Marked for David Vujević
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad11 Oct 2027
58 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Carrarese lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The terraces11 Oct 2027
The mood at Carrarese has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Match9 Oct 2027
9 matches without a win for Carrarese
The run now stands at 9, and the questions being asked around Carrarese are no longer polite ones.
Market11 Oct 2027
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Gabriele Parlanti will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Carrarese the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Matthias Braunöder 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 Oct 2027
Carrarese cannot find the net
3 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.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Lautaro Cueli 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.
Match9 Oct 2027
Empoli left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout11 Oct 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Matteo Bernardi, and the manager let it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings4 Oct 2027
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.37, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad4 Oct 2027
23 days out for Paolo Zanetti after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Sampdoria will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Squad4 Oct 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Lorenzo Insigne and Sampdoria agree another 2 years.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Words exchanged at Sampdoria
Salvatore Esposito 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.
Match2 Oct 2027
Three points for Sampdoria, 2‑1 the final word against Pisa in a contest settled by the finer margins.
The dugout4 Oct 2027
The manager makes an example of Liam Henderson
“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 ratings4 Oct 2027
Marked 8.27 — 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.
Player ratings4 Oct 2027
Successful dribbles: 18. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Squad4 Oct 2027
A row about effort at Sampdoria
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and David Vujević was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad13 Sep 2027
The words a physio says slowly. 86 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.
The terraces13 Sep 2027
Supporters organise against the Carrarese board
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Match11 Sep 2027
0‑4 to Spezia, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
The dugout13 Sep 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Carrarese may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market13 Sep 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Carrarese is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Match11 Sep 2027
The wait goes on for Carrarese
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.
Squad13 Sep 2027
Denis Shera is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
Squad13 Sep 2027
At 25 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Squad13 Sep 2027
Jacopo Martini 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market30 Aug 2027
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Virtus Verona waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Sampdoria is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Market30 Aug 2027
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Lorenzo Venuti had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Squad30 Aug 2027
David Vujević is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Salvatore Esposito and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Liam Henderson has improved at 31, 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.
Transfer targets30 Aug 2027
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
The dugout30 Aug 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.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Stefano Girelli 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 ratings30 Aug 2027
Ninety minutes of Manuel Cicconi at his very best
Marked 8.09. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Sampdoria.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad16 Aug 2027
114 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Carrarese lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The terraces16 Aug 2027
Anger at Carrarese spills outside the ground
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.
Boardroom16 Aug 2027
The scrutiny sharpens at Carrarese
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Carrarese is running low.
The dugout16 Aug 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Carrarese may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Denis Shera is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad16 Aug 2027
At 25 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Simone Zanon 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.
Transfer targets16 Aug 2027
Carrarese asked and Parma said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Loan watch16 Aug 2027
“I watch every Carrarese game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Sampdoria runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market2 Aug 2027
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Sampdoria people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Salvatore Esposito and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets2 Aug 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Monopoli have kept their man, and Sampdoria go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Tjaš Begić 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.
Transfer targets2 Aug 2027
Cavese have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Transfer targets2 Aug 2027
A loan enquiry to Monza: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
The dugout2 Aug 2027
Bjorn Meijer knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Sampdoria, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Bjorn Meijer has moved up it.
The dugout2 Aug 2027
Lorenzo Venuti has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Sampdoria 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
Uneasy
Market19 Jul 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.
Squad19 Jul 2027
Salvatore Esposito 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.
Transfer targets19 Jul 2027
Sampdoria asked and Parma said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad19 Jul 2027
Stefano Girelli 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.
Squad19 Jul 2027
Sampdoria are still strangers to each other
10 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
The dugout19 Jul 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.
Squad19 Jul 2027
No place for David Vujević in the new shape
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Sampdoria are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
The dugout19 Jul 2027
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Oliver Abildgaard is on it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings10 May 2027
A brace, and Nicholas Bonfanti takes the afternoon — 8.85
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Nicholas Bonfanti provided it, and the 8.85 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Market10 May 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Carrarese can pretend not to have heard.
