Marked for Michele Basile
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match19 Dec 2026
The wait goes on for Triestina
7 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.
Squad21 Dec 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Triestina this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match19 Dec 2026
1‑2 to Arzignano, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
The manager makes an example of Eetu Vertainen
“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.
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
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.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Words at Triestina training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Leonardo Pedicillo 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 dugout21 Dec 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Raffaele Bernardi to a room that had heard them before.
Squad21 Dec 2026
The formation has left Michele Basile behind
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Triestina will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match12 Dec 2026
6 matches without a win for Triestina
The run now stands at 6, and the questions being asked around Triestina are no longer polite ones.
Squad14 Dec 2026
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.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Fanis Bakoulas 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.
Squad14 Dec 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Christopher Attys and Triestina agree another 3 years.
Market14 Dec 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Diego Marchetti is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
Gastón Ada 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.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market14 Dec 2026
Michele Basile is 20, and Triestina have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Raffaele Bernardi after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad3 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Luca Martinelli and Audace Cerignola agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Door shut on Canadá
Audace Cerignola asked and IFK Goteborg said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Kevin Miranda and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Andrea Gasbarro was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Market3 Aug 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Market3 Aug 2026
Still no offer on the table, and Giovanni Volpe’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.