Marked for Harvey Pates
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom2 Mar 2037
Interim Coach has until the next board meeting
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Pineto can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Market2 Mar 2037
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad2 Mar 2037
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Pineto may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Match28 Feb 2037
The wait goes on for Pineto
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.
Squad2 Mar 2037
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.
Squad2 Mar 2037
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Silvano Biggi commits to Pineto for another 3 years.
Squad2 Mar 2037
Gils Gíslason 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.
Boardroom2 Mar 2037
The owner puts $945.7K into Pineto
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead of it.
Match28 Feb 2037
Perugia left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Boardroom2 Feb 2037
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Squad2 Feb 2037
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Market2 Feb 2037
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad2 Feb 2037
Nathan Moore: 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.” Pineto have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad2 Feb 2037
Tempers go at Pineto
Gianluca Germinario 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.
Squad2 Feb 2037
Silvano Biggi is in the form of his life
A season average of 7.22 with 17 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Player ratings2 Feb 2037
A performance of 9.29 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Match31 Jan 2037
Three points for Pineto, 3‑1 the final word against Vis Pesaro in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Boardroom2 Feb 2037
$1.0M of the owner's money at Pineto
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom29 Dec 2036
The scrutiny sharpens at Pineto
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Pineto is running low.
Market29 Dec 2036
“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 Pineto, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad29 Dec 2036
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad29 Dec 2036
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.
Squad29 Dec 2036
Gils Gíslason 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.
Boardroom29 Dec 2036
181% of the income goes out in wages at Pineto
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Match27 Dec 2036
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Market29 Dec 2036
He is 19, and nobody at Pineto signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
Squad29 Dec 2036
Silvano Biggi has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Pineto will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad27 Oct 2036
Edoardo Menicucci damages knee ligaments — 42 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 42 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.
Match25 Oct 2036
Nowhere to hide for Pineto
0‑3 against Arezzo, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Match25 Oct 2036
The wait goes on for Pineto
8 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.
Market27 Oct 2036
“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 Pineto, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market27 Oct 2036
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Danila Gavrilchuk will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Pineto the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad27 Oct 2036
Tempers go at Pineto
Gianluca Germinario 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.
Squad27 Oct 2036
Filip Salković 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 ratings27 Oct 2036
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad27 Oct 2036
Harvey Pates gets it from the manager
“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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market27 Aug 2035
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad27 Aug 2035
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.
Squad27 Aug 2035
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
Boardroom27 Aug 2035
Graduation day at Pineto
5 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Market27 Aug 2035
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Ruggero Zanetti is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market27 Aug 2035
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Mirko Ferrara is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market27 Aug 2035
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Massimo Rossetti 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.
Squad27 Aug 2035
Words at Pineto training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Filip Salković 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.
Boardroom27 Aug 2035
Pineto are $22.1M in the red
The borrowing is past what the bank agreed, which is the line where a debt stops being how football is financed and starts being a problem. Every phone-in in this town will quote the figure for the next five years.
In brief
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Boardroom
Pineto board go back on their word
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Squad
No hiding place for Harvey Pates
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Boardroom
Pineto turn down the training-ground plan
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom9 Jul 2035
Pressure builds in the Pineto boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Squad9 Jul 2035
Tempers go at Pineto
Gianluca Germinario 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.
Squad9 Jul 2035
Maximilian Kalajdzic has improved at 26, 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.
Boardroom9 Jul 2035
126% of the income goes out in wages at Pineto
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Squad9 Jul 2035
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Harvey Pates, and the manager let it.
Squad9 Jul 2035
“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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom11 Jun 2035
The scrutiny sharpens at Pineto
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Pineto is running low.
Squad11 Jun 2035
Tempers go at Pineto
Gianluca Germinario 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.
Squad11 Jun 2035
Harvey Pates gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Harvey Pates has just signed for Pineto, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad11 Jun 2035
Words at Pineto training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Federico Baggi 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.
Boardroom11 Jun 2035
Wages eat 171% of everything Pineto earn
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.
Squad11 Jun 2035
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Alexandr Popov, and the manager let it.