Marked for Youssef Mahrani
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces23 Aug 2027
Supporters organise against the Carpi board
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Market23 Aug 2027
“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.
Transfer targets23 Aug 2027
Everything agreed with Pescara, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Squad23 Aug 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 Carpi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets23 Aug 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Cremonese have kept their man, and Carpi go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad23 Aug 2027
Lautaro Valiente 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.
Transfer targets23 Aug 2027
Casarano have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Boardroom23 Aug 2027
No investment in the facilities at Carpi
Nothing about this will be in a press release. A plan went upstairs, came back rejected, and the version of the club that would have existed in three years' time just quietly stopped being possible.
The dugout23 Aug 2027
The manager makes an example of Youssef Mahrani
“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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match21 Jun 2027
Carpi are in real trouble now
Position 15, 28 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Transfer targets21 Jun 2027
Carpi have gone to Torino with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Words exchanged at Carpi
Julián Rodríguez Seguer and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Transfer targets21 Jun 2027
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
The dugout21 Jun 2027
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Rodrick Tcheuna trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The dugout21 Jun 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Youssef Mahrani, and the manager let it.
The dugout21 Jun 2027
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Carpi told Marco Forapani something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
The dugout21 Jun 2027
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 Filippo Puletto is on it.
Market21 Jun 2027
Carpi have let the market know Federico Casarini can be had. No price in the advert, but everyone in the trade knows roughly what it says.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The dugout10 May 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Carpi may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad10 May 2027
A falling-out at Carpi
Davide Zagnoni and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout10 May 2027
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
The dugout10 May 2027
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Carpi, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The dugout10 May 2027
Enea Pitti 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match17 Apr 2027
The wait goes on for Carpi
11 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.
Match19 Apr 2027
Carpi finish in position 15
28 points, and the season has a number on it. Whatever it felt like from the inside, this is what it will look like in a book.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Words exchanged at Carpi
Julián Rodríguez Seguer and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Match17 Apr 2027
0‑1 to AlbinoLeffe, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout19 Apr 2027
The manager makes an example of Tommaso Panelli
“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.
Loan watch19 Apr 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 Carpi, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
The dugout19 Apr 2027
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 Stefano Ferrara left the room before anybody could ask which.
The dugout19 Apr 2027
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Matteo Rossini will call it something else in private.
The dugout19 Apr 2027
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.