The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Sambenedettese is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Giacomo Volpe 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 Jun 2028
Words at Sambenedettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kevin Candellori 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.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Sambenedettese can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
“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 The request is on a desk at Sambenedettese, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Sambenedettese is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Alessandro Dalmazzi and Sambenedettese agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Alessandro Dalmazzi 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.
“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 The request is on a desk at Sambenedettese, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Mirko Chelli will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Sambenedettese the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
Giacomo Volpe 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.
Squad10 Apr 2028
Words at Sambenedettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kevin Candellori 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 manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Simone Paolini has his answer from Sambenedettese; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Sambenedettese can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Sambenedettese they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Alessandro Dalmazzi 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.
12 days since the seat came open, a list of names doing the rounds, and nobody has signed anything. Every week this drags on the shortlist gets shorter.
Squad13 Mar 2028
Words at Sambenedettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kevin Candellori 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.
It finished 1‑0, and it was Mattia Tirelli’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Sambenedettese.
Player ratings13 Mar 2028
Mattia Tirelli was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.40. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Henry Camara did not need any: 8.10, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Sambenedettese they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Alessandro Dalmazzi 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.
19 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
The words a physio says slowly. 84 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 run now stands at 8, and the questions being asked around Sambenedettese are no longer polite ones.
Player ratings27 Sep 2027
Henry Camara, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.88
A mark of 7.88 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sambenedettese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
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.
“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 Sambenedettese, and it is not being withdrawn.
Alessandro Dalmazzi 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.
In brief
SquadWords at Sambenedettese training over how hard people work
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Sambenedettese have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Alessandro Dalmazzi 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.