The end came on a Tuesday, as these things usually do: a short meeting, a shorter statement, and Jacques Gautier clearing his office by noon. Football’s cruellest ritual, performed to schedule.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
“Somebody has to pick the team on Saturday, and this week that is me.” An interim appointment with no promises attached, which is how most of them start.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at FC Nantes hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
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.
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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mostafa Mohamed provided it, and the 8.74 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Arthur Avom Ebong 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.
Squad27 Mar 2028
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Mostafa Mohamed. 2‑1 against AJ Auxerre, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
8.65. 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.
In brief
SquadDefences have started doubling up on Matthis Abline
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 13 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” FC Nantes have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around FC Nantes 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 FC Nantes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Maxime Dupé will call it something else in private.
5 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
Two goals and a mark of 9.07 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Zohir Oissa has agreed terms with Dijon for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Allan Saint-Maximin 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.
Squad13 Mar 2028
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.
OGC Nice will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Israel Coll has pre-agreed a move to FC Nantes, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Louis Leroux. 2‑1 against Olympique Lyonnais, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 8.72 — 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.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at FC Nantes can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Guy Noël Zohouri is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Kader Bamba has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Allan Saint-Maximin 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.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and FC Nantes know it.
11 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.46 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” FC Nantes have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Kader Bamba will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around FC Nantes 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 FC Nantes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 10.00 — 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.
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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” FC Nantes have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Allan Saint-Maximin 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.
18 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad14 Feb 2028
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.
11 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
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.
“I watch every FC Nantes game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Burgos runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Nabil Fekir will call it something else in private.
14 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. FC Nantes lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” FC Nantes have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
“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.
Allan Saint-Maximin 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 ratings31 Jan 2028
Sambou Soumano was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.27. 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 words a physio says slowly. 24 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.
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.
The paperwork is done: Mohammed Salisu joins from Monaco in a deal worth $5.1M. Now comes the harder part.
Player ratings24 Jan 2028
Harouna Djibirin, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.60
A mark of 7.60 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” FC Nantes have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Jovany Ikanga has just signed for FC Nantes, and for once the answer mattered.
32 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. FC Nantes lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings17 Jan 2028
A brace, and Louis Leroux takes the afternoon — 8.88
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Louis Leroux provided it, and the 8.88 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.41 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
5 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.
Allan Saint-Maximin 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between FC Nantes and OGC Nice, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
The words a physio says slowly. 42 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.
The fee is $16.6M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. FC Lorient drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
The offer from Olympique de Marseille for Matthis Abline was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Position 16 and 20 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” FC Nantes have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what FC Nantes can pretend not to have heard.
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 FC Nantes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The words a physio says slowly. 50 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 ratings3 Jan 2028
Louis Leroux, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.13
A mark of 8.13 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
“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.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between FC Nantes and Paris Saint-Germain, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what FC Nantes can pretend not to have heard.
Allan Saint-Maximin 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.
8 goals and a season average of 7.40. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Player ratings27 Dec 2027
Mostafa Mohamed was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.58. 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 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 FC Nantes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Fernando Mimbacas wants continental football; whether FC Nantes can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at FC Nantes, and 0 appearances in 26 say he has earned the hearing.
Louis Leroux, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 9.36
A mark of 9.36 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason FC Nantes will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Allan Saint-Maximin 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.
Squad13 Dec 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.
Marked 9.08 — 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Dehmaine Tabibou 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.
3 in front and in complete control, and it finished with Monaco the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that FC Nantes will enjoy reviewing.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 28 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 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 FC Nantes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Player ratings6 Dec 2027
Matthis Abline was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.22. 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 39 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Two goals and a mark of 8.43 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Allan Saint-Maximin 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.
Squad29 Nov 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.
“I watch every FC Nantes game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Burgos runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason FC Nantes will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Player ratings22 Nov 2027
Thomas Rousseau, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 7.67
A mark of 7.67 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
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 FC Nantes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason FC Nantes will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The terraces15 Nov 2027
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 7 of the 32 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
Allan Saint-Maximin 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.
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.
“I watch every FC Nantes game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Monaco runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Allan Saint-Maximin 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.
Squad1 Nov 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.
