Marked for Emanuele Lulli
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The dugout5 Mar 2029
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Empoli may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Player ratings5 Mar 2029
At 33 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 7.98, and nobody on the pitch better.
Market5 Mar 2029
Only the photograph left for Pietro Fusi
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Pietro Fusi will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Empoli the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Player ratings5 Mar 2029
Emil Bohinen goes up and wins it — 7.99
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.99 for the rest of it.
Match3 Mar 2029
At last: Empoli win one
7 matches without a win, and then this, against Bari. Relief is a strange noise in a football ground and it was the only noise at the end.
Squad5 Mar 2029
Tempers go at Empoli
Filippo Bandinelli 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.
Squad5 Mar 2029
Words at Empoli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Emil Bohinen 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.
Match3 Mar 2029
Empoli get the job done against Bari
A 2‑1 win over Bari, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
The dugout5 Mar 2029
“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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market12 Feb 2029
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. AS Roma moved on, Lorenzo Ignacchiti reports back to Empoli, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Market12 Feb 2029
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Empoli is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Match10 Feb 2029
The wait goes on for Empoli
5 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.
Squad12 Feb 2029
Words exchanged at Empoli
Filippo Bandinelli and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Transfer targets12 Feb 2029
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. River Plate have kept their man, and Empoli go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad12 Feb 2029
Rodrigo González 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 ratings12 Feb 2029
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The dugout12 Feb 2029
“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.
Match10 Feb 2029
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
In brief
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The dugout
The view from the dugout
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Market
The Wesley story refuses to die
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Squad
No place for Owen Pereira in the new shape
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market11 Sep 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.
Market11 Sep 2028
The deal that would have taken Francesco Cassata to Pianese has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Empoli with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Transfer targets11 Sep 2028
Empoli asked and Ravenna said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The dugout11 Sep 2028
“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.
Squad11 Sep 2028
18 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad11 Sep 2028
A row about effort at Empoli
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Richie Sagrado was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Market11 Sep 2028
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Mauro Coppolaro has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Empoli.
The dugout11 Sep 2028
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Empoli, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Market11 Sep 2028
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Francesco Folino’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
From our football correspondent
Steady
The dugout15 May 2028
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Empoli have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad15 May 2028
Words exchanged at Empoli
Mario Hermoso and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Match13 May 2028
Cesena left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout15 May 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Alberto Paleari, and the manager let it.
Squad15 May 2028
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Empoli can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Loan watch15 May 2028
“I watch every Empoli game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Cittadella runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The dugout15 May 2028
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑2 Simone Bertoni left the room before anybody could ask which.
Player ratings15 May 2028
Successful dribbles: 15. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The dugout15 May 2028
Gabriele Guarino has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Empoli will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market7 Feb 2028
The deal that would have taken Francesco Cassata to Monopoli has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Empoli with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Transfer targets7 Feb 2028
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Bologna have kept their man, and Empoli go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Boardroom7 Feb 2028
Empoli close the window on a squad of their own making
4 in and 5 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Transfer targets7 Feb 2028
The window shuts on the Giacomo Corona deal
Empoli ran out of time with Palermo. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Market7 Feb 2028
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Emiliano Filippis will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Empoli the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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 Empoli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match5 Feb 2028
7 unbeaten for Empoli
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 7 matches without defeat is a foundation Empoli did not have in the autumn.
Player ratings7 Feb 2028
Successful dribbles: 22. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Loan watch7 Feb 2028
“I did not go to Cesena to sit and watch. I want to come back to Empoli and fight for my place.” 5 appearances in 31 matches say the rest.