3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Francesco Proietto 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 Feb 2029
Words at Pianese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luca Fabrizi 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.
3 straight away victories. Sides that win away are usually sides that can defend and can counter, and the table has begun to reflect what those journeys have earned.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Pianese pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Simone Ianesi signs something — a contract at Pianese or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 85 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Francesco Proietto 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.
Squad18 Sep 2028
Words at Pianese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Simone Ianesi 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.
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.
19 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 109 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“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 Pianese, and it is not being withdrawn.
15 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
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.
Francesco Proietto 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.
Squad28 Aug 2028
Matteo Colombo has improved at 24, 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. 4 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Lorenzo Masetti signs something — a contract at Pianese or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The words a physio says slowly. 87 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Giana Erminio can pretend not to have heard.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Federico Renda is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Nicolas Previtali and Giana Erminio agree another 4 years.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Giana Erminio this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Day 9 of the vacancy. Candidates have been priced, sounded out and quietly ruled out — and the caretaker’s win ratio is becoming an argument all by itself.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
5 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Giana Erminio 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.
50 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Giana Erminio lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Enea Pitti is living that version at Giana Erminio, and it tends to show in the first month.
Matteo Marotta 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.
He is 20, and nobody at Giana Erminio signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
The best deals are the ones the accountants never notice. Enea Pitti arrives at Giana Erminio with his wages the only cost and something to prove the only clause.