Two goals and a mark of 9.16 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
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.
8 goals in one match, Matthis Abline on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of FC Nantes and Red Star.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Fernando Mimbacas wants continental football; whether FC Nantes can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
34 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Allan Saint-Maximin 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.
Defensive actions: 23, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Squad18 Oct 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.
Marked 9.37 — 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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.47 at 36, and nobody on the pitch was better.
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.
Marked 8.68 — 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.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and FC Nantes know it.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at FC Nantes, and 1 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
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.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
7 goals in one match, Dehmaine Tabibou on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of FC Nantes and FC Metz.
Dehmaine Tabibou 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at FC Nantes, and 1 appearances in 13 say he has earned the hearing.
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.
At 28 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.
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 ratings27 Sep 2027
Matthis Abline was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.13. 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.
Shots: 12. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
A 2‑1 win over Chamois Niortais, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
The 85th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and Francisco Vazquez decided nobody was going anywhere. Chamois Niortais had no time left to answer.
Two goals and a mark of 8.27 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings20 Sep 2027
Harouna Djibirin, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 9.03
A mark of 9.03 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Allan Saint-Maximin 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
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.
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.
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
Allan Saint-Maximin 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.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at FC Nantes hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad6 Sep 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.
8 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
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.
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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
Nimes paid $260.0K and FC Nantes took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Marked 9.00 — 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.
At 22 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.
34 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.
Player ratings23 Aug 2027
Louis Leroux, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.92
A mark of 7.92 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
Allan Saint-Maximin 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.
Boardroom23 Aug 2027
5 academy players handed senior numbers at FC Nantes
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.
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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Louis Leroux 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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Fernando Mimbacas wants continental football; whether FC Nantes can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; FC Nantes are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Arsène Kouassi is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Allan Saint-Maximin 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.
Squad9 Aug 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.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Lamine Diack 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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at FC Nantes has been clear about where Uroš Radaković stands, which is more than many ever get.
“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.
The instruction has come from upstairs rather than from the dugout, which is the version of this conversation no manager enjoys. Somebody in that squad is now available whether the man who picks the team thinks so or not.
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.
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.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and FC Nantes know it.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Ali Youssef has his answer from FC Nantes; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
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.
Squad26 Jul 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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Arsène Kouassi wants continental football; whether FC Nantes can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about 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 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.
Nobody at FC Nantes 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.
Allan Saint-Maximin 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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Alban Lafont, and the manager let it.
Squad12 Jul 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Mostafa Mohamed's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Squad12 Jul 2027
9 new faces, and FC Nantes 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 instruction has come from upstairs rather than from the dugout, which is the version of this conversation no manager enjoys. Somebody in that squad is now available whether the man who picks the team thinks so or not.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
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.
At 28 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.
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.
7 arrivals, an average age nobody would call a squad, and a set of parents being shown around a building their sons will spend more time in than at home. The scouting has already happened; today is only the paperwork.
The offer from Salernitana for Alexis Mirbach was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Abakar Sylla has improved at 24, 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.
Squad28 Jun 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.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Sochaux will make the call about Herba Guirassy this week. FC Nantes have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
The chase for Arsène Kouassi ended with $8.4M changing hands and FC Lorient out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Dehmaine Tabibou is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
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.
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.
Add another name to the list: Pro Patria have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Tylel Tati. The answer from FC Nantes has not changed — yet.
Boards get told what they have done wrong for years and hear nothing on the days they get it right. This is one of those days: Arsène Kouassi from FC Lorient for $8.4M, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
Allan Saint-Maximin 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
125 appearances across 8 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
The offer from Benevento for Alexis Mirbach was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
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.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at FC Nantes hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Qualification is done, and next season the floodlights come on for something bigger. A stage for the players, oxygen for the accounts and a passport for everybody else.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” FC Nantes have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. FC Nantes will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
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.
26 appearances and 3 goals away from here, and a player the manager did not have in August. Loans are sent out hoping for exactly this and most of them do not deliver it.
The ambition story running the other way, and the one nobody tells: a footballer asking for a smaller stage, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is very rarely reported as anything else.
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.
“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.
