Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mads Bidstrup was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody at Olympique Lyonnais 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.
“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.
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Olympique Lyonnais know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Olympique de Marseille? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Jack Harrison 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 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Dániel Gazdag trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Nobody at New England Revolution 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. New England Revolution know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Aaron Long 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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Luca Langoni wants continental football; whether New England Revolution can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Successful dribbles: 21. 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Christian Aaronson after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
“The easiest signature of my career.” DeAndre Johnson and New England Revolution agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Cody Baker 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 touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at New England Revolution this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Aaron Long 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.
8.30. 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.
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.
It finished 0-4. A cup exit is a disappointment; this was a public dismantling, and the difference between the two is the number of people who will still be talking about it in August.
Everything agreed with another club, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Aaron Long 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at New England Revolution this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Matt Turner
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.
$1.8M was the most the club would pay and LA Galaxy 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mamadou Fofana was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
11 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.