Marked for Edoardo Bernardi
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad28 May 2029
“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.
Market28 May 2029
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Yonathan Del Valle will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Arzignano the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad28 May 2029
Erald Lakti in a row with a teammate
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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad9 Apr 2029
“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.
Squad9 Apr 2029
19 clean sheets and counting. Strikers leave this ground muttering his name, which is exactly how a goalkeeper measures a good season.
Squad9 Apr 2029
“The easiest signature of my career.” Patric and Arzignano agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad9 Apr 2029
Michael Liguori 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.
Match7 Apr 2029
It finished 1‑0, and it was Michael Liguori’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Arzignano.
Player ratings9 Apr 2029
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.46, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings9 Apr 2029
Ninety minutes of Erald Lakti at his very best
Marked 8.01. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Arzignano.
Player ratings9 Apr 2029
Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings9 Apr 2029
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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad12 Jun 2028
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.
Squad12 Jun 2028
Fabio Cariolato 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.
Squad12 Jun 2028
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Edoardo Bernardi commits to Arzignano for another 3 years.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Boardroom29 May 2028
They will talk about this season in this town for a long time. The trophy comes home with the squad, and the route is already agreed.
Boardroom29 May 2028
Promotion, confirmed and mathematical, and a town that will not sleep much tonight. Whatever else this season had in it, it ends a division higher than it began.
Squad29 May 2028
“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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad8 May 2028
19 shut-outs and counting. Goalkeepers are only noticed when they fail, and Filippo Manfrin has given nobody the chance.
Squad8 May 2028
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Riccardo Chiarello and Arzignano agree another 2 years.
Squad8 May 2028
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.
Boardroom8 May 2028
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.
Squad8 May 2028
Words at Arzignano training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Riccardo Chiarello 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.
Boardroom8 May 2028
$448.5K on the table at Arzignano
The board have answered with money instead of encouragement, which is the only answer a manager ever wants. Spending it well is now entirely his problem.
Player ratings8 May 2028
Marked 4.59. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
Player ratings8 May 2028
A mark of 4.63 tells the story without any need for embellishment. He will want the tape of this one quietly lost.
Player ratings8 May 2028
Marked 4.89, and generously at that. Nothing came off, and by the end the crowd had stopped expecting it to.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match3 Jan 2028
Arzignano refuse to drop out of the race
Position 1, 37 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Squad3 Jan 2028
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Arzignano have had the benefit of it.
Market3 Jan 2028
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Match1 Jan 2028
The wait goes on for Arzignano
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.
Squad3 Jan 2028
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.
Match1 Jan 2028
Still nobody has beaten Arzignano
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.
Player ratings3 Jan 2028
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad3 Jan 2028
Riccardo Chiarello 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.
Squad3 Jan 2028
“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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad18 Oct 2027
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.
Match16 Oct 2027
Arzignano cannot stop winning
4 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.
Squad18 Oct 2027
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.
Squad18 Oct 2027
Words at Arzignano training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Riccardo Chiarello 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.
Match16 Oct 2027
Pro Vercelli made Arzignano work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings18 Oct 2027
Ninety minutes of Erald Lakti at his very best
Marked 8.97. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Arzignano.
The terraces18 Oct 2027
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Filippo Manfrin 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 ratings18 Oct 2027
Leonardo Graziani was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.00. 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.
Squad18 Oct 2027
“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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad13 Sep 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Arzignano may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad13 Sep 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Rayan Atikallah is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Match11 Sep 2027
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 7 matches without defeat is a foundation Arzignano did not have in the autumn.
Squad13 Sep 2027
Paris Brunner 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.
Squad13 Sep 2027
At 26 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.
Match11 Sep 2027
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad6 Sep 2027
Leonardo Graziani is a better footballer than he was
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.
Squad6 Sep 2027
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.
Match4 Sep 2027
Whatever happens, Arzignano do not lose
6 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Words at Arzignano training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Riccardo Chiarello 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.
The terraces6 Sep 2027
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Filippo Manfrin 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.
Match4 Sep 2027
A 1‑0 win over Lumezzane, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad6 Sep 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Oleksandr Dragan, and the manager let it.
Player ratings6 Sep 2027
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings6 Sep 2027
16 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.