“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 The request is on a desk at US Concarneau, and it is not being withdrawn.
One scored and one made, which is a different afternoon from scoring twice and an easier one to overlook. Marked 7.95, and involved in 2 of his side's goals.
A 3‑1 win over SC Aubagne Air Bel, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Loïc Goujon 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.
Marked 8.02 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Olivier Vincent on a 3‑1 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Something was said to Cyril Zabou and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jordan Tell was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
7 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Olivier Vincent after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Nobody at US Concarneau is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at US Concarneau. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
In brief
The dugoutSohan Baldoni wants a proper job in this side
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at US Concarneau this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Jordan Tell 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 is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. US Concarneau told Djibril Coulibaly something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Nobody at US Concarneau 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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at US Concarneau, and both men came out saying it was fine.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at US Concarneau would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” US Concarneau have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Mathis Picouleau and US Concarneau agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Loïc Goujon 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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Loïc Goujon, and the manager let it.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 Olivier Vincent left the room before anybody could ask which.
The words a physio says slowly. 16 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Djibril Coulibaly is 17, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Alexis Busin 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.
Everybody at US Concarneau saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 34 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Successful dribbles: 12. 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.
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 Jordan Tell is on it.
32 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. US Concarneau lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. US Concarneau scored in the 95th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what US Concarneau can pretend not to have heard.
At 22 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at US Concarneau this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
US Concarneau offered $88.0K; Olympique Lyonnais said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
US Concarneau asked and FC Nantes said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Alexis Busin 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
8 new faces, and US Concarneau are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. US Concarneau will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.