Marked for Malik Tchokounté
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad30 Nov 2026
Kyllian Danet damages knee ligaments — 26 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 26 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.
Match30 Nov 2026
Stade Lavallois refuse to drop out of the race
Position 3, 26 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.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
At 38 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 7.90, and nobody on the pitch better.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 23. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad30 Nov 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Stade Lavallois this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Dylan Mbayo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match28 Nov 2026
A 2‑1 win over AC Ajaccio, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Cyril Mandouki, and the manager let it.
Boardroom30 Nov 2026
Wages eat 93% of everything Stade Lavallois earn
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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad23 Nov 2026
Kyllian Danet damages knee ligaments — 33 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 33 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.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 27. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
At 38 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.91 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Thibaut Vargas and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad23 Nov 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Trévis Dago commits to Stade Lavallois for another 5 years.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Yohan Tavares
“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.
Match23 Nov 2026
Position 3, 23 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match31 Oct 2026
2 in front and in complete control, and it finished with Valenciennes the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that Stade Lavallois will enjoy reviewing.
Match2 Nov 2026
Position 2 and 22 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
At 38 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.45 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad2 Nov 2026
He will be fined, he will apologise, and he will play on Saturday. The order of those three tells you everything about what a football club actually values.
Squad2 Nov 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Stade Lavallois this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. 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.
Looking ahead2 Nov 2026
Nimes next, and the two sides the division is watching meet each other. Whoever wins will be told nothing is decided in the same breath as being congratulated.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Voices raised on the Stade Lavallois training ground
Two players, one bad tackle and a session that had to be stopped. It was over in a minute; it was outside the gates in an hour.
Squad2 Nov 2026
The award goes to Malik Tchokounté, and nobody around here is inclined to argue with the choice.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 9.01, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad19 Oct 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Stade Lavallois this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad19 Oct 2026
At 19 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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Stade Lavallois training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dylan Mbayo 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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
William Bianda has improved at 26, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
“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.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Antoine Clément on a 2‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
From our football correspondent
Steady
The dugout28 Sep 2026
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Stade Lavallois may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Thibaut Vargas and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Stade Lavallois training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dylan Mbayo 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.
Market28 Sep 2026
Thibaut Vargas is free to find somewhere else
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Stade Lavallois has been clear about where Thibaut Vargas stands, which is more than many ever get.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Eros Maddy, and the manager let it.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
Thibaut Vargas knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Stade Lavallois, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match16 Sep 2026
Stade Rennais ended it 0‑2. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
At 38 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.16 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Julien Maggiotti and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Julien Trichet is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
Match19 Sep 2026
Dijon left with the points after a 2‑3 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout21 Sep 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 2‑3 defeat, delivered by Antoine Clément to a room that had heard them before.
Market21 Sep 2026
Stade Lavallois have let the market know Thibaut Vargas can be had. No price in the advert, but everyone in the trade knows roughly what it says.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
Thibaut Vargas knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Thibaut Vargas trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market14 Sep 2026
RC Lens come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Stade Lavallois did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Transfer targets14 Sep 2026
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Stade Lavallois will try again when the window opens; Valenciennes may not be selling by then.
Match12 Sep 2026
6 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Stade Lavallois training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dylan Mbayo 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.
Match12 Sep 2026
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 91. Red Star had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
Match12 Sep 2026
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 4 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
Squad14 Sep 2026
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 14 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Match12 Sep 2026
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Mamadou Samassa commits to Stade Lavallois for another 2 years.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Thibaut Vargas and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. AC Milan have kept their man, and Stade Lavallois go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Nobody could get near Eros Maddy
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
7.68, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Stade Lavallois had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
A loan enquiry to LOSC Lille: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Squad10 Aug 2026
6 new faces, and Stade Lavallois 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.
The dugout10 Aug 2026
“That is what I want every week. Not the result, the way they went about it.” The manager, after 1‑0, already talking about the next one.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad3 Aug 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 10 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Match1 Aug 2026
Trévis Dago had done his part in building a 2-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and Chamois Niortais were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.90 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Thibaut Vargas commits to Stade Lavallois for another 4 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Thibaut Vargas 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Dylan Mbayo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The terraces3 Aug 2026
The crowd has taken to Trévis Dago
At 21 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Match1 Aug 2026
2‑2, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.