“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 The request is on a desk at LOSC Lille, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Pape Cabral will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around LOSC Lille 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 LOSC Lille this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad25 Jun 2035
Words at LOSC Lille training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tiago Santos 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.
Add another name to the list: RC Strasbourg have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Samual Archer. The answer from LOSC Lille has not changed — yet.
Olympique Lyonnais will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. LOSC Lille were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Two goals and a mark of 9.20 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Osame Sahraoui provided it, and the 9.01 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
14 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 LOSC Lille 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 LOSC Lille is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad6 Nov 2034
Words at LOSC Lille training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Osame Sahraoui 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.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at LOSC Lille this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Joseph Hubert will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around LOSC Lille the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad11 Sep 2034
Words at LOSC Lille training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Osame Sahraoui 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.
“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.
Squad11 Sep 2034
The manager has not finished forgetting Rashid Juma's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
In brief
The terracesEverybody has an opinion about Osame Sahraoui
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” LOSC Lille have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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. LOSC Lille will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Pape Cabral will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around LOSC Lille 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 LOSC Lille this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at LOSC Lille 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 LOSC Lille this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at LOSC Lille heard it as anything else.
Squad3 Apr 2034
Words at LOSC Lille training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ngal'Ayel Mukau 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.
9.19. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Hákon Arnar Haraldsson. 2‑1 against Tours, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 8.99 — 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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 9.10 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Hákon Arnar Haraldsson 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at LOSC Lille is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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 name of Shina Ayodele has come up in conversations LOSC Lille were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Marked 9.18 — 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.
Position 1, 46 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.
There were 87 minutes on the clock and Paris Saint-Germain had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and LOSC Lille did not stop to explain themselves.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” LOSC Lille have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at LOSC Lille this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad26 Dec 2033
Words at LOSC Lille training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Osame Sahraoui 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.
A 2‑1 win over Paris Saint-Germain, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.