Marked for Iván Rojas
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad23 Feb 2032
There were 9 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Player ratings23 Feb 2032
Successful dribbles: 26. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The dugout23 Feb 2032
news_b_frozen_out_of_the_side
Market23 Feb 2032
Iván Rojas has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Mantova they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Match21 Feb 2032
The drought breaks for Mantova
7 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Reggiana were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Squad23 Feb 2032
A row about effort at Mantova
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Francesco Ruocco was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad23 Feb 2032
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Mantova this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match21 Feb 2032
Reggiana made Mantova work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings23 Feb 2032
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.09, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad26 Jan 2032
There were 8 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
The terraces26 Jan 2032
Supporters turn on the $1.6M sale of Lucio Cruceño
He is going to Lecco, the club has $1.6M 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.
The dugout26 Jan 2032
news_b_frozen_out_of_the_side
Market26 Jan 2032
Iván Rojas has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Mantova they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Market26 Jan 2032
Lecco pay $1.6M, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Match24 Jan 2032
The wait goes on for Mantova
4 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.
Boardroom26 Jan 2032
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.
Squad26 Jan 2032
A row about effort at Mantova
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Francesco Ruocco was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad26 Jan 2032
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Mantova this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad28 Jul 2031
22 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Mantova lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market28 Jul 2031
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Mantova is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Boardroom28 Jul 2031
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Mantova
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Market28 Jul 2031
Iván Rojas hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Mantova can pretend not to have heard.
Squad28 Jul 2031
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Mantova this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Jul 2031
The step up is real for Adam Price
At 19 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.
Transfer targets28 Jul 2031
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Padova have kept their man, and Mantova go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The dugout28 Jul 2031
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Flavio Paoletti, and the manager let it.
Squad28 Jul 2031
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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad7 Jul 2031
A knee injury of the worst kind for Gennaro Conti
43 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Mantova lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market7 Jul 2031
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Catanzaro waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Mantova is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The dugout7 Jul 2031
“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 Jul 2031
Words exchanged at Mantova
Francesco Ruocco 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.
Market7 Jul 2031
Spezia are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Mantova will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Squad7 Jul 2031
Christopher Attys 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.
Boardroom7 Jul 2031
Mantova sign 7 boys into the academy
None of them will be seen by anybody outside the training ground for three years, most of them will never play a senior match, and one of them might change the club. That is the whole proposition, and it is why academies exist.
The dugout7 Jul 2031
Kerim Alajbegović has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Mantova 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.
Squad7 Jul 2031
He used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.