Marked for Salvatore Ottieri
From our football correspondent
Steady
Boardroom24 Sep 2029
Forli interviewed the field and appointed the corridor: Interim Coach keeps the job he had been doing in all but title. Sometimes the safest pair of hands is the one already holding the wheel.
Squad24 Sep 2029
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Forli will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Squad24 Sep 2029
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Match19 Sep 2029
The cup run ends for Forli
1‑4 against Cosenza, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Market24 Sep 2029
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Forli they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Player ratings24 Sep 2029
A brace, and Nicola Farinelli takes the afternoon — 8.59
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Nicola Farinelli provided it, and the 8.59 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The terraces24 Sep 2029
A cup embarrassment at Cosenza follows Forli home
1-4. Going out of a cup is one afternoon; going out like that is a week of phone-ins, and the manager will hear every one of them.
Squad24 Sep 2029
Tempers go at Forli
Jacopo Scaccabarozzi 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.
Match22 Sep 2029
Forli get the job done against Livorno
A 2‑1 win over Livorno, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market26 Jun 2028
The name of Alessandro Seghetti has come up in conversations Forli were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Market26 Jun 2028
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Forli can pretend not to have heard.
Market26 Jun 2028
Davide Macrì has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Forli they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The dugout26 Jun 2028
news_b_frozen_out_of_the_side
Squad26 Jun 2028
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.
Squad26 Jun 2028
A row about effort at Forli
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Francesco Menarini was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout26 Jun 2028
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Francesco Menarini trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market26 Jun 2028
The name of Luca Martelli keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Forli say nothing, which says plenty.
The dugout26 Jun 2028
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 Matteo Rabuffi has written the date down.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market1 May 2028
“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 Forli, and it is not being withdrawn.
The dugout1 May 2028
news_b_frozen_out_of_the_side
Squad1 May 2028
Salvatore Ottieri arrives at the club he grew up with
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Salvatore Ottieri has, at Forli, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Squad1 May 2028
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.
Squad1 May 2028
Words at Forli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luca Martelli 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 dugout1 May 2028
The manager makes an example of Luca Martelli
“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.
Squad1 May 2028
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Salvatore Ottieri and Forli agree another 3 years.
Market1 May 2028
He is 19, and the scouting reports agree on the only line that matters: the ceiling. Signings like this are lottery tickets written by professionals.
Market1 May 2028
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Federico Valentini’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.