Nicolás Muñoz

Striker - Casarano
17 Aug 2028
Thursday
Process

Marked for Nicolás Muñoz

107 Edition

The Casarano Courier

14 Aug 2028
From our football correspondent Uneasy

Squad

Stefano Altieri damages knee ligaments — 33 days out

The words a physio says slowly. 33 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.

Market

Casarano turn down Ludogorets for Borna Knezović

The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.

Market

Francesco Grandolfo has one foot out of the door

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

The terraces

A $500.0K sale, and a town that did not want it

Niccolò Chiorra has gone, the accounts have $500.0K in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.

Market

Bright Gyamfi 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 Casarano can pretend not to have heard.

Squad

The step up is real for Nicolás Muñoz

At 22 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.

Squad

Tempers go at Casarano

Flavio Di Dio 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.

Market

Business is business: Niccolò Chiorra goes

Torino paid $500.0K and Casarano took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.

Squad

Karlo Lulić has improved at 32, which nobody expected

Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.

In brief

Back issues
105 Edition

The Casarano Courier

31 Jul 2028
From our football correspondent Uneasy

Market

Niccolò Chiorra asks to leave Casarano

“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.

Squad

Joseph Ngadena is a better footballer than he was

Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.

Squad

Federico Giraudo has improved at 29, which nobody expected

Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.

Squad

A row about effort at Casarano

Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Tommaso Cassandro was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.

Squad

Tempers go at Casarano

Andrea Santarcangelo 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 dugout

Francesco Grandolfo 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 dugout

Vincenzo Millico 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 Vincenzo Millico trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.

Market

The Borna Knezović story refuses to die

It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Borna Knezović signs something — a contract at Casarano or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.

The dugout

Nicolás Muñoz has become a man the manager trusts

Nobody at Casarano 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.

In brief

103 Edition

The Casarano Courier

17 Jul 2028
From our football correspondent Uneasy

Market

Borna Knezović turns Pescara down

“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.

Squad

A fracture rules Sebastiano De Carli out for 20 days

Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Casarano will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.

Market

Vincenzo Millico puts it in writing

“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 Casarano, and it is not being withdrawn.

Market

Francesco Grandolfo is on his way

The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Casarano is pretending he will be back in the shirt.

The dugout

Ismael Cajazzo says Casarano went back on their word

“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.

Market

Khazar come back empty-handed

The bid was some way short and Casarano did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.

Squad

Niccolò Chiorra in a row with a teammate

It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Casarano this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.

Squad

Nicolás Muñoz is a better footballer than he was

Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.

Squad

Late improvement for Tommaso Cassandro

At 28 the improving is meant to be over, and it is not: 3 points better than a year ago. It happens to the ones who take the boring parts seriously.

In brief

101 Edition

The Casarano Courier

3 Jul 2028
From our football correspondent Uneasy

Squad

A fracture rules Sebastiano De Carli out for 36 days

Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Casarano will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.

Market

Francesco Grandolfo has said yes to Torres

The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Casarano have lost him in all but the paperwork.

Market

Niccolò Chiorra 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 Casarano can pretend not to have heard.

Market

Bechem United come back empty-handed

The bid was some way short and Casarano did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.

The dugout

Raffaele Maiello: that is not what I was promised

“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Casarano have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.

Squad

Tommaso Cassandro 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 dugout

No hiding place for Francesco Grandolfo

“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Francesco Grandolfo, and the manager let it.

Squad

Tempers go at Casarano

Leandro Versienti 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.

Market

A long bet from Casarano on Cobi Maddox

He is 20, and nobody at Casarano signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.

In brief

97 Edition

The Casarano Courier

5 Jun 2028
From our football correspondent Uneasy

Market

Niccolò Chiorra 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 Casarano can pretend not to have heard.

Boardroom

Casarano to lose Giovanni Mirto for free

There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Giovanni Mirto 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 dugout

The manager makes an example of Andrea Santarcangelo

“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.

Squad

Tempers go at Casarano

Bright Gyamfi 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.

Squad

The armband comes off Niccolò Chiorra

Casarano will explain it as a decision about the team, and it may well be one. A dressing room has never once read it that way.

The dugout

Vito Leonetti 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 Vito Leonetti trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.

Squad

A row about effort at Casarano

Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mihail Tsenov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.

Market

The shop window has Francesco Grandolfo in it

Casarano have let the market know Francesco Grandolfo can be had. No price in the advert, but everyone in the trade knows roughly what it says.

Market

The Niccolò Chiorra question follows Casarano around

Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Niccolò Chiorra’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.

In brief

61 Edition

The Casarano Courier

27 Sep 2027
From our football correspondent Steady

Player ratings

Ismael Cajazzo was unplayable

Successful dribbles: 40. 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.

Squad

Tommaso Cassandro breaks a bone — 73 days out

Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 73 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.

Squad

A knee injury of the worst kind for Leandro Versienti

66 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Casarano lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.

