Marked for Kenny Olinga
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match28 Apr 2029
4 matches without a win for Torino
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Torino are no longer polite ones.
Squad30 Apr 2029
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Torino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match28 Apr 2029
3 matches without a goal for Torino
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
The dugout30 Apr 2029
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Mojmír Chytil, and the manager let it.
Squad30 Apr 2029
51 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
The dugout30 Apr 2029
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Giovanni Ruggiero after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
The dugout30 Apr 2029
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Tommaso Di Marco is on it.
Market30 Apr 2029
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Torino know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Match28 Apr 2029
Torino and Modena cancel each other out
Nil-nil, and few chances worth the name. Modena came to defend and left with exactly what they came for.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market15 Jan 2029
Cesare Casadei has left for AC Milan in a $28.1M deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
Market15 Jan 2029
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Torino people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Market15 Jan 2029
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Torino can pretend not to have heard.
The terraces15 Jan 2029
Torino sell a favourite for $28.1M
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Cesare Casadei was one of the reasons people came, and $28.1M does not replace that by itself.
Market15 Jan 2029
Torino say no — this time
The offer from Cittadella for Amir Hossein Hosseinzadeh 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.
Transfer targets15 Jan 2029
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Torino have done the hard part with AS Roma, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Transfer targets15 Jan 2029
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Fiorentina keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Boardroom15 Jan 2029
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Kenny Olinga 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.
Transfer targets15 Jan 2029
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Venezia have kept their man, and Torino go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad3 Apr 2028
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 8 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Match1 Apr 2028
No end in sight to Torino's wait for a win
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Torino has to find a result from somewhere.
Market3 Apr 2028
Eray Cömert has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Torino they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Market3 Apr 2028
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Market3 Apr 2028
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Match1 Apr 2028
Bologna left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad3 Apr 2028
“The easiest signature of my career.” Alessandro Dellavalle and Torino agree another 5 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Loan watch3 Apr 2028
“I did not go to Ascoli to sit and watch. I want to come back to Torino and fight for my place.” 5 appearances in 12 matches say the rest.
The dugout3 Apr 2028
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 0‑2, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match15 Jan 2028
No end in sight to Ascoli's wait for a win
6 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Ascoli has to find a result from somewhere.
Transfer targets17 Jan 2028
$250.0K on the table at Napoli. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Transfer targets17 Jan 2028
Ascoli asked and Pro Vercelli said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad17 Jan 2028
Words at Ascoli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Augusto Bando 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 targets17 Jan 2028
A loan move for Yunus Musah is in the works
Ascoli have made the call to AC Milan. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Transfer targets17 Jan 2028
Inter have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Match15 Jan 2028
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
Market17 Jan 2028
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Gabriele Gori may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
The dugout17 Jan 2028
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Tommaso Milanese trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market3 Jan 2028
“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.
Match1 Jan 2028
The wait goes on for Ascoli
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Squad3 Jan 2028
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Ascoli know it.
Squad3 Jan 2028
Abdoul Guiebré 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.
Loan watch3 Jan 2028
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Ascoli, and 0 appearances in 18 say he has earned the hearing.
Market3 Jan 2028
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Gabriele Gori has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Ascoli.
The dugout3 Jan 2028
The manager makes an example of Don Bolsius
“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.
Transfer targets3 Jan 2028
Pergolettese have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Transfer targets3 Jan 2028
A loan move for Kenny Olinga is in the works
Ascoli have made the call to Torino. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.