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 dugout17 May 2027
Abakar Sylla is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
32 appearances at Paris 13 Atletico and the goals have stopped going in. FC Nantes lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
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 Antoine Joujou is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Francis Coquelin trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and FC Nantes have no good answer.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
Position 13 on 38 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at FC Nantes pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Fabien Centonze was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at FC Nantes, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. FC Lorient defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
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.
Marked 7.97. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
The dugout3 May 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Maxime Dupé'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.
0‑3 to AJ Auxerre, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Kelvin Amian 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.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at FC Nantes can tell you which week it ends in.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Fabien Centonze was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
An error at the back is a moment; an error in goal is a goal. Maxime Dupé knows it, the crowd knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
“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.
Kelvin Amian 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Fabien Centonze was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. FC Nantes told Senny Mayulu something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
The dugout19 Apr 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Paul Schneider to a room that had heard them before.
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.
“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.
Squad29 Mar 2027
The division's best last weekend was a FC Nantes man
It is a small honour and it is not nothing: somebody watched every match in the division and decided that Anthony Martial was the best thing in any of them.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at FC Nantes, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Paris FC next, and one man in the FC Nantes dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Nobody at FC Nantes 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.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at FC Nantes that is a harder question to answer.
The shrug has gone, the language is coming, and he now argues in training like somebody who expects to be here next year. Half a signing's value is this and none of it appears on a fee.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. FC Nantes know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.04 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
At 20 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.
Ibrahima Sissoko 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.
Three points for FC Nantes, 2‑1 the final word against Angers SCO in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Words at FC Nantes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Fabien Centonze 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.
Something was said to Ignatius Ganago and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
The dugout15 Mar 2027
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Paul Schneider, on a 2‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
0‑1 to Toulouse FC, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Words at FC Nantes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Fabien Centonze 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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; FC Nantes are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The dugout8 Mar 2027
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 0‑1 Paul Schneider left the room before anybody could ask which.
11 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
In brief
The dugoutAntoine Joujou has become a man the manager trusts
The dugoutKelvin Amian knocks on the manager’s door
Loan watchAlexis Mirbach’s loan is measured in nothing happening
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; FC Nantes are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Kelvin Amian 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.
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout1 Mar 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Paul Schneider to a room that had heard them before.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
At 21, Dehmaine Tabibou has come through every age group this club has, and now watches a borrowed player of much the same level start every week. An academy notices these things, and so do the parents in the stand.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Anthony Martial provided it, and the 8.43 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Rémy Cabella 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Fabien Centonze was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑1, Paul Schneider could afford to be generous.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Antoine Joujou had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
0-3, and long before the end the away end had switched from encouragement to something considerably more pointed. Nobody rings a phone-in about losing narrowly.
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 words a physio says slowly. 36 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.
FC Nantes asked and Paris FC said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around FC Nantes people have started saying his name in the past tense.
RC Strasbourg did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $5.9M for Gessime Yassine, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
The deal that would have taken Antoine Joujou to Rodez AF has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to FC Nantes with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Deadline passes with 2 signed and 2 gone
That is the business done at FC Nantes until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
The offer from Olympique de Marseille for Fodé Doucouré 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.
44 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. FC Nantes lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
FC Nantes asked and Como said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The phone has started ringing about Antoine Joujou again, and this time the name on the line is Rodez AF. FC Nantes are listening politely and promising nothing.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Fabien Centonze was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
FC Nantes asked and Zenit said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around FC Nantes people have started saying his name in the past tense.
He is 20, and nobody at FC Nantes signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
Boards get told what they have done wrong for years and hear nothing on the days they get it right. This is one of those days: Senny Mayulu from Paris Saint-Germain for $19.8M, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
Fabien Centonze 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.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Fabien Centonze has his answer from FC Nantes; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Zenit is saying, and nobody at FC Nantes is enjoying the guessing.
FC Nantes asked and Galatasaray said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around FC Nantes people have started saying his name in the past tense.
1 for Johann Lepenant, marked 7.68, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $7.8M — a club that wants Simon Ebonog enough to be asked twice.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Junior Kone Doumbia is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
“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 Nantes 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 FC Nantes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
0‑1 to AJ Auxerre, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Words at FC Nantes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Fabien Centonze 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Paul Schneider after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer 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 FC Nantes, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Anthony Martial’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and FC Nantes needing him to play as if none of it matters.
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 Fodé Doucouré is on it.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 13 actions, 7.30, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Fabien Centonze was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Balthazar Pierret 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 team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
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 Antoine Joujou is on it.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
Ryad Hachem is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
“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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.49 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Kelvin Amian 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Fabien Centonze was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Paul Schneider on a 3‑1 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at FC Nantes, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Olympique Lyonnais next, and one man in the FC Nantes dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Fabien Centonze 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 ratings23 Nov 2026
Anthony Martial was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.34. 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.
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. Anthony Martial had FC Nantes level again within 4 minutes, and RC Lens never got to play with a lead at all.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Rémy Cabella
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Johann Lepenant trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Paul Schneider was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the FC Nantes dressing room was either.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Mathieu Cafaro’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and FC Nantes needing him to play as if none of it matters.
94 minutes played. Junior Kone Doumbia found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and USL Dunkerque went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Soriba Diaoune did not need any: 8.06, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Rémy Cabella 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.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
9 combined actions and 6.96. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
Deiver Machado 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at FC Nantes, another week without a signature from Johann Lepenant.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Paul Schneider to a room that had heard them before.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at FC Nantes than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Fabien Centonze trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
At 20 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.
Kelvin Amian 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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Fabien Centonze’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and FC Nantes needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and FC Nantes have no good answer.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
13 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Paul Schneider after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at FC Nantes, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. OGC Nice defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
20 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.
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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Paul Schneider after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Johann Lepenant trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Maxime Dupé’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and FC Nantes needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 11 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
28 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.
FC Nantes asked and RC Strasbourg said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at FC Nantes, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Paul Schneider after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Fabien Centonze trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The words a physio says slowly. 36 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.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Crotone had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
FC Nantes close the window on a squad of their own making
9 in and 14 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
The deal that would have taken Tylel Tati to Olympique de Marseille has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to FC Nantes with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. EA Guingamp have kept their man, and FC Nantes go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Mathieu Cafaro has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Squad7 Sep 2026
13 new faces, and FC Nantes 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.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Abdellah Zoubir is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Picerno waiting with a shirt. Nobody at FC Nantes is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
$1.8M was the most the club would pay and Amiens SC were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
5 academy players handed senior numbers at FC Nantes
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Emmanuel Le Gall has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Daniel Olivier has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
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.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. FC Nantes will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.