Marked for Ivanildo Siga
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad11 Sep 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Matteo Rossetti
29 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ravenna lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad11 Sep 2028
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Ravenna have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market11 Sep 2028
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Ravenna is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Matteo Motti in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ravenna this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Cristiano Bani 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.
Player ratings11 Sep 2028
Successful dribbles: 12. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings11 Sep 2028
10 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
Market11 Sep 2028
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Cristiano Bani’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad7 Aug 2028
Matteo Rossetti damages knee ligaments — 67 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 67 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.
Squad7 Aug 2028
Théo Steinbrunn is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Market7 Aug 2028
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Ravenna is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad10 Jul 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Matteo Rossetti
96 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ravenna lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad10 Jul 2028
62 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Market10 Jul 2028
Only the photograph left for Ivanildo Siga
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ivanildo Siga will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Ravenna the goodbyes have quietly begun.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad3 Jul 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Matteo Rossetti
103 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ravenna lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market3 Jul 2028
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Ravenna they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Boardroom3 Jul 2028
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.
Squad3 Jul 2028
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Théo Steinbrunn is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad3 Jul 2028
Cristiano Bani 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.
Squad3 Jul 2028
Lorenzo Lonardi 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.
Market3 Jul 2028
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Boardroom3 Jul 2028
Wages eat 93% of everything Ravenna earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Boardroom3 Jul 2028
Intake day at the Ravenna academy
4 arrivals, an average age nobody would call a squad, and a set of parents being shown around a building their sons will spend more time in than at home. The scouting has already happened; today is only the paperwork.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings13 Mar 2028
Two goals and a mark of 8.18 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Market13 Mar 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.
Market13 Mar 2028
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Matteo Rossetti will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Ravenna the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad13 Mar 2028
Matteo Motti 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.
Squad13 Mar 2028
Lorenzo Lonardi 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.
Match11 Mar 2028
Three points for Ravenna, 2‑1 the final word against Ternana in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad13 Mar 2028
The manager makes an example of Matteo Motti
“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.
Squad13 Mar 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 Ravenna know it.
Market13 Mar 2028
“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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad6 Mar 2028
Giulio Donati: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Ravenna have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Match4 Mar 2028
The wait goes on for Ravenna
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.
Squad6 Mar 2028
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Cristiano Bani commits to Ravenna for another 4 years.
Squad6 Mar 2028
Matteo Motti 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.
Squad6 Mar 2028
Words at Ravenna training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Cristiano Bani 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.
Match4 Mar 2028
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Market6 Mar 2028
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Ravenna, another week without a signature from Pierluca Luciani.
Player ratings6 Mar 2028
Successful dribbles: 13. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market6 Mar 2028
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Ravenna know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market7 Feb 2028
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Catania moved on, Giacomo Poluzzi reports back to Ravenna, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Squad7 Feb 2028
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.
Squad7 Feb 2028
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Pierluca Luciani commits to Ravenna for another 4 years.
Squad7 Feb 2028
Words at Ravenna training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Cristiano Bani 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.
Squad7 Feb 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ravenna this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings7 Feb 2028
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 9.01, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Match5 Feb 2028
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Joshua Tenkorang. 1‑0 against Perugia, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings7 Feb 2028
Defensive actions: 12, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Player ratings7 Feb 2028
Successful dribbles: 7. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match8 Jan 2028
There were 89 minutes on the clock and Vis Pesaro had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and Ravenna did not stop to explain themselves.
Market10 Jan 2028
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market10 Jan 2028
Ivanildo Siga hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ravenna can pretend not to have heard.
Match8 Jan 2028
6 unbeaten for Ravenna
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 6 matches without defeat is a foundation Ravenna did not have in the autumn.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Words at Ravenna training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Matteo Motti 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.
Match8 Jan 2028
It finished 2‑1, and it was Joshua Tenkorang’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Ravenna.
The terraces10 Jan 2028
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Abdel Rachid Zagré has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Player ratings10 Jan 2028
Joshua Tenkorang was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.51. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Market10 Jan 2028
Everyone has stopped pretending: Pontedera will make the call about Abdel Rachid Zagré this week. Ravenna have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad13 Dec 2027
There were 7 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Player ratings13 Dec 2027
Age has not caught Matteo Solini yet — 8.58
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.58 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad13 Dec 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Ravenna may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Player ratings13 Dec 2027
22 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Squad13 Dec 2027
Cristiano Bani 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.
Squad13 Dec 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ravenna this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match11 Dec 2027
Ravenna get the job done against Carpi
A 1‑0 win over Carpi, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings13 Dec 2027
Successful dribbles: 9. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market13 Dec 2027
Ravenna have made Ivanildo Siga available for transfer. A career at this club is over in all but paperwork.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad11 Oct 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Kimarni Smith
128 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Cavese lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Words at Cavese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Brando Moruzzi 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.
Squad11 Oct 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Giuseppe Fella, and the manager let it.
Match9 Oct 2027
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Tempers go at Cavese
Fernando Dickes 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.
Player ratings11 Oct 2027
Successful dribbles: 15. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The terraces11 Oct 2027
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
Market11 Oct 2027
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Kimarni Smith signs something — a contract at Cavese or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Player ratings11 Oct 2027
Elios Minaj could not find anything
5.55. Every footballer has these and most of them happen away from a full ground; his did not, and he will be aware of that all week.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad11 Oct 2027
Nicolas Viola breaks a bone — 74 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 74 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market11 Oct 2027
Only the photograph left for Cristiano Bani
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Cristiano Bani will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Ravenna the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Matteo Motti 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.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Words at Ravenna training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Cristiano Bani 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.
