim Azamoum 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.