Squad24 May 2027
Words at FC Nantes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Fabien Centonze 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
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Loan Merrifield’s exile
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what FC Nantes can pretend not to have heard.
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.
Squad17 May 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Mostafa Mohamed's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
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.
Nobody at FC Nantes 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.
Allan Saint-Maximin 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 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.
“I watch every FC Nantes game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at RC Lens runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
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.
“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.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Words at FC Nantes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Fabien Centonze 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
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Loan Merrifield’s exile
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.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
5 goals in 16 games at NEC — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at FC Nantes updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
91 minutes played. Mostafa Mohamed found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and FC Lorient went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Allan Saint-Maximin 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 general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and FC Nantes know it.
Marked 8.71 — 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.
Shots: 7. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
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.
35 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Alexis Mirbach is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
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.
10 goals in 29 games at RC Strasbourg — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at FC Nantes updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Paris Saint-Germain go through and FC Nantes go home, 0‑2 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
22 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
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.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against LOSC Lille? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
2‑1 against Groningen, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Rémy Cabella was at the centre of the description.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.20 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
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.
Allan Saint-Maximin 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.
A season average of 7.15 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. FC Nantes know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
Marked 8.64 — 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.
Louis Leroux, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 9.65
A mark of 9.65 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
31 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
25 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Allan Saint-Maximin and FC Nantes agree another 4 years.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
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.
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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 13 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at FC Nantes heard it as anything else.
Dehmaine Tabibou 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.
20 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.
2‑1 against Groningen, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Rémy Cabella was at the centre of the description.
2 in front and in complete control, and it finished with Angers SCO the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that FC Nantes will enjoy reviewing.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 113th minute. Groningen will replay every second of the added time for a week.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.97 at 36, and nobody on the pitch was better.
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.
9 goals and a season average of 7.56. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Player ratings22 Feb 2027
Johann Lepenant was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.73. 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.
Allan Saint-Maximin 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.
A season average of 7.14 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. FC Nantes know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
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.
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad15 Feb 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Mostafa Mohamed's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at FC Nantes, and 2 appearances in 27 say he has earned the hearing.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and FC Nantes know it.
Fernando Mimbacas 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.
“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.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Words at FC Nantes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Fabien Centonze 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.
“I watch every FC Nantes game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at RC Lens runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
3 in front and in complete control, and it finished with FC Metz the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that FC Nantes will enjoy reviewing.
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
Dehmaine Tabibou, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.17
A mark of 8.17 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
“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.
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.
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.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Maxime Dupé: 3 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between FC Nantes and Le Havre AC, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Every dressing room knows how to read a signing like this one. Fernando Mimbacas is not here to sit and wait indefinitely, and the man whose place he has been bought to take knows it better than anyone.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” FC Nantes have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
A season average of 7.10 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. FC Nantes know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
Dehmaine Tabibou 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.
6 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
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.
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.
“I did not go to Paris Saint-Germain to sit and watch. I want to come back to FC Nantes and fight for my place.” 2 appearances in 22 matches say the rest.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. FC Nantes will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
Marked 8.00 — 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.
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.
Marked 9.52 — 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.
Marked 9.38 — 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Allan Saint-Maximin. 2‑1 against RC Strasbourg, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words at FC Nantes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Fabien Centonze 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at FC Nantes, and 4 appearances in 20 say he has earned the hearing.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. FC Nantes scored in the 93th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
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.
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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. FC Nantes told Nabil Fekir something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
0‑1 against Universitatea Craiova. Continental football is unforgiving about the things a domestic league lets a side get away with, and this was a night spent finding out which of those the club still has.
Fabien Centonze 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.
Shots: 12. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
Squad14 Dec 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Maxime Dupé's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
An error at the back is a moment; an error in goal is a goal. Maxime Dupé knows it, the crowd knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; FC Nantes are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Dehmaine Tabibou 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.
Marked 9.13 — 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at FC Nantes, and 8 appearances in 13 say he has earned the hearing.
1‑1 against Young Boys, under lights, against people who do not speak the same language as the crowd. These are the evenings a club measures its decade in, and there are never as many of them as anybody expects.
“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.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Dehmaine Tabibou, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.88
A mark of 8.88 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” FC Nantes have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Dehmaine Tabibou 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.
