Marked for Mathieu Dufour
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad7 Sep 2026
The words a physio says slowly. 64 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
4 goals in one afternoon from one man. The other players were also present, a witness confirmed.
Match5 Sep 2026
4‑0, and Mathieu Dufour took the headlines on an afternoon when everything Tours tried came off. Days like this are retold all winter.
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.
Market7 Sep 2026
US Creteil 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Tempers go at Tours
Julien Renault 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
A muscle injury sidelines Christopher Luhaka for 14 days
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Tours will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
The terraces7 Sep 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Mathieu Dufour has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Player ratings7 Sep 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad31 Aug 2026
The words a physio says slowly. 73 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.
Market31 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.
Match29 Aug 2026
Tours make it 4 in a row
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Tours have 4 straight wins of it.
Squad31 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.
Market31 Aug 2026
The deal that would have taken Stéphane Leroux to AC Ajaccio has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Tours with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Match29 Aug 2026
Three points for Tours, 2‑1 the final word against Clermont Foot in a contest settled by the finer margins.
The terraces31 Aug 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.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 65. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
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.
Market24 Aug 2026
Sochaux 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.
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
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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Noan Géraux gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Noan Géraux has just signed for Tours, and for once the answer mattered.
Market24 Aug 2026
The name of Raymond Garcia has come up in conversations Tours were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
The terraces24 Aug 2026
Tours supporters have found a favourite in Édouard Henry
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 17-year-old it feels ownership of. Édouard Henry has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Match22 Aug 2026
AS Nancy made Tours work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Market17 Aug 2026
The unthinkable, invoiced: Édouard Dumont sold
Olympique Lyonnais arrived with $3.4M and left with the best player in the building. The board will call it business; the queue at the ticket office will use other words.
Match15 Aug 2026
4‑1, and Jérôme Dumont took the headlines on an afternoon when everything Tours tried came off. Days like this are retold all winter.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
A brace, and Jérôme Dumont takes the afternoon — 8.10
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Jérôme Dumont provided it, and the 8.10 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The terraces17 Aug 2026
Supporters turn on the $3.4M sale of Édouard Dumont
He is going to Olympique Lyonnais, the club has $3.4M 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
Mathieu Dufour 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
2 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
At 22 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.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad17 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Raymond Guillot, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market10 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
François Mercier 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Mathieu Dufour and Tours agree another 5 years.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Tempers go at Tours
Mathieu Dufour 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
Add another name to the list: Olympique Lyonnais have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Édouard Dumont. The answer from Tours has not changed — yet.
Market10 Aug 2026
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Tours will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match1 Aug 2026
No mercy from Tours
Dijon will want this one forgotten quickly: 7‑1, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Tours were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Raymond Garcia could not have asked for more on his first appearance — 7.91
Debuts are survived rather than enjoyed. This one was enjoyed: 7.91, 1 goals, and a manager already being asked whether he starts again next week.
Squad3 Aug 2026
3 goals in one game. The first was taken well, the second was taken greedily, and by the third the crowd were simply waiting for him to get the ball.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
No sign of nerves from Thomas Petit at 21 — 7.62
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Thomas Petit did not need any: 7.62, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Market3 Aug 2026
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
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
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.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
A hand in 2 of them from Jérôme Dumont — 7.90
Marked 7.90. There is a kind of forward whose value only shows up when you count what he was involved in rather than what he finished, and this is the day that argument makes itself.
Match1 Aug 2026
Mathieu Dufour among the goals in a wild afternoon
8 goals in one match, Mathieu Dufour on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Tours and Dijon.