Massimo Bigotti

Attacking Midfielder (R) - Free Agent
7 Sep 2031
Sunday
Process

Marked for Massimo Bigotti

212 Edition

The Montana Gazette

19 Aug 2030
From our football correspondent Uneasy

The terraces

Supporters organise against the Montana 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.

Boardroom

Christopher Murphy takes the Montana job

“I have watched this squad. There is more in it than the table says.” First press conference, first promise — Christopher Murphy made the one every new manager makes, and now comes the part where it gets checked.

Match

Montana march on in the cup

Levski are out and Montana go through, 1‑0 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.

Player ratings

Chavdar Petkov, 17, steals the show — 7.66

Marked 7.66 at 17, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.

Market

Massimo Bigotti asks to leave Montana

“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.

Market

Chavdar Petkov has one foot out of the door

Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Montana they have already started talking about him in the past tense.

Transfer targets

No thanks: Tiago Rodrigues rejects the move

Montana had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Levski, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.

Transfer targets

Too dear: Montana walk away from Petar Prindzhev

$340.0K was the most the club would pay and Spartak 1918 were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.

Squad

Souleymane Keita arrives at the club he grew up with

Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Souleymane Keita has, at Montana, and the first month will show what that does to a man.

In brief