66 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. RC Strasbourg lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
12 matches without a win, and then this, against Olympique Lyonnais. Relief is a strange noise in a football ground and it was the only noise at the end.
“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 The request is on a desk at RC Strasbourg, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around RC Strasbourg they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Andrew Omobamidele 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.
Squad10 Dec 2029
Igoh Ogbu 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.
74 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. RC Strasbourg lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at RC Strasbourg is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Lucas Høgsberg 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 Dec 2029
Igoh Ogbu falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The words a physio says slowly. 81 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 clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at RC Strasbourg is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Lucas Høgsberg 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.
Squad26 Nov 2029
Igoh Ogbu 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.
88 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. RC Strasbourg lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at RC Strasbourg is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Giovanni Reyna and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad19 Nov 2029
Words at RC Strasbourg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Igoh Ogbu 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.
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout19 Nov 2029
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Jean-Luc Fernandez to a room that had heard them before.
Nobody at RC Strasbourg 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.
96 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. RC Strasbourg lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at RC Strasbourg is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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.
Squad12 Nov 2029
Igoh Ogbu 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 have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at RC Strasbourg can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
The dugout12 Nov 2029
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Jean-Luc Fernandez to a room that had heard them before.
The words a physio says slowly. 103 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what RC Strasbourg can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at RC Strasbourg is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Giovanni Reyna was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad5 Nov 2029
Igoh Ogbu falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The words a physio says slowly. 112 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.
Position 18 and 3 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.
6 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at RC Strasbourg is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Lucas Høgsberg 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.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
0‑1 to FC Metz, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad29 Oct 2029
Isaak Davies falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The dugout29 Oct 2029
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 0‑1 Jean-Luc Fernandez left the room before anybody could ask which.
119 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. RC Strasbourg lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” RC Strasbourg 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 RC Strasbourg can pretend not to have heard.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Mouez Hassen will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around RC Strasbourg the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Andrew Omobamidele 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 Igoh Ogbu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
127 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. RC Strasbourg lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around RC Strasbourg 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 RC Strasbourg this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Igoh Ogbu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Alpha Touré wants continental football; whether RC Strasbourg can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
The words a physio says slowly. 134 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what RC Strasbourg can pretend not to have heard.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Woobens Pacius will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around RC Strasbourg the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Lucas Høgsberg 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.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 4 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Isaak Davies was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at RC Strasbourg is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Lucas Høgsberg 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.
Squad1 Oct 2029
Igoh Ogbu 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 have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at RC Strasbourg can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
The dugout1 Oct 2029
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Jean-Luc Fernandez to a room that had heard them before.
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 Sebastian Nanasi is on it.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around RC Strasbourg they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
6 goals in one match, Woobens Pacius on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of RC Strasbourg and AC Ajaccio.
Squad24 Sep 2029
Words at RC Strasbourg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Igoh Ogbu 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.
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.
Marked 8.42 — 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
Player ratingsNinety minutes of Rayane Messi at his very best
Player ratingsNinety minutes of Woobens Pacius at his very best
Player ratingsKévin Keben was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8 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.
RC Strasbourg asked and Angers SCO said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around RC Strasbourg 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 RC Strasbourg this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Squad17 Sep 2029
Isaak Davies 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 have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at RC Strasbourg can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Yoann Court has his answer from RC Strasbourg; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
In brief
SquadRC Strasbourg are still strangers to each other
The dugoutLucas Høgsberg has become a man the manager trusts
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Rayane Messi
“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 RC Strasbourg, and it is not being withdrawn.
Lucas Høgsberg 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Juan David Rubio will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around RC Strasbourg the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad10 Sep 2029
Words at RC Strasbourg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Igoh Ogbu 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. Zwolle have kept their man, and RC Strasbourg go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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.
“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 RC Strasbourg, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around RC Strasbourg they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Boardroom3 Sep 2029
Deadline passes with 28 signed and 25 gone
That is the business done at RC Strasbourg until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
“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.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Juan David Rubio has agreed terms with Le Havre AC for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
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.
