Marked for Marco Romano
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad21 Jun 2027
The words a physio says slowly. 26 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.
Market21 Jun 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Novara can pretend not to have heard.
Transfer targets21 Jun 2027
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Novara have done the hard part with Napoli, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Transfer targets21 Jun 2027
A loan enquiry to Inter: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Words at Novara training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Raffaele Sibilio 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.
The dugout21 Jun 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 dugout21 Jun 2027
Nicolò Ledonne knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Nicolò Ledonne trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market21 Jun 2027
The name of Christian Donadio keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Novara say nothing, which says plenty.
Market21 Jun 2027
Novara have let the market know Christian Donadio can be had. No price in the advert, but everyone in the trade knows roughly what it says.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad8 Mar 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Mirko Miceli and Novara agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Player ratings8 Mar 2027
A hand in 2 of them from Nicolò Ledonne — 5.89
Marked 5.89. There is a kind of forward whose value only shows up when you count what he was involved in rather than what he finished, and this is the day that argument makes itself.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Tempers go at Novara
Marco Da Graca 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.
Match6 Mar 2027
Novara get the job done against Renate
A 3‑2 win over Renate, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
The terraces8 Mar 2027
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.
Match6 Mar 2027
Renate blown away early
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 3 times before the twentieth minute. Renate tried to reorganise, Novara did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
Player ratings8 Mar 2027
Diego Zuppel was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.12. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Squad8 Mar 2027
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Novara are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Player ratings8 Mar 2027
Marco Da Graca was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.02. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match20 Feb 2027
The drought breaks for Novara
6 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Arzignano were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Squad22 Feb 2027
A falling-out at Novara
Marco Da Graca and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The terraces22 Feb 2027
He is 20 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Match20 Feb 2027
Three points for Novara, 1‑0 the final word against Arzignano in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Player ratings22 Feb 2027
7.73, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Novara had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
Squad22 Feb 2027
A row about effort at Novara
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Riccardo Arboscello was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Player ratings22 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 15. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
The dugout22 Feb 2027
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Marco Nichetti will call it something else in private.
The dugout22 Feb 2027
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Sergio Parise could afford to be generous.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market31 Aug 2026
João Vitor 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 Novara can pretend not to have heard.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Everything agreed with Rosario Central, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
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 terraces31 Aug 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Nicolò Ledonne 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.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.68 on the card, and the Novara support went home talking about one name.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
A loan enquiry to Girona: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Squad31 Aug 2026
5 new faces, and Novara 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.
Match29 Aug 2026
It needed Diego Zuppel to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Pergolettese, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Sergio Parise chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.