The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Frosinone is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Lorenzo Palmisani 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.
15 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
The dugout10 May 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Angelo Iannuzzi was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Frosinone dressing room was either.
13 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Frosinone they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
Marked 7.17 on 15 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Lorenzo Palmisani was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Frosinone this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Frosinone pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Lorenzo Palmisani trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Alessio Zerbin trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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 Gabriele Calvani is on it.
Venezia next, and one man in the Frosinone dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Frosinone they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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; Frosinone are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 9 combined actions and a mark of 6.61, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Angelo Iannuzzi after 0‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Francesco Gelli will call it something else in private.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 11 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
9 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 have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Frosinone 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 Frosinone people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Deadline passes with 1 signed and 1 gone
That is the business done at Frosinone 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 win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Frosinone hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
“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; Frosinone are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Words at Frosinone training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lorenzo Palmisani 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.
100 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
12 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.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
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 Angelo Iannuzzi left the room before anybody could ask which.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Frosinone this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Frosinone will quote 15 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Eldin Lolić 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 want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Frosinone 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.
Still no offer on the table, and Florian Grillitsch’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
12 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.
In brief
The dugoutAlessio Zerbin asks for a word with the manager