Squad11 Oct 2027
“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.
Match9 Oct 2027
It finished 2‑2, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match22 Sep 2027
Cavese march on in the cup
Arzignano are out and Cavese go through, 2‑1 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Squad27 Sep 2027
Lenn De Smet: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Cavese have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Player ratings27 Sep 2027
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.43, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Match25 Sep 2027
10 unbeaten for Cavese
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 10 matches without defeat is a foundation Cavese did not have in the autumn.
Player ratings27 Sep 2027
Successful dribbles: 23. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad27 Sep 2027
Maksim Minkov is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Market27 Sep 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Cavese is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad27 Sep 2027
Tempers go at Cavese
Francesco Orlando 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.
The terraces27 Sep 2027
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 19-year-old it feels ownership of. Gabriele Platto has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad30 Aug 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Fernando Dickes is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Market30 Aug 2027
Only the photograph left for Ivanildo Siga
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ivanildo Siga will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Cavese the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Tempers go at Cavese
Francesco Orlando 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.
Player ratings30 Aug 2027
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Manuel Peretti has improved at 27, 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. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Squad30 Aug 2027
The manager makes an example of Kimarni Smith
“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.
Match28 Aug 2027
Cavese and Latina take a point apiece
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Market30 Aug 2027
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” João Ventura has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Cavese.
Market30 Aug 2027
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Francesco Orlando signs something — a contract at Cavese or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad2 Aug 2027
35 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Cavese lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Raffaele Maria Di Costanzo is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Market2 Aug 2027
Only the photograph left for Ivanildo Siga
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ivanildo Siga will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Cavese the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Tempers go at Cavese
Francesco Orlando 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.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Words at Cavese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kimarni Smith 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.
Market2 Aug 2027
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Giovanni Sirico has his answer from Cavese; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad5 Jul 2027
65 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Cavese lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad5 Jul 2027
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Market5 Jul 2027
Only the photograph left for Ivanildo Siga
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ivanildo Siga will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Cavese the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Maksim Minkov is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Tempers go at Cavese
Sten Kremers 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.
Market5 Jul 2027
He is 19, and the scouting reports agree on the only line that matters: the ceiling. Signings like this are lottery tickets written by professionals.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad7 Jun 2027
The words a physio says slowly. 96 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.
Squad7 Jun 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Cavese may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market7 Jun 2027
“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 Cavese, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market7 Jun 2027
Ivanildo Siga has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Cavese they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Nicolai Apland gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Nicolai Apland has just signed for Cavese, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Words at Cavese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Giuseppe Fella 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 May 2027
Daniele Bolcano damages knee ligaments — 79 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 79 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.
Player ratings10 May 2027
Giuseppe Fella, 33, rolls back the years — 8.65
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.65 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Market10 May 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Cavese is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad10 May 2027
Tempers go at Cavese
Sten Kremers 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.
Squad10 May 2027
Gabriele Guarino 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.
Match8 May 2027
It finished 2‑1, and it was Giuseppe Fella’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Cavese.
Player ratings10 May 2027
Marked 8.15 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Squad10 May 2027
The manager makes an example of Manuel Peretti
“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 ratings10 May 2027
Successful dribbles: 12. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad12 Apr 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Daniele Bolcano
109 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Cavese lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market12 Apr 2027
Only the photograph left for Ivanildo Siga
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ivanildo Siga will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Cavese the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Boardroom12 Apr 2027
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Ivanildo Siga 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.
Squad12 Apr 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cavese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Words at Cavese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marlon Ubani 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.
Match10 Apr 2027
A bad afternoon for Cavese against Foggia
0‑2 to Foggia, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad12 Apr 2027
Luca Sermenghi damages knee ligaments — 25 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 25 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.
Match10 Apr 2027
The wait goes on for Ravenna
6 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.
Boardroom12 Apr 2027
Cavese will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Ivanildo Siga has pre-agreed a move to Ravenna, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Matteo Motti 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.
Squad12 Apr 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ravenna this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Apr 2027
“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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match6 Feb 2027
4 matches without a win for Cavese
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Cavese are no longer polite ones.
Market8 Feb 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Cavese is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Boardroom8 Feb 2027
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.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Tempers go at Cavese
Sten Kremers 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.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Words at Cavese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Giuseppe Fella 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.
Boardroom8 Feb 2027
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Mattia Saitta has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Cavese have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad8 Feb 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Ale Hernández, and the manager let it.
Squad8 Feb 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Ale Hernández'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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match11 Jan 2027
Cavese refuse to drop out of the race
Position 2, 32 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Market11 Jan 2027
Cavese say no — this time
The offer from Sassuolo for Sveinn Aron Guðjohnsen 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.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.17, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
Giuseppe Fella, 33, rolls back the years — 8.87
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.87 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Market11 Jan 2027
“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.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Valerio Boffelli is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Tempers go at Cavese
Alessio Luciani 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.
Match9 Jan 2027
Latina made Cavese work for it, but the scoreboard read 3‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Match9 Jan 2027
Cavese settle it inside twenty minutes
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Latina spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.