The dugout10 May 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Carrarese may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Player ratings10 May 2027
Successful dribbles: 25. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market10 May 2027
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Stefano Mazzini will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Carrarese the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad10 May 2027
A row about effort at Carrarese
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jonas Rouhi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The terraces10 May 2027
He is 22 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Match8 May 2027
Three points for Carrarese, 2‑0 the final word against Avellino in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad10 May 2027
Jacopo Martini and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match13 Feb 2027
It had gone 14 games. The players did not celebrate like men who had won a match; they celebrated like men who had been let out of something.
Match13 Feb 2027
There were 87 minutes on the clock and Modena had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and Carrarese did not stop to explain themselves.
Market15 Feb 2027
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Carrarese people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Market15 Feb 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 Carrarese, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings15 Feb 2027
No sign of nerves from Tommaso Rubino at 20 — 7.92
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Tommaso Rubino did not need any: 7.92, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Squad15 Feb 2027
6 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Player ratings15 Feb 2027
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 7.85 for the rest of it.
Market15 Feb 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Carrarese is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad15 Feb 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 Carrarese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match30 Jan 2027
No end in sight to Carrarese's wait for a win
13 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Carrarese has to find a result from somewhere.
The terraces1 Feb 2027
Supporters organise against the Carrarese board
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Market1 Feb 2027
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Carrarese they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Transfer targets1 Feb 2027
The clubs have shaken hands with Lumezzane; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Market1 Feb 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.
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
Up for the corner, and Matthias Braunöder delivers — 7.71
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Matthias Braunöder scored, was marked 7.71, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Deadline passes with 0 signed and 0 gone
That is the business done at Carrarese until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Transfer targets1 Feb 2027
Everything agreed with Alverca, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Squad1 Feb 2027
A row about effort at Carrarese
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nikola Sekulov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market23 Nov 2026
“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 Carrarese, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad23 Nov 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 Carrarese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match21 Nov 2026
The goals have deserted Carrarese
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Carrarese can tell you which week it ends in.
Match21 Nov 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 0‑1, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
Nicolás Schiavi is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Looking ahead23 Nov 2026
Pescara next, and one man in the Carrarese dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Filippo Oliana has written the date down.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
David Vujević knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and David Vujević trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad9 Nov 2026
Words exchanged at Carrarese
Matthias Braunöder 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.
Match7 Nov 2026
0‑2 to Frosinone, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Nicolás Schiavi, and the manager let it.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Tommaso Rubino did the work nobody counts — 6.72
9 combined actions and 6.72. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Words at Carrarese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gonçalo Esteves 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 dugout9 Nov 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 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Carlo Palumbo to a room that had heard them before.
Looking ahead9 Nov 2026
Carrarese take on the side everybody is chasing
Venezia arrive as leaders. A side at the top is beaten roughly once a month, and the club that does it gets a week it remembers for a year.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
7 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.
Market9 Nov 2026
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Matthias Braunöder’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 40. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match23 Sep 2026
Vis Pesaro ended it 0‑1. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Squad28 Sep 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 Carrarese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match26 Sep 2026
0‑1 to Padova, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Nicolás Schiavi 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Too much change too quickly at Carrarese
10 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Carlo Palumbo after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to David Vujević, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad21 Sep 2026
6 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Matthias Braunöder and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match19 Sep 2026
Reggiana left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Match19 Sep 2026
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. Nicholas Bonfanti had Carrarese level again within 2 minutes, and Reggiana never got to play with a lead at all.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Jonas Rouhi
“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.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 1‑2, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
There was one mistake and it ended in the net. Defenders are judged on the worst thing they did rather than on the eighty-nine minutes either side of it, which is unfair and is also the job.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Filippo Oliana has written the date down.