FC Nantes go through and RC Lens go home, 0‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Bruno Nicolas will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around RC Lens the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Samson Baidoo 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.
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad25 Nov 2041
Words at RC Lens training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Florian Mekue 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.
“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.
Squad25 Nov 2041
The division's best last weekend was a RC Lens man
It is a small honour and it is not nothing: somebody watched every match in the division and decided that Florian Mekue was the best thing in any of them.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Mathieu Le Gall signs something — a contract at RC Lens or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
A brace, and Florian Mekue takes the afternoon — 8.36
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Florian Mekue provided it, and the 8.36 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Position 3, 30 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.
Mattia Fortin 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.
Squad18 Nov 2041
Samson Baidoo 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.
6 goals in one match, Florian Mekue on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of RC Lens and Le Havre AC.
One weekend, judged against everybody else's. Florian Mekue has come out on top of it, and for most footballers a weekly award is the only silverware a career ever produces.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Two goals and a mark of 8.07 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at RC Lens this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at RC Lens is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad4 Nov 2041
Florian Mekue 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.
8 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.29 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Mattia Fortin 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.
Squad21 Oct 2041
Samson Baidoo 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.
Mattia Fortin 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Benoît Pons will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around RC Lens the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Dayann Linyon and RC Lens agree another 2 years.
Squad7 Oct 2041
Samson Baidoo 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Mattia Fortin signs something — a contract at RC Lens or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
10 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 9.71 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Position 3, 15 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what RC Lens can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at RC Lens this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between RC Lens and Angers SCO, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
18 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. RC Lens lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.08 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Mattia Fortin 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around RC Lens they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Mattia Fortin signs something — a contract at RC Lens or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.