Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Dániel Gazdag was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He is 22 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Red Star defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
Successful dribbles: 32. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Pablo Martinez and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Dániel Gazdag was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Christophe Le Goff is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Nimes told Tuomas Ollila something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Nimes can pretend not to have heard.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.27 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Pablo Martinez 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Dániel Gazdag was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Jared Khasa. 2‑0 against Sochaux, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nimes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dániel Gazdag 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.
17 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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Rémy Caron after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Stade Lavallois? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
In brief
The dugoutJamal Gonzaga knocks on the manager’s door
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dániel Gazdag 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.
Minute 93, against AC Ajaccio, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Pablo Martinez and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Axel Kedvesi is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Luca Dias has improved at 27, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
The 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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Marcel Morel 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Rémy Caron after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer 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.
Pablo Martinez 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 accounts are being read more closely than the results. Wages before ambition is the order of business now, and the manager has been told so.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Dániel Gazdag 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.
Every club 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 it has been tried.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nimes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Successful dribbles: 21. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Dániel Gazdag 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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Reda Rabeï, and the manager let it.
Squad28 Sep 2026
16 new faces, and Nimes 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 dugout28 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑2 Rémy Caron left the room before anybody could ask which.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
In brief
The dugoutOualid Orinel knocks on the manager's door
3‑0, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
The terraces21 Sep 2026
Nimes are taken apart by FC Metz — and the town wants answers
It finished 0-3. A cup exit is a disappointment; this was a public dismantling, and the difference between the two is the number of people who will still be talking about it in August.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.30 at 39, 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.
Marked 8.14 — 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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Ismaël Dramé
BoardroomNobody left the Nimes dressing room in a hurry
Pablo Martinez and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dániel Gazdag 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Paris FC have kept their man, and Nimes go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑3 Rémy Caron left the room before anybody could ask which.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Vincent Pirès
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
Nimes close the window on a squad of their own making
23 in and 0 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Pablo Martinez 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 accounts make uncomfortable reading. Wages first and ambition second is the order of business at Nimes now.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Dániel Gazdag 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Penarol have kept their man, and Nimes go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Marked 8.06 — 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.
“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 Nimes, and it is not being withdrawn.
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. Nimes have paid $2.5M for Jamal Gonzaga, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
Vincent Pirès 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.
Jamal Gonzaga was the name on every phone-in, and the club has gone and signed him for $2.5M. For one week the board can do no wrong, which is a week most boards never get.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jared Khasa was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Othmane Benhamza, and the manager let it.
Squad31 Aug 2026
13 new faces, and Nimes 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.
In brief
Transfer targetsA loan move for Hirving Lainez is in the works
Successful dribbles: 39. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
$2.5M settles it between the clubs for Jamal Gonzaga
AJ Auxerre have accepted the money. What Nimes do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
The chase for Ilian Mhand ended with $430.0K changing hands and Paris Saint-Germain out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
$300.0K was the most the club would pay and Clermont Foot were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
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: Dániel Gazdag from New England Revolution for $7.3M, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jared Khasa 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.
The clubs have shaken hands with Paris Saint-Germain; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Pablo Martinez and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Clermont Foot have kept their man, and Nimes go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Nimes will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Clément Depres'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.
The offer went to New England Revolution this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
$300.0K on the table at Clermont Foot. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other 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 Nimes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The offer went to Stade Brestois this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $5.6M for Tuomas Ollila, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
In brief
SquadWords at Nimes training over how hard people work
The offer went to Paris FC this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
67 appearances across 11 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.
$650.0K was the most the club would pay and Paris FC were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Pablo Martinez 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.
Nimes asked and Club America said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.