9 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Pianese is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Francesco Proietto was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Pianese are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Pianese, and 4 appearances in 15 say he has earned the hearing.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Nicolò Gentile has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Squad3 May 2027
Simone Ianesi 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.
Alessandro Reali 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 dugout3 May 2027
Luca Fabrizi loses the manager who believed in him
A change in the dugout is not one story, it is twenty-five of them. This is Luca Fabrizi's: he was somebody's player, and now he has to be somebody else's, starting from nothing.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Pianese, and both men came out saying it was fine.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Pianese would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
The table has started to be checked before the results are in, and that is always the tell. Nobody at Pianese says the word out loud, and everybody in the building is thinking it.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Nicolò Gentile has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pianese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Matteo Gorelli commits to Pianese for another 2 years.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Words at Pianese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Francesco Proietto 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.
“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 Pianese know it.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Pianese pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Luca Fabrizi. 1‑0 against Forli, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
100 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
Marked 7.68. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Nicolò Gentile, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Marco Bertini trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Claudio Martey, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.71
A mark of 7.71 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Simone Ianesi and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Words at Pianese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Francesco Proietto 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.
At 20 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Luca Fabrizi. 1‑0 against Campobasso, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“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 dugout23 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Nicolò Gentile, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Pineto next, and one man in the Pianese dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
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.
“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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Words at Pianese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Claudio Martey 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.
One weekend, judged against everybody else's. Leonardo Bellini has come out on top of it, and for most footballers a weekly award is the only silverware a career ever produces.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Pianese have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It had gone 7 games. The players did not celebrate like men who had won a match; they celebrated like men who had been let out of something.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Simone Ianesi 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.
Successful dribbles: 15. 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.
0‑3 to Ravenna, 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.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Inter is saying, and nobody at Pianese is enjoying the guessing.
Pianese asked and Juventus said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Alessandro Reali 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 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.
Nobody at Pianese is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.