Kevin Martins, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.41
A mark of 8.41 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Kevin Martins. 2‑1 against Ternana, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Francesco Scafetta 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.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Matteo Stoppa was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.34. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.49 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Successful dribbles: 30. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Kevin Martins, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.90
A mark of 7.90 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Alessandro Dalmazzi 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.
Three points for Sambenedettese, 3‑2 the final word against Pianese in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Tomas Lepri falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Kevin Martins 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.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 10 actions, 6.86, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
Umberto Eusepi had done his part in building a 2-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and Ascoli were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Kevin Martins did not need any: 7.88, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.11 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sambenedettese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Sambenedettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tomas Lepri 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.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
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.
Successful dribbles: 34. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Kevin Martins, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.62
A mark of 7.62 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.93 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sambenedettese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A 3‑2 win over Campobasso, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Sambenedettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tomas Lepri 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.
Francesco Scafetta 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.
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.
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.
3 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Umberto Eusepi will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Sambenedettese escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Kevin Martins, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.80
A mark of 7.80 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Alessandro Dalmazzi 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 needed Umberto Eusepi to find the net to bring anything home at all: 3‑3 against Forli, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Majkol Luka 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.
6 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Alessandro Dalmazzi 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Sambenedettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kevin Candellori 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 easiest signature of my career.” Jacopo Sassi and Sambenedettese agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sambenedettese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Sambenedettese know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
He is 20, and nobody at Sambenedettese signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sambenedettese 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.