29 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. US Creteil lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around US Creteil they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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 Creteil this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Pape Paye 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 words a physio says slowly. 37 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.
Ahmad Ngouyamsa 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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Words at US Creteil training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Stephen Quemper 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.
In brief
Boardroom482% of the income goes out in wages at US Creteil
The words a physio says slowly. 46 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.
4 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 Creteil 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.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Dijon? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Ahmad Ngouyamsa 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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at US Creteil training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Pape Paye 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Lenny Leonil will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around US Creteil the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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 Creteil 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.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Stan Berkani was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.05. 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Stan Berkani has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
At 24 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” US Creteil have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Ahmad Ngouyamsa 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at US Creteil training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Stephen Quemper 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.
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
886% of the income goes out in wages at US Creteil
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
0‑1 to Sochaux, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad5 Oct 2026
12 new faces, and US Creteil 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
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 Creteil this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 22 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Rémy Riou 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Gaël Nsombi has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 20 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
A 1‑0 win over Olympique de Marseille, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
27 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Ahmad Ngouyamsa 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at US Creteil training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Stephen Quemper 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.
Marked 8.83 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 11 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Lenny Leonil will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around US Creteil the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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 Creteil 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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Stan Berkani was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.06. 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 hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. David Tebili did not need any: 7.60, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
“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 US Creteil, and it is not being withdrawn.
Ahmad Ngouyamsa 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Yohan Mollo 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.
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 defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
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 Creteil 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.
21 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
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.
“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 US Creteil, and it is not being withdrawn.
Ahmad Ngouyamsa 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.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Stan Berkani was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.52. 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at US Creteil training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Stephen Quemper 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.
At 23 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.
A 1‑0 win over Clermont Foot, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 11 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.13 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
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 Creteil this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
5 academy players handed senior numbers at US Creteil
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
The name of Lenny Leonil has come up in conversations US Creteil were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Jean-Luc Guyot is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Roger Royer has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Roger Collet has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
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 Creteil 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Gaël Nsombi has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Marked 8.80 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 20 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Ahmad Ngouyamsa 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.
The phone has started ringing about Thomas Carbonero again, and this time the name on the line is Tours. US Creteil are listening politely and promising nothing.