In brief
SquadIgoh Ogbu falls out with a teammate over standards
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. RC Strasbourg have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what RC Strasbourg can pretend not to have heard.
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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at RC Strasbourg is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
RC Strasbourg asked and FC Nantes said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad27 Aug 2029
Words at RC Strasbourg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Isaak Davies 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 last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. RC Strasbourg have lost him in all but the paperwork.
RC Strasbourg asked and Angers SCO said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around RC Strasbourg 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 RC Strasbourg this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Igoh Ogbu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Boardroom20 Aug 2029
5 academy players handed senior numbers at RC Strasbourg
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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Olivier Fernandez 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.
In brief
BoardroomA promise the RC Strasbourg board did not keep
Transfer targetsA loan move for Aymean El Hani is in the works
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. RC Strasbourg have lost him in all but the paperwork.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. RC Strasbourg have done the hard part with FC Nantes, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad13 Aug 2029
Igoh Ogbu 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.
RC Strasbourg asked and Le Havre AC said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Kelian Le Pironnec 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.
Squad13 Aug 2029
7 new faces, and RC Strasbourg 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what RC Strasbourg can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around RC Strasbourg they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“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.
Lucas Høgsberg 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Frédéric Dumas is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
58 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad6 Aug 2029
Words at RC Strasbourg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Isaak Davies 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.
Squad6 Aug 2029
Mehdi Chahiri has improved at 33, 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.
In brief
Transfer targetsA loan move for Leon Klanac is in the works
Sporting CP paid $24.5M and RC Strasbourg took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Matheus Alves has gone, the accounts have $24.5M in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
The offer went to FC Nantes 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.
RC Strasbourg asked and Sochaux said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Kelian Le Pironnec is living that version at RC Strasbourg, and it tends to show in the first month.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Igoh Ogbu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
At 25 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 paperwork is done long before the player is. Alexandre Tunkadi has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means RC Strasbourg have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what RC Strasbourg can pretend not to have heard.
The offer from Stade Brestois for Matheus Alves 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.
RC Strasbourg and Angers SCO have settled on $1.0M. 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” RC Strasbourg have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Jeyland Mitchell will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around RC Strasbourg the goodbyes have quietly begun.
The deal with AS Roma is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when 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 RC Strasbourg this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Igoh Ogbu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
$3.7M was the most the club would pay and Le Havre AC 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what RC Strasbourg can pretend not to have heard.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Ben Chayeel Hamada has, at RC Strasbourg, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Miloš Luković is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Giovanni Reyna 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.
RC Strasbourg asked and Heerenveen said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
RC Strasbourg have made the call to AS Roma. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. RC Strasbourg have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“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 RC Strasbourg, and it is not being withdrawn.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Marvin Keller was one of the reasons people came, and $23.8M does not replace that by itself.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Alpha Touré will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around RC Strasbourg the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Lucas Høgsberg and RC Strasbourg agree another 5 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
At 23 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.
Lucas Høgsberg 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.
At 25 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 clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at RC Strasbourg is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“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 RC Strasbourg, and it is not being withdrawn.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Igoh Ogbu 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. Jean-Luc Meyer is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
“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 RC Strasbourg, and it is not being withdrawn.
The phone has started ringing about Marvin Keller again, and this time the name on the line is Atlético Madrid. RC Strasbourg are listening politely and promising nothing.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at RC Strasbourg is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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 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.
Squad25 Jun 2029
Lamine Sy 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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what RC Strasbourg can pretend not to have heard.
Lucas Høgsberg 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 Igoh Ogbu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at RC Strasbourg has been clear about where Florian Miguel stands, which is more than many ever get.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Isaak Davies trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
“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 RC Strasbourg, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at RC Strasbourg is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad11 Jun 2029
Igoh Ogbu falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Deivid Washington and RC Strasbourg agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
With 4 players away on international duty the sessions are small and the manager can actually hear himself. It is the one break in the season, and it never quite feels like one.
