“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Arzignano have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The fee is $250.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Guidonia Montecelio drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Filippo Manfrin is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Arzignano is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Andrea Boffelli 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.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Matteo Soncin 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 kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Giovanni Perini provided it, and the 8.10 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
11 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Andrea Boffelli 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.
Squad3 May 2027
Matteo Soncin 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.
At 22 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.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 11 combined actions and a mark of 7.59, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Andrea Mattioli is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Two goals and a mark of 8.65 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The chase for Lorenzo Lancellotti ended with $140.0K changing hands and Pro Vercelli out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Andrea Boffelli 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Eddy Lanzi 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.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Arzignano know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Arzignano 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 Arzignano this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Words at Arzignano training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Matteo Soncin 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 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.
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.
Andrea Boffelli 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.
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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Arzignano this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Arzignano training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mattia Damiani 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 Arzignano this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Arzignano training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mattia Damiani 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.
A 2‑1 win over Giana Erminio, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Eddy Lanzi 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.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Eddy Lanzi was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.15. 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.
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.