“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 The request is on a desk at Forli, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Forli is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The deal that would have taken Luca Martelli to Guidonia Montecelio has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Forli with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Giovanni Gabriele Garofani and Forli agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Forli 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.
“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 The request is on a desk at Forli, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Forli is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Éric Mefoe 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Forli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Giovanni Gabriele Garofani 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 words a physio says slowly. 50 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.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Forli scored in the 90th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Forli can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings29 Oct 2029
Brando Bettazzi, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.98
A mark of 8.98 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Forli is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Forli 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.
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.
72 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Forli lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Lorenzo Saporetti 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.
132 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Forli lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 Forli, and it is not being withdrawn.
Lorenzo Saporetti 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. Nicola Mandrelli 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.
“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 Forli, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Filippo Ercolani will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Forli the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Lorenzo Saporetti 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. Justin Möbius 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.
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.
“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 Forli, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Forli they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Lorenzo Saporetti 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. Justin Möbius 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.
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.
“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 Forli, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
Everybody's debut is one of two stories and this was the other one. 5.34, and the only consolation available is that nobody's career has ever been decided by ninety minutes in a shirt he had just been given.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Giovanni Gabriele Garofani 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.
Éric Mefoe 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Forli can pretend not to have heard.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Forli they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Forli have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The name of Domenico De Tullio has come up in conversations Forli were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
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.
“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 Forli know it.
10 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Forli has to find a result from somewhere.
Player ratings20 Nov 2028
Brando Bettazzi, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.92
A mark of 7.92 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Giovanni Gabriele Garofani 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.
Éric Mefoe 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.
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.