The offer from Le Havre AC for Matheus Alves 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.
“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 RC Strasbourg, and it is not being withdrawn.
“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.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
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.
“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; RC Strasbourg are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Deivid Washington has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
Squad4 Jun 2029
Lamine Sy 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.
In brief
The dugoutLucas Høgsberg has become a man the manager trusts
The words a physio says slowly. 20 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.
“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 RC Strasbourg, and it is not being withdrawn.
“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 RC Strasbourg know it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Igoh Ogbu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Vital N'Simba has his answer from RC Strasbourg; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
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 Deivid Washington is on it.
In brief
The dugoutMatheus Alves knocks on the manager’s door
The terracesThe Lucas Høgsberg rumours reach the terraces
The words a physio says slowly. 28 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 142 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Igoh Ogbu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody at RC Strasbourg 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Moussa Maréga trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
36 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. RC Strasbourg lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 151 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Alpha Touré will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around RC Strasbourg the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what RC Strasbourg can pretend not to have heard.
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 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 Sebastian Nanasi 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 160 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at RC Strasbourg is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad7 May 2029
Igoh Ogbu 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.
Moussa Maréga 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.
“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; RC Strasbourg are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
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 Lucas Høgsberg is on it.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at RC Strasbourg, another week without a signature from Andrew Omobamidele.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. RC Strasbourg will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Lucas Høgsberg 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.
Squad30 Apr 2029
Igoh Ogbu 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.
Nobody at RC Strasbourg 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” RC Strasbourg have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Giovanni Reyna was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Koffi Djidji 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 is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Jeyland Mitchell wants continental football; whether RC Strasbourg can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at RC Strasbourg. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at RC Strasbourg that is a harder question to answer.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around RC Strasbourg they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what RC Strasbourg can pretend not to have heard.
Lucas Høgsberg and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad16 Apr 2029
Words at RC Strasbourg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Igoh Ogbu 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 never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at RC Strasbourg. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 35 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around RC Strasbourg they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Lucas Høgsberg 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.
Squad9 Apr 2029
Igoh Ogbu 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.
Nobody at RC Strasbourg 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.
In brief
The dugoutMatheus Alves knocks on the manager's door
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what RC Strasbourg can pretend not to have heard.
Lucas Høgsberg 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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version 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 RC Strasbourg know it.
Something was said to Isaak Davies and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
“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 RC Strasbourg, 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 RC Strasbourg this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad26 Mar 2029
Words at RC Strasbourg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Igoh Ogbu 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.
5 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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Jean-Luc Fernandez after the 2‑2 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around RC Strasbourg they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“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 RC Strasbourg, and it is not being withdrawn.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Igoh Ogbu 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. François Marchand is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Thomas Berger has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
“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; RC Strasbourg are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around RC Strasbourg they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Lucas Høgsberg 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.
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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Nobody at RC Strasbourg 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at RC Strasbourg, another week without a signature from Andrew Omobamidele.
Somebody watched every match in the division at the weekend and decided he was the best thing in any of them. A small honour, and most careers end without one.
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.
Player ratings5 Mar 2029
A brace, and Isaak Davies takes the afternoon — 8.94
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Isaak Davies provided it, and the 8.94 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“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 RC Strasbourg, 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.
Squad5 Mar 2029
Igoh Ogbu 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.
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.
12 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.
“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 RC Strasbourg, and it is not being withdrawn.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 8 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” RC Strasbourg have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
Squad26 Feb 2029
Words at RC Strasbourg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Igoh Ogbu 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-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.
11 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.
7 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Alpha Touré will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around RC Strasbourg the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what RC Strasbourg can pretend not to have heard.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Giovanni Reyna was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether RC Strasbourg can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Matheus Alves will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around RC Strasbourg the goodbyes have quietly begun.
