Position 3, 21 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
“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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Orkun Kökçü falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Lucas Høgsberg 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 RC Strasbourg this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
9 combined actions and 6.78. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Conrad Harder is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Conrad Harder did not need any: 8.23, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Datro Fofana 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.
Three points for RC Strasbourg, 2‑0 the final word against Le Havre AC in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Match24 Oct 2026
Another one collected away from home
3 on the bounce on the road for RC Strasbourg. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
14 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Successful dribbles: 26. 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.
At 20 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something 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 RC Strasbourg this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Gabriel Meyer after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Samir El Mourabet is on it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at RC Strasbourg, and both men came out saying it was fine.
At 21 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words at RC Strasbourg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Orkun Kökçü 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: Datro Fofana. 2‑0 against Olympique de Marseille, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 8.70 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Orkun Kökçü 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 a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 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.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about RC Strasbourg and Paris Saint-Germain in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
The first defeat in 4 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Paris Saint-Germain; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
4 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.
7.80, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
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.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Sam Amo-Ameyaw did not need any: 8.03, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
At 17 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Orkun Kökçü was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at RC Strasbourg this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
He is 19 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.
Orkun Kökçü 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 9.83 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Datro Fofana in the middle of it, and FC Lorient unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Gabriel Meyer, on a 3‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
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.
Datro Fofana had done his part in building a 2-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and Monaco were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
Two goals and a mark of 9.73 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
RC Strasbourg close the window on a squad of their own making
2 in and 6 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.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at RC Strasbourg heard it as anything else.
Orkun Kökçü 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.
Marked 8.16 — 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.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. RC Strasbourg will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
RC Lens did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $19.2M for Abdallah Sima, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
The paperwork is done: Orkun Kökçü joins from Besiktas in a deal worth $22.3M. Now comes the harder part.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
A brace, and Datro Fofana takes the afternoon — 9.13
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Datro Fofana provided it, and the 9.13 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Sam Amo-Ameyaw did not need any: 7.76, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. FC Metz have kept their man, and RC Strasbourg go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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.
RC Strasbourg have gone to RC Lens 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.
RC Strasbourg asked and Olympique de Marseille said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
7.44, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Idrissa Sabaly 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.
2‑2, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Gabriel Meyer was not hiding it after 2‑2, and nobody in the RC Strasbourg dressing room was either.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of David Aguy
SquadKarim Coulibaly, 19, is the weekend’s best young player
The clubs have shaken hands with Young Boys; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
RC Strasbourg have gone to Besiktas 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.
RC Strasbourg asked and Monaco said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Datro Fofana 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.
Work is signed off on a capacity of 27008. It is the sort of decision a club is judged on twenty years later, by people who were not there when it was taken.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Abdoulaye Ousmane’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and RC Strasbourg needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. RC Strasbourg know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around RC Strasbourg people have started saying his name in the past tense.
RC Strasbourg have gone to Le Havre AC 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.
Joaquín Panichelli 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
A muscle injury sidelines Hugo Colella for 14 days
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. RC Strasbourg will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Sebastian Nanasi trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at RC Strasbourg has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
“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 RC Strasbourg 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 RC Strasbourg this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The name of Maxi Oyedele has come up in conversations RC Strasbourg were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at RC Strasbourg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Joaquín Panichelli 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.