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.
Going 2 down does something to a side, and what it usually does is finish them. Not here. FC Nantes rebuilt the afternoon goal by goal, and FC Metz had no answer to any of it.
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.67, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Sékou Doucouré, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.88
A mark of 8.88 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
He is 21, he is averaging 7.12, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
7 goals in one match, Allan Saint-Maximin on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of FC Nantes and LOSC Lille.
At 33 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.
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.
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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at FC Nantes, and 3 appearances in 10 say he has earned the hearing.
2‑0 against NK Krsko, under lights, against people who do not speak the same language as the crowd. These are the evenings a club measures its decade in, and there are never as many of them as anybody expects.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
A brace, and Ali Youssef takes the afternoon — 9.61
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Ali Youssef provided it, and the 9.61 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Allan Saint-Maximin 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.
“I did not go to Paris Saint-Germain to sit and watch. I want to come back to FC Nantes and fight for my place.” 1 appearances in 13 matches say the rest.
Successful dribbles: 22. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Johann Lepenant was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.63. 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.
Marked 8.46 — 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.
Fabien Centonze 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.
“I watch every FC Nantes game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Pergolettese runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Johann Lepenant is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Nobody at FC Nantes 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.
2‑0 against NK Krsko, under lights, against people who do not speak the same language as the crowd. These are the evenings a club measures its decade in, and there are never as many of them as anybody expects.
Successful dribbles: 30. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Dehmaine Tabibou, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 9.27
A mark of 9.27 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
He is 21, he is averaging 7.09, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
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.
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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Johann Lepenant provided it, and the 8.76 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about FC Nantes and Toulouse FC in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Fabien Centonze 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.
2 in front and in complete control, and it finished with Stade Brestois the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that FC Nantes will enjoy reviewing.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Héraba Gassama is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; FC Nantes are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
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.
2‑2 against Universitatea Craiova, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Matthis Abline was at the centre of the description.
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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Matthis Abline 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at FC Nantes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Fabien Centonze 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.
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.
Allan Saint-Maximin 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
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.
“I watch every FC Nantes game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at AJ Auxerre runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
6 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
1‑1 against Young Boys, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Matthis Abline was at the centre of the description.
The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Harouna Djibirin did not need any: 9.18, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 28 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
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.
22 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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.38 at 36, and nobody on the pitch was better.
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
Matthis Abline was on a different afternoon to everybody else
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.
“I watch every FC Nantes game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Paris Saint-Germain runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Squad14 Sep 2026
5 new faces, and FC Nantes 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.
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. FC Nantes have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
The offer from Paris FC for Ali Youssef was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at FC Nantes hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Fabien Centonze 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.
“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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Maxime Dupé's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Dehmaine Tabibou is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
7 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
2‑5 against RC Strasbourg, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
The offer from Olympique de Marseille for Dehmaine Tabibou was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
The terraces31 Aug 2026
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 8 of the 33 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
7 goals in one match, Dehmaine Tabibou on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of FC Nantes and RC Strasbourg.
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.
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.
Herba Guirassy, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 9.15
A mark of 9.15 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what FC Nantes can pretend not to have heard.
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.
At 20 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Herba Guirassy. 1‑0 against Stade Rennais, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at FC Nantes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Fabien Centonze 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Federico Varese has just signed for FC Nantes, and for once the answer mattered.
The most awkward business a club does is signing tomorrow's answer while today's is still in the building. Federico Varese comes from Racing for exactly that purpose, and the handover will not be discussed publicly by anybody.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
5 academy players handed senior numbers at FC Nantes
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 phone has started ringing about Tylel Tati again, and this time the name on the line is Carpi. FC Nantes are listening politely and promising nothing.
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.
Francisco Vazquez is 19, and FC Nantes have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
6 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 offer from Bourg-Peronnas for Loan Merrifield was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
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.
The phone has started ringing about Herba Guirassy again, and this time the name on the line is US Creteil. FC Nantes are listening politely and promising nothing.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at FC Nantes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Frédéric Guilbert 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.
91 appearances across 8 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
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.
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Kader Bamba is a FC Nantes player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Kader Bamba has just signed for FC Nantes, and for once the answer mattered.