6 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Florian Sotoca reports back to RC Strasbourg with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Lucas Høgsberg 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 Igoh Ogbu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Angers SCO will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Melvin Zinga has pre-agreed a move to RC Strasbourg, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
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 asked and Toulouse FC said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” RC Strasbourg have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Boardroom5 Feb 2029
RC Strasbourg close the window on a squad of their own making
4 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.
5 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at RC Strasbourg can tell you which week it ends in.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. RC Strasbourg have done the hard part with Olympique de Marseille, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
OGC Nice paid $42.1M and RC Strasbourg took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what RC Strasbourg can pretend not to have heard.
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.
8 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.
Eliezer Mayenda has gone, the accounts have $42.1M in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
4 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and OGC Nice waiting with a shirt. Nobody at RC Strasbourg is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Monaco go through and RC Strasbourg go home, 0‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
7 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.
Everything agreed with Toulouse FC, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Giovanni Reyna and RC Strasbourg agree another 5 years.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. RC Strasbourg have lost him in all but the paperwork.
14 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. RC Strasbourg lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The clubs have shaken hands with Toulouse FC; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
The name of Igoh Ogbu has come up in conversations RC Strasbourg were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what RC Strasbourg can pretend not to have heard.
Squad15 Jan 2029
Igoh Ogbu 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 have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at RC Strasbourg can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
The words a physio says slowly. 21 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Le Havre AC waiting with a shirt. Nobody at RC Strasbourg is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Lucas Høgsberg 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.
29 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. RC Strasbourg lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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.
Squad1 Jan 2029
Igoh Ogbu 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 19 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at RC Strasbourg can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Nobody at RC Strasbourg 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.
37 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. RC Strasbourg lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Eliezer Mayenda provided it, and the 8.68 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Lucas Høgsberg and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad25 Dec 2028
Igoh Ogbu 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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Jeyland Mitchell wants continental football; whether RC Strasbourg can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Level with 92 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon RC Strasbourg had all but put away. FC Nantes will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. RC Strasbourg told Nouhou something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
In brief
The dugoutMarvin Keller has become a man the manager trusts
Lucas Høgsberg 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.
Squad18 Dec 2028
Words at RC Strasbourg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Eliezer Mayenda 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 never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Something was said to Deivid Washington and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Eliezer Mayenda signs something — a contract at RC Strasbourg or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
30 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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Eliezer Mayenda wants continental football; whether RC Strasbourg can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad11 Dec 2028
Igoh Ogbu 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.
“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; RC Strasbourg 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 RC Strasbourg this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
He is 23 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.
“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.
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.
Squad4 Dec 2028
Igoh Ogbu 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.
Minute 88, against Paris FC, 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.
“Every summer it is another club, another set of team-mates, another manager to convince. I have done all that. Now I want a pre-season at RC Strasbourg and a proper look at me.” He remains FC Nantes’s player until the spell runs out — but the argument is with the club that owns him.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The terracesEverybody has an opinion about Marvin Keller
122Edition
The RC Strasbourg Gazette
27 Nov 2028
From our football correspondentCrisis
Squad27 Nov 2028
Words at RC Strasbourg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Eliezer Mayenda 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.
Koffi Djidji 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.
Nobody at RC Strasbourg 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.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Lucas Høgsberg signs something — a contract at RC Strasbourg or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“If we are going to be beaten, let it not be because somebody in here could not be bothered.” He stood up and said it in front of everybody, which is a thing a squad remembers about a man for years.
A 1‑0 win over Olympique Lyonnais, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Player ratings20 Nov 2028
A brace, and Sékou Mara takes the afternoon — 8.76
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Sékou Mara provided it, and the 8.76 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Matheus Alves wants continental football; whether RC Strasbourg can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Lucas Høgsberg 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.
One scored and one made, which is a different afternoon from scoring twice and an easier one to overlook. Marked 7.40, and involved in 2 of his side's goals.