Match

Nicolás Muñoz sends Casarano through

Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Nicolás Muñoz obliged against Monopoli. 1‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Casarano.

Match

Cruel end for Monopoli as Casarano pounce

There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Casarano scored in the 114th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.

Squad

Niccolò Chiorra keeps Casarano in it on his own

Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.

The dugout

Emmanuele Matino: that is not what I was promised

“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Casarano have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.

Player ratings

Nicolás Muñoz, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.75

A mark of 7.75 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.

Squad

A falling-out at Casarano

Niccolò Chiorra and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.

In brief

60 Edition

The Casarano Courier

20 Sep 2027
From our football correspondent Uneasy

Squad

Tommaso Cassandro breaks a bone — 80 days out

Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 80 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.

Squad

A knee injury of the worst kind for Leandro Versienti

73 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Casarano lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.

Match

At last: Casarano win one

9 matches without a win, and then this, against Picerno. Relief is a strange noise in a football ground and it was the only noise at the end.

Player ratings

Age has not caught Vito Leonetti yet — 7.84

At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.84 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.

Squad

Real improvement from Nicolás Muñoz at Casarano

Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Nicolás Muñoz is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.

Squad

Late improvement for Ertijon Gega

At 26 the improving is meant to be over, and it is not: 3 points better than a year ago. It happens to the ones who take the boring parts seriously.

Match

Casarano see off Picerno

Three points for Casarano, 1‑0 the final word against Picerno in a contest settled by the finer margins.

Player ratings

Borna Knezović runs at them all day

Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.

The dugout

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.” Vincenzo Costantini, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.

In brief

54 Edition

The Casarano Courier

9 Aug 2027
From our football correspondent Uneasy

Squad

Cosimo Chiricò damages knee ligaments — 39 days out

The words a physio says slowly. 39 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.

Squad

Tommaso Cassandro breaks a bone — 125 days out

Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 125 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.

Market

Casarano say no — this time

The offer from HJK for Cosimo Patierno was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.

Market

Filippo Bacchin has said yes to Livorno

The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Casarano have lost him in all but the paperwork.

Squad

Words exchanged at Casarano

Niccolò Chiorra 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.

Squad

Nicolás Muñoz is a better footballer than he was

Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.

Market

Gaetano Logoluso told to find a new club

“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Gaetano Logoluso has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Casarano.

Market

The Giovanni Pinto conversation is coming

Everyone has stopped pretending: Latina will make the call about Giovanni Pinto this week. Casarano have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.

The dugout

Niccolò Chiorra 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 Niccolò Chiorra trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.

In brief

48 Edition

The Casarano Courier

28 Jun 2027
From our football correspondent Uneasy

Market

Filippo Bacchin 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 Casarano can pretend not to have heard.

Squad

Nicolás Muñoz is a better footballer than he was

Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.

Squad

Vito Leonetti 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 dugout

Vito Leonetti 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.

Squad

A falling-out at Casarano

Andrea Santarcangelo and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.

Market

Niccolò Chiorra linked with a move away

The name of Niccolò Chiorra keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Casarano say nothing, which says plenty.

Market

Casarano put Gaetano Logoluso up for sale

The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Gaetano Logoluso may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.

The dugout

Emmanuele Matino has been promised minutes

A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Emmanuele Matino has written the date down.

The dugout

Nicolás Muñoz 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 Nicolás Muñoz trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.

In brief

40 Edition

The Casarano Courier

3 May 2027
From our football correspondent Uneasy

Player ratings

Cosimo Patierno, 36, rolls back the years — 8.13

There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.13 at 36, and nobody on the pitch was better.

Match

5 matches without a win for Casarano

The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Casarano are no longer polite ones.

The dugout

Nicolás Muñoz: that is not what I was promised

“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Casarano have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.

Squad

Cosimo Patierno is in the form of his life

A season average of 7.23 with 16 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.

Squad

Niccolò Chiorra in a row with a teammate

It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Casarano this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.

The dugout

The manager makes an example of Niccolò Zanellato

“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.

Squad

Words at Casarano training over how hard people work

Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vincenzo Ferrara 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.

Match

Casarano and Salernitana take a point apiece

It finished 2‑2, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.

Squad

A step back for Andrea Santarcangelo at Casarano

Somebody has moved past him. It is not a dropping and it is worse than one, because a dropping is about a Saturday and this is about where he stands.

In brief

  • The dugout The view from the dugout
  • The dugout Vito Leonetti asks for a word with the manager
  • Player ratings Federico Giraudo beats them one at a time
30 Edition

The Casarano Courier

22 Feb 2027
From our football correspondent Upbeat

Squad

The knee: Karlo Lulić out for 42 days

42 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Casarano lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.

Squad

Tempers go at Casarano

Niccolò Chiorra 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.

Match

Siracusa take the points off Casarano

Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.

