“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pineto can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pineto this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Pineto can tell you which week it ends in.
“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; Pineto are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
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.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 13 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pineto can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pineto this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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; Pineto are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
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.
In brief
Player ratingsAlex Amadio turns it into his own net
Filippo D'Andrea 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Luca Lombardi 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Luca Lombardi. 1‑0 against Bra, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Luca Lombardi was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.32. 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 18 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
The hardest thing about being 18 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Alex Amadio did not need any: 7.67, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pineto this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 18 he is being measured against the rest of the division's kids and coming out in front. The senior version of this award is where the club would like this to lead.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Jacobo Ramón did not need any: 7.66, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Como heard it as anything else.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jesús Rodríguez 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 young player of the month award goes to a 20-year-old at Como who has looked like the finished article for four weekends running. The next four are the ones that decide whether he is.
Nobody's fault and entirely his: a goal that goes into the book with his name against it and nothing about it intended. Como deserved better, and so did he.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pineto this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
28 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 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.
Filippo D'Andrea 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Luca Schirone 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.
The offer from Genoa for Jacobo Ramón was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Matthew Craig has just signed for Como, and for once the answer mattered.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Como this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Máximo Perrone 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.
Add another name to the list: Siracusa have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Thomas Leggio. The answer from Como has not changed — yet.