From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Fee done, terms next for Diogo Costa
Olympique de Marseille and Porto have settled on $34.6M. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
Market24 Aug 2026
The offer from Napoli for Amine Gouiri 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.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. AS Saint-Etienne have kept their man, and Olympique de Marseille go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Market24 Aug 2026
The fee is $1.3M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Amiens SC drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Rayan Lutin gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Rayan Lutin has just signed for Olympique de Marseille, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Théo Hernández 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Igor Paixão 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.
Looking ahead24 Aug 2026
The fixture the calendar is arranged around. Form goes out of the window, the table is not consulted, and for ninety minutes Olympique de Marseille will be judged on one thing only.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Frédéric Schmitt was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Olympique de Marseille dressing room was either.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
$23.3M on the table at Sporting CP. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Squad17 Aug 2026
A move Théo Hernández would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Théo Hernández is living that version at Olympique de Marseille, and it tends to show in the first month.
Market17 Aug 2026
The name of Amine Gouiri has come up in conversations Olympique de Marseille were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
$2.3M was the most the club would pay and Grenoble Foot 38 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.
Market17 Aug 2026
A squad is not eleven players and a wish. Théo Hernández arrives from Al-Hilal to make the number up properly, and the value of that will be argued about in March rather than today.
Squad17 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Olympique de Marseille this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
The ground is getting bigger
The plans are signed off at a capacity of 88576. Decisions like this are judged twenty years later, by people who were not in the room when they were taken.
Squad17 Aug 2026
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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Olympique de Marseille have done the hard part with Al-Hilal, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
No deal for Alex Meret at that price
Olympique de Marseille offered $25.8M; Napoli said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
The offer went to AS Saint-Etienne 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Market10 Aug 2026
“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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Igor Paixão and Olympique de Marseille agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Boardroom10 Aug 2026
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $2.6M — a club that wants Allan Tchaptchet enough to be asked twice.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Amine Gouiri 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Olympique de Marseille have gone to Al-Hilal with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
$20.7M on the table at Napoli. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad3 Aug 2026
A move Myron Boadu would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Myron Boadu is living that version at Olympique de Marseille, and it tends to show in the first month.
Market3 Aug 2026
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Olympique de Marseille heard it as anything else.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Pierre-Emile Højbjerg 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Emerson signs on for more
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Emerson and Olympique de Marseille agree another 2 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Igor Paixão was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.