Player ratings

Niccolò Zanellato runs at them all day

Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.

The dugout

Vincenzo Costantini: “No excuses”

“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 1‑2, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.

Squad

Vincenzo Ferrara 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.

Boardroom

91% of the income goes out in wages at Casarano

Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.

The dugout

No hiding place for Nicolás Muñoz

“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Nicolás Muñoz, and the manager let it.

The dugout

Francesco Grandolfo 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 Francesco Grandolfo trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.

In brief

18 Edition

The Casarano Courier

30 Nov 2026
From our football correspondent Crisis

Match

No end in sight to Casarano's wait for a win

8 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Casarano has to find a result from somewhere.

Match

Casertana take the points off Casarano

Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.

Boardroom

129% of the income goes out in wages at Casarano

Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.

Squad

Tempers go at Casarano

Vincenzo Ferrara 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 dugout

The manager makes an example of Francesco Grandolfo

“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 dugout

Vincenzo Costantini faces the questions

“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Vincenzo Costantini after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.

Squad

Words at Casarano training over how hard people work

Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ismael Cajazzo 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.

Looking ahead

Casarano take on the side everybody is chasing

Benevento arrive as leaders. A side at the top is beaten roughly once a month, and the club that does it gets a week it remembers for a year.

Looking ahead

A reunion for Bright Gyamfi

He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Benevento in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.

In brief

15 Edition

The Casarano Courier

9 Nov 2026
From our football correspondent Uneasy

Match

No end in sight to Casarano's wait for a win

5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Casarano has to find a result from somewhere.

Squad

Words exchanged at Casarano

Niccolò Chiorra 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.

Market

Casarano promote Federico D'Angelo from within

The academy exists for exactly this morning. Federico D'Angelo has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.

Squad

Nicolás Muñoz wants to go home

“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Casarano can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.

Squad

Flavio Di Dio reaches 100 appearances

100 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.

Player ratings

Nobody could get near Federico Giraudo

Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.

Squad

Vincenzo Ferrara 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.

Player ratings

Nobody on the pitch touched Mario Mercadante

7.47, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Casarano had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.

The dugout

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.” Vincenzo Costantini chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.

In brief

12 Edition

The Casarano Courier

19 Oct 2026
From our football correspondent Steady

Squad

Giovanni Pinto damages knee ligaments — 28 days out

The words a physio says slowly. 28 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.

Player ratings

Age has not caught Cosimo Patierno yet — 7.92

At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.92 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.

Match

Casarano caught on 85 minutes

The board was up, the win was priced in, and then Sorrento scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.

Squad

Words at Casarano training over how hard people work

Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vincenzo Ferrara 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.

Match

Casarano share the spoils with Sorrento

A 1‑1 draw with Sorrento leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.

The dugout

Half-satisfied: Vincenzo Costantini on the draw

“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.

Player ratings

Nobody could get near Flavio Di Dio

Successful dribbles: 13. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.

The dugout

Ismael Cajazzo dropped after a run of poor form

The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.

Looking ahead

Raffaele Maiello goes back to face Crotone

Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Raffaele Maiello’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Casarano needing him to play as if none of it matters.

In brief

11 Edition

The Casarano Courier

12 Oct 2026
From our football correspondent Crisis

Squad

A knee injury of the worst kind for Giovanni Pinto

35 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Casarano lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.

Player ratings

Flavio Di Dio beats them one at a time

Successful dribbles: 30. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.

Squad

Real improvement from Denny Pucci at Casarano

Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Denny Pucci is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.

Match

A bad afternoon for Casarano against Siracusa

0‑2 to Siracusa, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.

Market

Luca Chiari steps up from the Casarano academy

There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Luca Chiari has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.

Market

Casarano promote Davide Pavone from within

The academy exists for exactly this morning. Davide Pavone has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.

Squad

Words exchanged at Casarano

Vincenzo Ferrara 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.

The dugout

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 0‑2 Vincenzo Costantini left the room before anybody could ask which.

The dugout

Nicolás Muñoz 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.

In brief

8 Edition

The Casarano Courier

21 Sep 2026
From our football correspondent Steady

Squad

A knee injury of the worst kind for Matteo Martina

21 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Casarano lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.

Match

Casarano leave it late against Picerno

Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 89th, and Picerno spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.

Squad

Words exchanged at Casarano

Flavio Di Dio 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.

Match

Vito Leonetti the difference as Casarano beat Picerno

Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Vito Leonetti. 1‑0 against Picerno, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.

Player ratings

Flavio Di Dio beats them one at a time

Successful dribbles: 18. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.

Player ratings

Vito Leonetti stands above it all

Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.96 on the card, and the Casarano support went home talking about one name.

The dugout

Vincenzo Costantini has his say

“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Vincenzo Costantini on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.

The dugout

Lucas Cuffia 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 dugout

Cosimo Patierno knocks on the manager's door

“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Casarano, and both men came out saying it was fine.

In brief