The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Udinese have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The fee is $1.1M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Bologna drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Facundo de León will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Udinese the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Udinese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The offer went to Pescara this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
In brief
SquadWords at Udinese training over how hard people work
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Facundo de León will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Udinese the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Álex Baena was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Asier Bonel 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 door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
The dugout31 Dec 2035
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 0‑5 Interim Coach left the room before anybody could ask which.
5 saves does not settle the argument about whose fault it was, and the argument will run all week. Goalkeepers carry these scorelines whoever caused them.
Squad31 Dec 2035
5 new faces, and Udinese are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Udinese they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Udinese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Udinese heard it as anything else.
Marked 8.09 — 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Udinese, another week without a signature from Andrea Giorgini.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Rocco Žiković was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The words a physio says slowly. 15 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Facundo de León will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Udinese the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Udinese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Nov 2035
David Odogu 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.
13 combined actions and 7.27. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
In brief
Player ratingsBrandon Khela beats them one at a time
The club looked outside for a month, found nothing it preferred, and handed the job to the man who had been doing it anyway. He knows the building; now he has to prove he knows the rest.
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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Udinese have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Udinese is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Udinese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad8 Oct 2035
David Odogu 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 general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
A brace, and Unai Gómez takes the afternoon — 8.11
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Unai Gómez provided it, and the 8.11 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
42 days with the chair empty, a list of names that grows and shrinks by the day, and not one signature on anything. Every week that passes takes the best candidates off it.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Cas Odenthal will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Udinese the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. Unai Gómez had Udinese level again within 4 minutes, and Spezia never got to play with a lead at all.
“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.
Squad1 Oct 2035
Rocco Žiković 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 players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 3‑2, Interim Coach could afford to be generous.
In brief
The dugoutDavid Odogu knocks on the manager’s door
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Udinese is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Facundo de León has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
The target is the manager, the approach is real, and the compensation clause is the whole conversation. Clubs deny this kind of story right up until the photograph.
Squad24 Sep 2035
David Odogu 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.
“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 Udinese, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Lecco waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Udinese is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Udinese asked and Fiorentina said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
Squad10 Sep 2035
Rocco Žiković 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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Udinese has been clear about where Sander Risan Mørk stands, which is more than many ever get.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Udinese people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Juventus moved on, Unai Gómez reports back to Udinese, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
The whole football department in one room on a weekday morning. Nothing was announced afterwards, which is what a board announces when it has run out of patience.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Udinese is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
He arrived for a fee and leaves for a fraction of it. $281.0K of what Udinese paid for Nikola Vlašić is money the club will not see again, and the boardroom will be asked about it for two seasons.
“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 Udinese, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom5 Feb 2035
Deadline passes with 7 signed and 11 gone
That is the business done at Udinese until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Udinese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.