60 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Virtus Entella lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Cristian Volpato 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.
Squad19 Jun 2028
Luca Parodi 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.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
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.
Squad28 Feb 2028
Luca Parodi 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.
Mario Ierardi 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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Virtus Entella told Leonardo Benedetti something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Stefano Di Mario signs something — a contract at Virtus Entella or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Virtus Entella can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Virtus Entella this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Mostafa Sobhi has just signed for Virtus Entella, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Words at Virtus Entella training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luca Parodi 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.
Squad2 Aug 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Ivan Marconi'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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Arab Contractors will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Mostafa Sobhi will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Arab Contractors the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Arab Contractors this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Federico Bicoro 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Arab Contractors, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 25 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Mostafa Sobhi will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Arab Contractors the goodbyes have quietly begun.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Federico Bicoro 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Michael Agbekpornu 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.
ENPPI will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Mostafa Aref has pre-agreed a move to Arab Contractors, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Arab Contractors will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
0‑3 to Wadi Degla, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
The terraces25 Jan 2027
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 14 of the 38 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Arab Contractors this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.