Squad20 Nov 2028
Igoh Ogbu 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.
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.
“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.
Lucas Høgsberg 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 Nov 2028
Words at RC Strasbourg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Igoh Ogbu 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 have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at RC Strasbourg can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. RC Strasbourg told Isaak Davies something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“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 RC Strasbourg 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 was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at RC Strasbourg has been clear about where Moussa Maréga stands, which is more than many ever get.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Benjamin Brantlind has come out of that comparison in the side, and RC Strasbourg have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
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 Lucas Høgsberg is on it.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. RC Strasbourg will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Eliezer Mayenda provided it, and the 8.66 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Igoh Ogbu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at RC Strasbourg can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
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 Eliezer Mayenda is on it.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 2‑2, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 29 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” RC Strasbourg have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Two goals and a mark of 8.33 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether RC Strasbourg can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Squad23 Oct 2028
Words at RC Strasbourg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Igoh Ogbu 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.
He is 23 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.
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.
Mouez Hassen 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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Lamine Sy
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 36 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Lucas Høgsberg 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.
Squad16 Oct 2028
Words at RC Strasbourg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Giovanni Reyna 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.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Miloš Luković, and the manager let it.
The dugout16 Oct 2028
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 0‑1 Jean-Luc Fernandez left the room before anybody could ask which.
He has had enough of the noise. Whether RC Strasbourg can be a quieter place for him, or whether the only cure is a move somewhere the phone-ins are gentler, is a question for the next few months.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. RC Strasbourg will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Squad9 Oct 2028
Igoh Ogbu 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 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 RC Strasbourg know it.
Koffi Djidji 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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 51 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Igoh Ogbu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at RC Strasbourg, another week without a signature from Sékou Mara.
8 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.
“I watch every RC Strasbourg game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at FC Nantes runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Gessime Yassine obliged against Dijon. 1‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is RC Strasbourg.
21 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. RC Strasbourg lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason RC Strasbourg will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Eliezer Mayenda was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Eliezer Mayenda 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.
29 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. RC Strasbourg lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason RC Strasbourg will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what RC Strasbourg can pretend not to have heard.
Lucas Høgsberg 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.
Squad18 Sep 2028
Igoh Ogbu 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason RC Strasbourg will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
2 in front and in complete control, and it finished with FC Lorient the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that RC Strasbourg will enjoy reviewing.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Eliezer Mayenda provided it, and the 8.59 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Igoh Ogbu 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.
“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; RC Strasbourg are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
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 Lucas Høgsberg is on it.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. RC Strasbourg will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Boardroom4 Sep 2028
Deadline passes with 33 signed and 31 gone
That is the business done at RC Strasbourg until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
“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.
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.
Koffi Djidji 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.
Squad4 Sep 2028
Simone Ianesi 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.
Nobody at RC Strasbourg 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. RC Strasbourg will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Two goals and a mark of 8.64 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what RC Strasbourg can pretend not to have heard.
Lucas Høgsberg 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.
Squad28 Aug 2028
Words at RC Strasbourg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Igoh Ogbu 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: Eliezer Mayenda. 2‑1 against FC Nantes, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
He is 23 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. RC Strasbourg will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what RC Strasbourg can pretend not to have heard.
The fee is $4.4M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Le Havre AC drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Soumaïla Coulibaly and RC Strasbourg agree another 4 years.
Senior shirt numbers handed to boys the coaches have known since they were twelve. Most will not make it and all of them have already done the hard part.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason RC Strasbourg will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
$3.6M was the most the club would pay and Olympique de Marseille 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.
At 23 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 is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. RC Strasbourg will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
RC Strasbourg offered $5.5M; Le Havre AC 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 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.
“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 RC Strasbourg, 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 RC Strasbourg this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Aug 2028
Giovanni Reyna has improved at 25, 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. 4 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
“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.
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.
14 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. RC Strasbourg lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason RC Strasbourg will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what RC Strasbourg can pretend not to have heard.
