Marked for Mathieu Gauthier
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad11 Oct 2027
Raphael Guzzo damages knee ligaments — 67 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 67 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 ratings11 Oct 2027
Successful dribbles: 28. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Noah Madsen: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Maritimo have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market11 Oct 2027
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Squad11 Oct 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Maritimo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Cláudio Ramos 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.
Match9 Oct 2027
Maritimo cannot find the net
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Player ratings11 Oct 2027
16 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Match9 Oct 2027
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Moreirense defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match17 Mar 2027
Tours bow out of the cup
Stade Rennais go through and Tours go home, 1‑2 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Squad22 Mar 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Tours may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Match17 Mar 2027
Tours make home a hard place to visit
12 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.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Pierre Moreau is in the form of his life
A season average of 7.20 with 21 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Squad22 Mar 2027
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.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Pierre Giraud 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.
Player ratings22 Mar 2027
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings22 Mar 2027
3.87. Every footballer has these and most of them happen away from a full ground; his did not, and he will be aware of that all week.
The terraces22 Mar 2027
Everybody has an opinion about Pierre Moreau
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market8 Feb 2027
“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.
Squad8 Feb 2027
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.
Boardroom8 Feb 2027
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
Squad8 Feb 2027
“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.
Boardroom8 Feb 2027
Tours release $149.6K for the manager
The board have put money on the table rather than an encouraging word. What happens to it now is somebody else's problem, and somebody else's job.
Squad8 Feb 2027
10 new faces, and Tours 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.
Loan watch8 Feb 2027
“I watch every Tours game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at RC Lens runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Issa Maréga named in the team of the month
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Issa Maréga is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Market8 Feb 2027
The name of Guillaume Noël keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Tours say nothing, which says plenty.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match18 Jan 2027
Tours up to position 1
56 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Market18 Jan 2027
Marc Rey attracts admirers
The name of Marc Rey has come up in conversations Tours were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
“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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
21 goals and a season average of 7.20. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Tempers go at Tours
François Berger 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 ratings18 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Sammy Henia-Kamau has just signed for Tours, and for once the answer mattered.
Match16 Jan 2027
It finished 1‑0, and it was Pierre Moreau’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Tours.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
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.
Market31 Aug 2026
The name of Pierre Denis has come up in conversations Tours were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
The terraces31 Aug 2026
The crowd has taken to Marc Rey
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 ratings31 Aug 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.48, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Match29 Aug 2026
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Pierre Giraud in the middle of it, and Clermont Foot unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Marc Rey was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.21. 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
An error at the back is a moment; an error in goal is a goal. Emmanuel Blanchard knows it, the crowd knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Match29 Aug 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.
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
Add another name to the list: Paris FC have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Gabriel Adam. The answer from Tours has not changed — yet.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Pierre Giraud commits to Tours for another 5 years.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Tempers go at Tours
François Berger 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
“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.
Loan watch10 Aug 2026
“I watch every Tours game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at RC Lens runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.