Marked for Luca Cantarella
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom26 Feb 2029
The scrutiny sharpens at Pescara
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Pescara is running low.
Squad26 Feb 2029
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 31 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match24 Feb 2029
4 matches without a win for Pescara
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Pescara are no longer polite ones.
Squad26 Feb 2029
A falling-out at Pescara
Josh Doig and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match24 Feb 2029
The run is over for Pescara
8 matches without defeat, and then Hellas Verona. Nobody at the ground pretended it would go on forever; nobody expected it to stop here either.
Squad26 Feb 2029
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.
Match24 Feb 2029
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout26 Feb 2029
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Erdis Kraja, and the manager let it.
Squad26 Feb 2029
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Michael Zeppieri commits to Pescara for another 3 years.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market19 Feb 2029
Erdis Kraja hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pescara can pretend not to have heard.
Squad19 Feb 2029
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 40 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match17 Feb 2029
Whatever happens, Pescara do not lose
8 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Squad19 Feb 2029
Josh Doig in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pescara this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad19 Feb 2029
Tomáš Suslov 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 ratings19 Feb 2029
Tomáš Suslov was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.19. 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 dugout19 Feb 2029
“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.
Match17 Feb 2029
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
The dugout19 Feb 2029
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Interim Coach after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match1 Nov 2028
Pescara out of the cup
Arezzo ended it 1‑2. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
Player ratings6 Nov 2028
Successful dribbles: 25. 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.
Market6 Nov 2028
Tomáš Suslov wants to know where this is going
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Pescara hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad6 Nov 2028
16 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad6 Nov 2028
A falling-out at Pescara
Josh Doig and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad6 Nov 2028
Words at Pescara training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tomáš Suslov 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.
Player ratings6 Nov 2028
Ninety minutes of Josh Doig at his very best
Marked 8.01. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Pescara.
Squad6 Nov 2028
Ilan Jourdren is the division's best young player this month
At 20 he has spent a month being better than everybody his age in the league, which is a different and harder thing than one good afternoon. Pescara will try very hard not to make too much of it.
Market6 Nov 2028
He is 19, and nobody at Pescara signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom28 Feb 2028
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Juan Fernando Garro has agreed terms with Genoa for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Squad28 Feb 2028
Josh Doig in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pescara this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Feb 2028
Luca Cantarella gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Luca Cantarella has just signed for Pescara, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad28 Feb 2028
Words at Pescara training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tomáš Suslov 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.
Boardroom28 Feb 2028
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Ferdinando Mastroianni has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Pescara have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Market28 Feb 2028
He is 19, and nobody at Pescara signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
Match26 Feb 2028
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
The dugout28 Feb 2028
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
The dugout28 Feb 2028
Gaetano Letizia dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.