Marked for Samuel Iling-Junior
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad15 Mar 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 88 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings15 Mar 2027
Successful dribbles: 32. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings15 Mar 2027
30 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.
Squad15 Mar 2027
The manager makes an example of Tammy Abraham
“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.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Words at Aston Villa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Youri Tielemans 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.
Squad15 Mar 2027
8 goals and a season average of 7.37. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Loan watch15 Mar 2027
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Aston Villa, and 0 appearances in 28 say he has earned the hearing.
Match13 Mar 2027
Ninety minutes, two goalkeepers with clean gloves, and not one finish worth keeping. Everton will be the happier side with the point.
Loan watch15 Mar 2027
29 starts now, an average of 6.60, and the team sheet at Milton Keynes Dons has stopped being a question. Exactly what everybody signed up for.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match13 Mar 2027
Still nobody has beaten Pisa
The unbeaten run reaches 8. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Tempers go at Pisa
Rafiu Durosinmi 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.
Squad15 Mar 2027
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 16 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Player ratings15 Mar 2027
Successful dribbles: 22. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Boardroom15 Mar 2027
Pisa still without a manager
14 days since the seat came open, a list of names doing the rounds, and nobody has signed anything. Every week this drags on the shortlist gets shorter.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Words at Pisa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Samuele Angori 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.
Match13 Mar 2027
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Samuel Iling-Junior. 2‑1 against Sassuolo, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings15 Mar 2027
A performance of 8.92 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
The terraces15 Mar 2027
At 23 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match9 Dec 2026
The cup run ends for Pisa
1‑1 against Cagliari, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 31. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Rosen Bozhinov, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.76
A mark of 8.76 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Match12 Dec 2026
The wait goes on for Pisa
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.
The terraces14 Dec 2026
Pisa supporters have found a favourite in Rosen Bozhinov
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Rosen Bozhinov 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.
Match12 Dec 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad14 Dec 2026
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.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
It was his to settle and he did not settle it. A long walk back to the halfway line, and a considerably longer week.
Squad14 Dec 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 Pisa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad30 Nov 2026
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.
Squad30 Nov 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 Pisa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 22. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match28 Nov 2026
A bad afternoon for Pisa against Lazio
0‑1 to Lazio, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Filip Stojilković 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.
Squad30 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Stefano Moreo, and the manager let it.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Shots: 8, enough of them from close enough that a striker in form scores two. He is not a striker in form.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
One lapse, one goal, and ninety minutes of honest work counting for nothing. That is the job at Pisa, and it is a cruel one.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
5.61 on the card. Some afternoons a footballer looks like a man who has only just been introduced to the game, and this was one of them.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market16 Nov 2026
“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.
Player ratings16 Nov 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.66, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad16 Nov 2026
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad16 Nov 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 Pisa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match14 Nov 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Rafiu Durosinmi. 4‑3 against Torino, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Match14 Nov 2026
Rafiu Durosinmi among the goals in a wild afternoon
7 goals in one match, Rafiu Durosinmi on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Pisa and Torino.
Match14 Nov 2026
6 unbeaten for Pisa
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 6 matches without defeat is a foundation Pisa did not have in the autumn.
Player ratings16 Nov 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 9.11, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings16 Nov 2026
A performance of 9.11 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market2 Nov 2026
Rafiu Durosinmi wants to know where this is going
“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 Pisa hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 22. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad2 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Adrian Šemper
“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.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Marked 8.85 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Filip Stojilković 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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Tempers go at Pisa
Kieron Bowie 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match10 Oct 2026
The wait goes on for Pisa
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 Oct 2026
Tempers go at Pisa
Rafiu Durosinmi 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Adrian Šemper has improved at 28, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Match10 Oct 2026
Cremonese left with the points after a 1‑3 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad12 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Simone Scuffet, and the manager let it.
The terraces12 Oct 2026
At 23 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.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Marked 8.73 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words at Pisa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Filip Stojilković 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.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 15. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
30 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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
30 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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 25 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Match12 Sep 2026
4 matches without a win for Pisa
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Pisa are no longer polite ones.
Match12 Sep 2026
4 matches without a goal for Pisa
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 4 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 22. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market14 Sep 2026
“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 Pisa hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Kieron Bowie 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 Pisa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Filip Stojilković, and the manager let it.