Marked for Giuseppe Saccomanni
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad13 Dec 2027
Francesco Menarini damages knee ligaments — 17 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 17 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.
Match11 Dec 2027
Giuseppe Saccomanni wins it after the whistle should have gone
94 minutes played. Giuseppe Saccomanni found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Campobasso went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Squad13 Dec 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Forli may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Player ratings13 Dec 2027
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Giuseppe Saccomanni did not need any: 8.15, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Squad13 Dec 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Paolo Doneda is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad13 Dec 2027
Tempers go at Forli
Pier Luigi Simonetti 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 Dec 2027
It finished 2‑1, and it was Giuseppe Saccomanni’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Forli.
The terraces13 Dec 2027
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Antonello Vona 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 ratings13 Dec 2027
Successful dribbles: 13. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad1 Nov 2027
Francesco Menarini damages knee ligaments — 63 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 63 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.
Match30 Oct 2027
The wait goes on for Forli
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.
Squad1 Nov 2027
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Forli have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad1 Nov 2027
Tempers go at Forli
Pier Luigi Simonetti 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.
Squad1 Nov 2027
Luca Mazzeo 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 ratings1 Nov 2027
Marked 8.31 — 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad20 Sep 2027
108 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Forli lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings20 Sep 2027
No sign of nerves from Emanuele Modugno at 19 — 7.72
The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Emanuele Modugno did not need any: 7.72, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Ianis Dobrescu: 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.” Forli have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Tempers go at Forli
Pier Luigi Simonetti 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.
Match18 Sep 2027
Livorno made Forli work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match23 Aug 2027
Every point is an argument now for Forli
Position 17 and 34 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Squad23 Aug 2027
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
Squad23 Aug 2027
Tempers go at Forli
Michele Trombetta 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.
Squad23 Aug 2027
Jacopo Scaccabarozzi has improved at 32, 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.
Boardroom23 Aug 2027
5 academy players handed senior numbers at Forli
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Squad23 Aug 2027
Words at Forli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Pier Luigi Simonetti 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.
Market23 Aug 2027
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Daniele Amato has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Market23 Aug 2027
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Carlo Moretti has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Market23 Aug 2027
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Franco Piazza has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad2 Aug 2027
Rogelio Esparza is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Pier Luigi Simonetti 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.
Squad2 Aug 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.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Diego Rossi 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 Forli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market2 Aug 2027
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Forli, another week without a signature from Giuseppe Saccomanni.
Market2 Aug 2027
12 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.