Marked for Alessandro Grano
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 Jul 2028
Pepín Machín 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.
Market10 Jul 2028
The phone has started ringing about Jônata Bastos again, and this time the name on the line is Carrarese. Sambenedettese are listening politely and promising nothing.
Transfer targets10 Jul 2028
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.
Squad10 Jul 2028
Words at Sambenedettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kevin Candellori 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.
Transfer targets10 Jul 2028
A loan enquiry to Cosenza: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Transfer targets10 Jul 2028
A loan enquiry to Atalanta: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
The dugout10 Jul 2028
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Squad10 Jul 2028
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Sambenedettese will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
The dugout10 Jul 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Flavio Fuscaldi, and the manager let it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad24 Apr 2028
Edoardo Goldaniga 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.
Squad24 Apr 2028
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Francesco Scafetta was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout24 Apr 2028
Alessio Zini 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.
The dugout24 Apr 2028
The manager has not finished forgetting Sergio Hernández's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
The dugout24 Apr 2028
Alessio Zini has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Sambenedettese will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
The dugout24 Apr 2028
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Sambenedettese. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Market24 Apr 2028
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Squad24 Apr 2028
The selectors could not leave Alessio Zini out
6.60 across ninety minutes and a place in the division's team of the week. He was the best player on that pitch and everybody there knew it.
Squad24 Apr 2028
The least glamorous thing a foreign signing ever does and the one that decides most of them. A player who can hear the shout behind him is a different footballer from one who cannot.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match17 Apr 2028
The season ends: position 8 for Sambenedettese
The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 41 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
Squad17 Apr 2028
Edoardo Goldaniga 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.
Squad17 Apr 2028
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Christian Capone was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Player ratings17 Apr 2028
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match15 Apr 2028
Torres made Sambenedettese work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings17 Apr 2028
Marco Piccoli was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.25. 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.
The dugout17 Apr 2028
The manager makes an example of Walter Reynoso
“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.
The dugout17 Apr 2028
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Dario Baldini, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
The dugout17 Apr 2028
Nobody at Sambenedettese will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match18 Dec 2027
Nicolás Luján had done his part in building a 2-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and Gubbio were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
Player ratings20 Dec 2027
A brace, and Nicolás Luján takes the afternoon — 8.95
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Nicolás Luján provided it, and the 8.95 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Market20 Dec 2027
Moussa Touré 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 Sambenedettese can pretend not to have heard.
Squad20 Dec 2027
Francesco Scafetta 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 dugout20 Dec 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Leonardo Pezzola, and the manager let it.
Match18 Dec 2027
2‑2, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
The dugout20 Dec 2027
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 2‑2 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
The dugout20 Dec 2027
Jônata Bastos has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Sambenedettese will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
The dugout20 Dec 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market5 Jul 2027
“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 Sambenedettese, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Pasquale Marranzino 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 targets5 Jul 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Cesena have kept their man, and Sambenedettese go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Kevin Candellori was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout5 Jul 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Vittorio Parigini, and the manager let it.
Squad5 Jul 2027
This league is too small for Ivan Saio
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Sambenedettese will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
Transfer targets5 Jul 2027
A loan move for Pastor is in the works
Sambenedettese have made the call to Ludogorets. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Transfer targets5 Jul 2027
A loan enquiry to Lecco: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Market5 Jul 2027
Signings arrive with a picture of the club in their head, and this one’s picture was bigger than the building. He will play well and he will be gone, in that order, and everybody knows it.