67 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Chamois Niortais lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Chamois Niortais will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Chamois Niortais have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Hervé Berger and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Dealt with internally, which is the phrase a club uses when it would rather nobody asked twice. He will be fined, he will apologise, and he will play on Saturday.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Hervé Berger trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
83 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Chamois Niortais lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 79 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Chamois Niortais is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Robert Aubert 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.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Hervé Berger 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.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Thomas Roussel is on it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Chamois Niortais, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The words a physio says slowly. 98 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Chamois Niortais will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Thomas Roussel 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hervé Berger 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.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Charles Blanchard is on it.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 123 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Thomas Roussel 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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Jonathan Gonçalvès and Chamois Niortais agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Charles Blanchard 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Chamois Niortais will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Patrick Mercier will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Chamois Niortais the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Robert Aubert 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.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Enzo Mongo 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.
13 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.
Nobody at Chamois Niortais will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Pierre Rousseau signs something — a contract at Chamois Niortais or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Chamois Niortais. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Paulo Campos trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Chamois Niortais had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
Robert Aubert and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Stade Lavallois have kept their man, and Chamois Niortais go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Chamois Niortais know it.
Dijon will want this one forgotten quickly: 5‑1, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Chamois Niortais were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.86 at 39, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Rémy Gaillard was on a different afternoon to everybody else
10.00. 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.
6 goals in one match, Rémy Gaillard on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Chamois Niortais and Dijon.
8 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.