The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Grenoble Foot 38 are no longer polite ones.
Squad27 Sep 2027
Amine Sbaï 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.
10 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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
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 words a physio says slowly. 18 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 listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Nesta Zahui had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Grenoble Foot 38 can pretend not to have heard.
The offer went to FC Lorient this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Grenoble Foot 38 have done the hard part with EA Guingamp, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Grenoble Foot 38 is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Grenoble Foot 38 had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Red Star, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Successful dribbles: 14. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Yadaly Diaby 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.
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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Baptiste Mouazan’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Grenoble Foot 38 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 Samba Diba is on it.
He used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 88. US Boulogne had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Grenoble Foot 38 will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
A loan enquiry to Porto: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Jessy Benet 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.