The offer from Stade Rennais for Eliezer Mayenda 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and OGC Nice waiting with a shirt. Nobody at RC Strasbourg is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
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.
The offer went to Olympique de Marseille 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Miloš Luković is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: RC Lens keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
21 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. RC Strasbourg lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 135 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“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 RC Strasbourg, and it is not being withdrawn.
At 23 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.
LOSC Lille paid $240.0K and RC Strasbourg took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
In brief
The dugoutDiogo Sousa knocks on the manager's door
The words a physio says slowly. 31 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. RC Strasbourg will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Matheus Alves is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Hugo Colella will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around RC Strasbourg the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Lucas Høgsberg and RC Strasbourg agree another 5 years.
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.
Nobody at RC Strasbourg 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Kévin Keben trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. RC Strasbourg have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Ismaël Doukouré was one of the reasons people came, and $30.7M does not replace that by itself.
At 22 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Igoh Ogbu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at RC Strasbourg can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
RC Strasbourg asked and Sochaux said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what RC Strasbourg can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around RC Strasbourg they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
$130.0K was the most the club would pay and OGC Nice 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.
Squad3 Jul 2028
Words at RC Strasbourg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Eliezer Mayenda 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.
Mamadou Camara 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.
The offer from Olympique de Marseille for Sékou Mara 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 now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Sochaux have kept their man, and RC Strasbourg go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. RC Strasbourg will quote 16 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
$510.0K on the table at Stade Rennais. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Stade Rennais wanted more than $860.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Squad26 Jun 2028
Igoh Ogbu 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.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation RC Strasbourg are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
In brief
The dugoutIsmaël Doukouré has become a man the manager trusts
RC Strasbourg offered $8.4M; Sochaux 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Isaak Davies is living that version at RC Strasbourg, and it tends to show in the first month.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what RC Strasbourg can pretend not to have heard.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Eliezer Mayenda wants continental football; whether RC Strasbourg can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around RC Strasbourg they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Soumaïla Coulibaly was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad19 Jun 2028
Igoh Ogbu 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Pape Demba Diop and RC Strasbourg agree another 4 years.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. RC Strasbourg have lost him in all but the paperwork.
RC Strasbourg asked and Sochaux said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.
Stade Rennais wanted more than $140.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Squad12 Jun 2028
Words at RC Strasbourg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Eliezer Mayenda 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 offer went to Sochaux 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Sochaux have kept their man, and RC Strasbourg go back to a list with one name crossed off 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.
$390.0K on the table at Angers SCO. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Lucas Høgsberg 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 7.00 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. RC Strasbourg know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
In brief
SquadWords at RC Strasbourg training over how hard people work
Giovanni Reyna 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 Igoh Ogbu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
19 games, 0 goals, and a squad option that has arrived without a fee attached. The interesting question at RC Strasbourg now is not whether he plays but who he displaces.
Nobody at RC Strasbourg 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Soumaïla Coulibaly trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Kévin Keben has written the date down.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and RC Strasbourg will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” RC Strasbourg have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around RC Strasbourg they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
Squad22 May 2028
Words at RC Strasbourg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Eliezer Mayenda 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.
Nobody at RC Strasbourg 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.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and RC Strasbourg will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
The dugout22 May 2028
The manager has not finished forgetting Mateo Del Blanco'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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Hugo Colella will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around RC Strasbourg the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad15 May 2028
Words at RC Strasbourg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Igoh Ogbu 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.
Nouhou 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.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Alexandre Rivière has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Denis Masson is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Emmanuel Hubert is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Squad15 May 2028
7 new faces, and RC Strasbourg 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 easiest signature of my career.” Woobens Pacius and RC Strasbourg agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about 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 RC Strasbourg can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around RC Strasbourg they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“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.
An average of 7.00 in a first team he is several years too young for. RC Strasbourg have something, and by now the whole division has noticed.
