Estac Troyes

The Stade de l'Aube holds 21,877 and sits at the centre of a club. ESTAC plays there as the successor to a lineage that runs back through Union Sportive Troyenne, founded in 1900, and Association Sportive Troyenne et Savinienne, formed in 1931. The present club dates only to 1 January 1986, built after Troyes Aube Football went under in 1979. Even the initials took a while to settle: the club played as ATAC until 2000, when a retailer with a similar name forced a switch to Espérance Sportive Troyes Aube Champagne.

Ownership shifted again in September 2020, when City Football Group bought a controlling stake from former president Daniel Masoni. Troyes won Ligue 2 in 2020–21 and went back up to the top flight. It was not the club's first passage through the second division as champions in all but name — Troyes also came up via third place in 1999 and 2012 — nor its first taste of continental football. In 2001, Troyes won the Intertoto Cup, sharing the honour with Aston Villa and Paris Saint-Germain, with Jérôme Rothen scoring the decisive goal against Newcastle.

The academy has done its own work quietly. Djibril Sidibé came through it and scored the goal that sent the club up in 2012 before moving on to a career at international level. Bafétimby Gomis made his name at Troyes during a loan spell in 2004–05. Stade de Reims remains the fixture that matters most, the Derby de Champagne carrying more weight locally than any cup run, with CS Sedan Ardennes a longer-standing rival from the club's earlier years.

None of it changes what the Stade de l'Aube is on a matchday: a mid-sized ground in a mid-sized city, built for a club that has spent most of its history moving between divisions rather than settling in one.