3 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
“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 The request is on a desk at FC Nantes, and it is not being withdrawn.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Frédéric Guilbert scored, was marked 7.97, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
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.
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.
In brief
Player ratingsNinety minutes of Alan at his very best
Words at FC Nantes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Deiver Machado 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.
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.
FC Nantes interviewed the field and appointed the corridor: Bruno Boyer keeps the job he had been doing in all but title. Sometimes the safest pair of hands is the one already holding the wheel.
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.
Santiago Roggero 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 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Johann Lepenant 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.
4 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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Words at FC Nantes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Matthis Abline 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.