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 Carrarese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad25 Oct 2027
Words at Carrarese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Julián Illanes 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.
Something was said to Simone Zanon and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
The dugout25 Oct 2027
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 Marco Medici left the room before anybody could ask which.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad27 Sep 2027
Words at Carrarese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tomás Almada 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 this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Marco Medici after 1‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
David Spinelli 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Carrarese they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The unbeaten run reaches 6. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Words at Carrarese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Julián Illanes 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.
Carrarese asked and Inter said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Carrarese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
16 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Carrarese, and it is not being withdrawn.
1 for Matthias Braunöder, marked 7.93, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Julián Illanes was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Rahul Sharma 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Carrarese can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Carrarese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Theo Di Carlo is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Carrarese asked and Genoa said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The name of Jakob Schragl has come up in conversations Carrarese were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Carrarese will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Carrarese know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Carrarese that is a harder question to answer.
The offer from Sambenedettese for Mattia Finotto was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Carrarese can pretend not to have heard.
Carrarese asked and Genoa said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.
He is 19, and nobody at Carrarese signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Carrarese have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Add another name to the list: Giana Erminio have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Mattia Finotto. The answer from Carrarese has not changed — yet.
$1.1M on the table at Juventus. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
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 Carrarese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Carrarese, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Position 11 on 50 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Carrarese have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.79 for the rest of it.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Words at Carrarese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Julián Illanes 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. Udinese have kept their man, and Carrarese go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Filippo Reale 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.
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 85th, and Ascoli spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
1 for Nicolás Schiavi, marked 7.62, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Carrarese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
5 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Ascoli were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Squad31 May 2027
Words at Carrarese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Filippo Oliana 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.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Mattia Finotto.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Stefano Mazzini will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Carrarese the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Julián Illanes was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout24 May 2027
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Marco Medici chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
14 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Carrarese lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Beaten 0‑3 by Modena, and beaten everywhere it matters. The inquest starts on the training pitch on Monday morning.
Squad10 May 2027
Words at Carrarese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Filippo Oliana 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Carrarese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
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.
1 for Filippo Melegoni, marked 7.79, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Carrarese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Words at Carrarese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Julián Illanes 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Cristian Bordoni and Carrarese agree another 3 years.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Carrarese told Filippo Melegoni something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Marco Medici after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
In brief
The dugoutFabio Abiuso knocks on the manager's door
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Carrarese is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Nikola Sekulov 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.
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.
Südtirol next, and one man in the Carrarese dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
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 Dachi Lordkipanidze is on it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Fabio Abiuso signs something — a contract at Carrarese or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Carrarese. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
The language has come, the shrug has gone, and he argues in training like a man who expects to be here next year. None of it shows up on a fee and all of it shows up on the pitch.
Two goals and a mark of 8.98 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Carrarese 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.
“I watch every Carrarese game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Spezia runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The dugout15 Mar 2027
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Marco Medici, on a 2‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Somebody watched every match in the division at the weekend and decided he was the best thing in any of them. A small honour, and most careers end without one.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Giovanni Gabriele Garofani will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Carrarese the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Matthias Braunöder 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.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Words at Carrarese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Julián Illanes 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.
Fabio Abiuso scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑2 to Padova, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
The dugout22 Feb 2027
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 1‑2 Marco Medici left the room before anybody could ask which.
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.
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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Carrarese will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Tommaso Rubino did not need any: 7.69, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Tommaso Rubino is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
The deal with AC Milan 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.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Matthias Braunöder 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Tommaso Rubino. 2‑0 against Empoli, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Words at Carrarese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Filippo Oliana 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.
Tommaso Macchioni 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 is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Carrarese told Fabio Abiuso something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Successful dribbles: 12. 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Carrarese, and both men came out saying it was fine.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Position 19 and 10 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
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.
He is 22 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Fabio Andrea Ruggeri and Carrarese agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
The award is a small thing with a heavy meaning: for four weeks nobody in this division did his job better. Carrarese have the trophy on a shelf and the player in the side.
David Vujević 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.
Nikola Sekulov 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.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Matthias Braunöder. 2‑1 against Pisa, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑1, Marco Medici could afford to be generous.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.96 for the rest of it.
Julián Illanes 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.
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.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Marco Medici, on a 2‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
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.
Matthias Braunöder and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at Carrarese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Julián Illanes 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.
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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Südtirol in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Nobody at Carrarese 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Jacopo Martini trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
11 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.
Sassuolo go through and Carrarese go home, 0‑3 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
0-3, and long before the end the away end had switched from encouragement to something considerably more pointed. Nobody rings a phone-in about losing narrowly.
Matthias Braunöder 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.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Words at Carrarese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Julián Illanes 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.
Marked 6.90 on 13 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 4 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
2 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Dachi Lordkipanidze did not need any: 7.95, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Carrarese 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.
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 are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Benevento defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
Vicenza next, and one man in the Carrarese dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
0‑5 against Hellas Verona, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Carrarese can pretend not to have heard.
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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑5, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
David Vujević 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.
Beaten 5 times, 4 saves, and an afternoon that will go on his record whether it was his fault or the defence’s. It is the quiet unfairness of the position.
Carrarese had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at AS Roma, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Carrarese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Matteo Vitale has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Gennaro Piazza has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Edoardo Mariani has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Mario Barbieri has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
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 decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Matthias Braunöder and Carrarese agree another 4 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Carrarese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Matthias Braunöder 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. Torino have kept their man, and Carrarese go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
11 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.