Marked for Giuseppe Simone
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match10 Apr 2027
The wait goes on for Altamura
8 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.
Squad12 Apr 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 Altamura this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings12 Apr 2027
Successful dribbles: 21. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Match10 Apr 2027
2‑3 to Siracusa, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Words at Altamura training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Enrico Silletti 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.
Squad12 Apr 2027
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Altamura can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
The dugout12 Apr 2027
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Renato Dalla Costa after 2‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The dugout12 Apr 2027
“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.
Squad12 Apr 2027
One yellow too many, and a match watched from the stand. The most avoidable absence in football, and Altamura will feel it on Saturday.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad8 Mar 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 40 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings8 Mar 2027
Successful dribbles: 27. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market8 Mar 2027
Leandro Ruiz hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Altamura can pretend not to have heard.
Match6 Mar 2027
No end in sight to Altamura's wait for a win
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Altamura has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad8 Mar 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Alessio Curcio commits to Altamura for another 2 years.
Squad8 Mar 2027
A falling-out at Altamura
Marco Rosafio and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout8 Mar 2027
“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.
Match6 Mar 2027
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Words at Altamura training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Enrico Silletti 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad15 Feb 2027
A fracture rules Ignazio Fiorini out for 62 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Altamura will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
Leandro Ruiz: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Altamura have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Transfer targets15 Feb 2027
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: FC Nantes keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Squad15 Feb 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 Altamura this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match13 Feb 2027
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 6 matches without defeat is a foundation Altamura did not have in the autumn.
Player ratings15 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Alessio Curcio, and the manager let it.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Enrico Silletti 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.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
A promise honoured at Altamura
Something was said to Giuseppe Simone and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad7 Dec 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Filippo Colonna
23 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Altamura lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match5 Dec 2026
Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Enrico Silletti 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 dugout7 Dec 2026
Marco Crimi gets it from the manager
“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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Marco Nazzaro and Altamura agree another 4 years.
Squad7 Dec 2026
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Altamura can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Matteo Voltolini
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad2 Nov 2026
A falling-out at Altamura
Nicola Dipinto and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The terraces2 Nov 2026
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.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Alessio Curcio
“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.
Match31 Oct 2026
Three points for Altamura, 1‑0 the final word against Foggia in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Enrico Silletti 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.
Boardroom2 Nov 2026
Wages swallow 102% of the Altamura income
Every club 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 it has been tried.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 15. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
Matteo Voltolini dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
The dugout2 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.” Renato Dalla Costa, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad19 Oct 2026
6 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Altamura this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match17 Oct 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout19 Oct 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 Renato Dalla Costa left the room before anybody could ask which.
Squad19 Oct 2026
A row about effort at Altamura
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mattia Florio was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
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.
Looking ahead19 Oct 2026
Trapani next, and one man in the Altamura dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
Mattia Florio gets picked when it counts
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 Mattia Florio is on it.