The Stade Rennais Courier
Boardroom29 May 2028
Stade Rennais are in Europe
Qualification is done, and next season the floodlights come on for something bigger. A stage for the players, oxygen for the accounts and a passport for everybody else.
Squad29 May 2028
Francesco Pio Esposito is named among the best
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Stade Rennais will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Market29 May 2028
Khalil Ayari puts it in writing
“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 The request is on a desk at Stade Rennais, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market29 May 2028
Yaël Thébault has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Stade Rennais they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad29 May 2028
Valentin Rongier 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.
Market29 May 2028
Stade Rennais promote Stéphane Moulin from within
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Stéphane Moulin 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.
Market29 May 2028
Mathieu Chevalier steps up from the Stade Rennais academy
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Mathieu Chevalier has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The dugout29 May 2028
Michel Ndary Adopo asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
Squad29 May 2028
Giovani Versini 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.
In brief
- The dugout Stade Rennais keep their word to Quentin Merlin
- The dugout The manager makes an example of David Suazo
- The dugout The manager has not finished forgetting Mathys Silistrie's mistake