Marked for Joseph Lambert
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match11 Feb 2036
FC Annecy are in among the leaders
Position 2 and 51 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Market11 Feb 2036
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around FC Annecy they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Player ratings11 Feb 2036
Up for the corner, and Diogo Sousa delivers — 7.48
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Diogo Sousa scored, was marked 7.48, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
The dugout11 Feb 2036
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” FC Annecy may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad11 Feb 2036
Ranjan Neelakandan 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.
Squad11 Feb 2036
Diogo Sousa 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.
Boardroom11 Feb 2036
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.
Transfer targets11 Feb 2036
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. RC Strasbourg have kept their man, and FC Annecy go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Match9 Feb 2036
1‑2 to AS Nancy, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market10 Sep 2035
Nando Verdoni has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around FC Annecy they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The dugout10 Sep 2035
Marvin Illary: 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.” FC Annecy have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Boardroom10 Sep 2035
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Lautaro Nicolazzi has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Squad10 Sep 2035
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at FC Annecy this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 Sep 2035
A row about effort at FC Annecy
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Diogo Sousa was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets10 Sep 2035
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. FC Lorient have kept their man, and FC Annecy go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad10 Sep 2035
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Artur Smiechowski commits to FC Annecy for another 3 years.
Boardroom10 Sep 2035
Wages eat 88% of everything FC Annecy earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
The dugout10 Sep 2035
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Elyes Saïdi, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad9 Apr 2035
The knee: Émile Boyer out for 81 days
81 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. FC Annecy lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Player ratings9 Apr 2035
Age has not caught Jacques Siwe yet — 7.81
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.81 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
The dugout9 Apr 2035
“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.
Match7 Apr 2035
Whatever happens, FC Annecy do not lose
8 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Squad9 Apr 2035
Words exchanged at FC Annecy
Ranjan Neelakandan 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.
Player ratings9 Apr 2035
Successful dribbles: 21. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Squad9 Apr 2035
Elijah Ly 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.
The dugout9 Apr 2035
The manager makes an example of Matevž Vidovšek
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Market9 Apr 2035
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match27 Nov 2034
First, on 30 points. The table is a fact and a fact is allowed to be enjoyed, which is as far as anybody at the club is prepared to go in public.
Market27 Nov 2034
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what FC Annecy can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings27 Nov 2034
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.97 for the rest of it.
Match25 Nov 2034
Still nobody has beaten FC Annecy
The unbeaten run reaches 8. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad27 Nov 2034
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at FC Annecy this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad27 Nov 2034
Joseph Lambert gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Joseph Lambert has just signed for FC Annecy, and for once the answer mattered.
Boardroom27 Nov 2034
RC Lens will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Louis Mezerette has pre-agreed a move to FC Annecy, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Squad27 Nov 2034
A row about effort at FC Annecy
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Elijah Ly was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match25 Nov 2034
A 1‑0 win over RC Strasbourg, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.