“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Avellino have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
36 days with the chair empty, a list of names that grows and shrinks by the day, and not one signature on anything. Every week that passes takes the best candidates off it.
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Südtirol, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Four paragraphs on the club website, none of them about football. The board thanked him, wished him well, and had the search under way before the page went up.
“Somebody has to pick the team on Saturday, and this week that is me.” An interim appointment with no promises attached, which is how most of them start.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Avellino, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Avellino can pretend not to have heard.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Avellino can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Avellino, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The name of Arthur Spadoni has come up in conversations Avellino were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Avellino has been clear about where Marco Armellino stands, which is more than many ever get.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Kjell Peersman: 1 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
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.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Andrea Favilli reports back to Avellino with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
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.
Asked to play a role that is not his, or taken off before the hour once too often — Roberto Insigne has let it be known that he does not like the way Avellino are using him. Managers hear this long before the press does.
“I will know when it is time. I am not there yet.” Adilson Bahia is 34, with 0 appearances behind him, and Avellino will have to plan for whichever answer comes.
The fee is $750.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Union Brescia drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
The name of Arthur Spadoni has come up in conversations Avellino were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Michele Cecconi is 16, and Avellino 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 money has gone into the parts of a club no supporter ever walks past. Nobody has ever sung about drainage, and every squad that trains on it can feel the difference.