The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Gabin Capuano did not need any: 7.93, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
5 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.
Sofian Bahloul 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.
14 combined actions and 6.67. 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Stade Rennais have kept their man, and US Boulogne go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Serhiy Kryvtsov is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
Jonas Martin 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.
Half the programme played, position 17, 11 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Niklas Kreuzer and US Boulogne agree another 2 years.
5 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.
A 1‑1 draw with Montpellier HSC leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Pierre Perrot chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
0‑3 to SC Bastia, 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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Serhiy Kryvtsov and US Boulogne agree another 1 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 4 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
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.
Boardroom7 Dec 2026
Nobody left the US Boulogne dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
The dugout7 Dec 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 0‑3 defeat, delivered by Pierre Perrot to a room that had heard them before.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Alaa Bakir is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
15 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.
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 Boulogne 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.” Pierre Perrot after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation US Boulogne are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
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 Boulogne this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at US Boulogne training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Exaucé Mpembélé 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.
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 Florian Boulet is on it.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Serhiy Kryvtsov 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 US Boulogne can tell you which week it ends in.
100 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
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.
Successful dribbles: 14. 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
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 Boulogne this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at US Boulogne training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Exaucé Mpembélé 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 music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
Squad26 Oct 2026
8 new faces, and US Boulogne 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.
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.
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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Pierre Perrot after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Serhiy Kryvtsov 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation US Boulogne are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Ibrahim Sacko is 33 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
“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 Boulogne, and both men came out saying it was fine.
EA Guingamp next, and one man in the US Boulogne dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Serhiy Kryvtsov and US Boulogne agree another 1 years.
Serhiy Kryvtsov 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.
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.
A 1‑1 draw with Le Mans FC leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Pierre Perrot chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.