Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Pergolettese has to find a result from somewhere.
Boardroom7 Feb 2028
Deadline passes with 0 signed and 2 gone
That is the business done at Pergolettese 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.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Pergolettese have done the hard part with Catanzaro, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Pergolettese will try again when the window opens; Sassuolo may not be selling by then.
The deal with Sassuolo 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.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pergolettese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad31 Jan 2028
Lamine Ballo 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 Pergolettese know it.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 91. Giana Erminio had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
It needed Mattia Rossetti to find the net to bring anything home at all: 2‑2 against Giana Erminio, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pergolettese can pretend not to have heard.
The name of Lorenzo Cordaro has come up in conversations Pergolettese were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Pergolettese had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Campobasso, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
The offer went to AC Milan 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.
Pergolettese have gone to Ascoli 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.
This is not rotation. Alejandro Bua has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at Pergolettese is pretending otherwise.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lamine Ballo 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. Parma have kept their man, and Pergolettese go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pergolettese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Half the programme played, position 7, 24 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Nicola Fortunato after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Successful dribbles: 15. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Nobody at Pergolettese 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 dugout27 Dec 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Alejandro Bua'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.
Niccolò Corti 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.
Squad29 Nov 2027
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lamine Ballo 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 Pergolettese can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
“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.
Successful dribbles: 14. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
The dugout29 Nov 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Alejandro Bua'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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of 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 Pergolettese 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.
1 error, one goal, and a night in front of the same three seconds. He will see it tonight, tomorrow and probably in February, and everybody who has played knows exactly which frame he keeps stopping on.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Niccolò Corti has moved up it.
The dugout1 Nov 2027
Alejandro Bua is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 6 matches without defeat is a foundation Pergolettese did not have in the autumn.
Squad18 Oct 2027
Lamine Ballo 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 Pergolettese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
3 kept out from twelve yards, and a stadium that will describe each of them for twenty years. A goalkeeper needs one night like this in a career, and this was it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Lamine Ballo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 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 Pergolettese know it.
Nobody at Pergolettese 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 medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Pergolettese have done the hard part with Bologna, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Lamine Ballo 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Giugliano have kept their man, and Pergolettese go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“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 Pergolettese know it.
The dugout2 Aug 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Samuele Careccia'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.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Michael De Marchi 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Pergolettese will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Genoa is saying, and nobody at Pergolettese is enjoying the guessing.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Pergolettese, and both men came out saying it was fine.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Pergolettese would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
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 Alberto Pala has written the date down.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 94 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Alan Echegaray is living that version at Pergolettese, and it tends to show in the first month.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Cavese keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
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.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Francesco Parisi has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Pergolettese have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Jacopo Antolini 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.
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.
Pergolettese have made the call to Fiorentina. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Pergolettese, and both men came out saying it was fine.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Pergolettese will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Alejandro Bua is living that version at Pergolettese, and it tends to show in the first month.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Samuele Careccia and Pergolettese agree another 4 years.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pergolettese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.