Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason FC Nantes will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
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.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Christophe Meunier did not need any: 7.67, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Jean-Baptiste Martin will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around FC Nantes the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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 Nantes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
16 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
27 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. FC Nantes lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason FC Nantes will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around FC Nantes they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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 Nantes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Aug 2045
Stanis Idumbo 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.
55 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. FC Nantes lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason FC Nantes will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around FC Nantes they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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 Nantes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad31 Jul 2045
Stanis Idumbo 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.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Chamois Niortais will make the call about Julián Vignolo this week. FC Nantes have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 11 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
18 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
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 Nantes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around FC Nantes they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad26 Sep 2044
Words at FC Nantes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Johann Lepenant 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 28 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at FC Nantes is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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 Nantes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The offer from AJ Auxerre for Rémy Durand was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Squad15 Aug 2044
Words at FC Nantes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Johann Lepenant 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.
Qualification is secured, and next season the big floodlit nights are continental ones. For the players it is a stage; for the accounts it is a lifeline; for the supporters it is passports.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around FC Nantes they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” FC Nantes have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Stanis Idumbo 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.
Squad30 May 2044
Alexi Koum 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.
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.
Every dressing room knows how to read a signing like this one. Pierre Guérin is not here to sit and wait indefinitely, and the man whose place he has been bought to take knows it better than anyone.