Squad8 May 2028
Words at RC Strasbourg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Igoh Ogbu 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 have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at RC Strasbourg can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Diogo Sousa 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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of 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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ismaël Doukouré was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 Ismaël Doukouré 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.
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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. RC Strasbourg told Simone Ianesi something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” RC Strasbourg have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Simone Perilli will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around RC Strasbourg the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Igoh Ogbu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 Lucas Høgsberg is on it.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Lucas Høgsberg signs something — a contract at RC Strasbourg or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“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.
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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around RC Strasbourg they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Igoh Ogbu 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.
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.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Squad17 Apr 2028
9 new faces, and RC Strasbourg 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.
Nobody at RC Strasbourg 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.
The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 43 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around RC Strasbourg they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
He is 21, he is averaging 7.00, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ismaël Doukouré was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Florian Sotoca 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.
Something was said to Igoh Ogbu and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Lucas Høgsberg 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 Igoh Ogbu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at RC Strasbourg can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Soumaïla Coulibaly will call it something else in private.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Jean-Luc Fernandez after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
He is 19, and nobody at RC Strasbourg signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
In brief
The dugoutIsmaël Doukouré has become a man the manager trusts
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around RC Strasbourg they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Igoh Ogbu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Soumaïla Coulibaly trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and RC Strasbourg will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
In brief
SquadA RC Strasbourg teenager takes the young player award
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around RC Strasbourg they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
9 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about RC Strasbourg and Angers SCO in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ismaël Doukouré was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Andrew Omobamidele 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.
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.
Marked 8.25 — 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Erwan Adonis will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around RC Strasbourg the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Matheus Alves wants continental football; whether RC Strasbourg can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad13 Mar 2028
Igoh Ogbu 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.
“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; RC Strasbourg are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
“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.
Lucas Høgsberg 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 Igoh Ogbu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Simone Perilli will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around RC Strasbourg the goodbyes have quietly begun.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Amadou Cissé 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.
Igoh Ogbu 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.
Squad28 Feb 2028
Words at RC Strasbourg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ismaël Doukouré 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 agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at RC Strasbourg is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Simone Perilli 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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Eliezer Mayenda wants continental football; whether RC Strasbourg can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad21 Feb 2028
Words at RC Strasbourg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Igoh Ogbu 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.
Mamadou Camara and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad21 Feb 2028
10 new faces, and RC Strasbourg 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 17 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Dijon moved on, Simone Perilli reports back to RC Strasbourg, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Lucas Høgsberg 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Erwan Adonis will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around RC Strasbourg the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Eliezer Mayenda and RC Strasbourg agree another 5 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Vasco da Gama have kept their man, and RC Strasbourg go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
1‑4 against Olympique de Marseille, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 25 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Stade Brestois have kept their man, and RC Strasbourg go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Boardroom7 Feb 2028
Deadline passes with 8 signed and 11 gone
That is the business done at RC Strasbourg until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
“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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ismaël Doukouré was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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 RC Strasbourg know it.
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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. RC Strasbourg will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. RC Strasbourg have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Le Havre AC have kept their man, and RC Strasbourg go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Everything agreed with AJ Auxerre, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Squad31 Jan 2028
Words at RC Strasbourg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ismaël Doukouré 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.
“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; RC Strasbourg are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
West Ham United paid $69.6M and RC Strasbourg took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. RC Strasbourg will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Thiago Almada has gone, the accounts have $69.6M in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
Soumaïla Coulibaly 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Apostolos Tsilingiris has just signed for RC Strasbourg, and for once the answer mattered.
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.
Squad24 Jan 2028
Words at RC Strasbourg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Eliezer Mayenda 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 chase for Marvin Keller ended with $28.5M changing hands and Wolverhampton out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
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.
He is going to Juventus, the club has $56.3M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
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: Marvin Keller from Wolverhampton for $28.5M, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Toulouse FC have kept their man, and RC Strasbourg go back to a list with one name crossed off it.