Marked for Luca Cantarella
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad30 Oct 2028
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.
Match28 Oct 2028
No end in sight to Carrarese's wait for a win
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Carrarese has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad30 Oct 2028
Marco Imperiale 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.
Player ratings30 Oct 2028
Marked 8.14 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Squad30 Oct 2028
The manager makes an example of Julián Illanes
“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.
Squad30 Oct 2028
15 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Match28 Oct 2028
It needed Flavio Junior Bianchi to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Sassuolo, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Market30 Oct 2028
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Carrarese know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The terraces30 Oct 2028
Everybody has an opinion about Julián Illanes
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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad21 Aug 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 Carrarese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market21 Aug 2028
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Giacomo Martinelli is a Carrarese player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
Market21 Aug 2028
The shirt still fits. Manuel Schiavone is back at Carrarese, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
Market21 Aug 2028
As if he never left: Alfonso Riva returns
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Alfonso Riva is a Carrarese player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
Market21 Aug 2028
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Gerardo Bartoli is a Carrarese player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
Boardroom21 Aug 2028
Carrarese board go back on their word
Something was promised, a deadline passed, and it did not arrive. Trust inside a football club is built over years and spent in an afternoon.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom7 Aug 2028
“This is a club with real history, and I did not have to think about it for long.” The new manager takes charge with every slate wiped clean.
Squad7 Aug 2028
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Carrarese may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market7 Aug 2028
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Carrarese they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market24 Jul 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 Carrarese, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad24 Jul 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 Carrarese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 Jul 2028
The manager makes an example of Riccardo Gatti
“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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market10 Jul 2028
“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.
Market10 Jul 2028
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Carrarese they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad10 Jul 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 Carrarese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom10 Jul 2028
Still no name above the door at Carrarese
Day 9 of the vacancy. Candidates have been priced, sounded out and quietly ruled out — and the caretaker’s win ratio is becoming an argument all by itself.
Squad10 Jul 2028
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Francesco Sartori commits to Carrarese for another 4 years.
Squad10 Jul 2028
The manager makes an example of Luca Cantarella
“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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market26 Jun 2028
Aalborg come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Carrarese did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad26 Jun 2028
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
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 Carrarese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad26 Jun 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Giampaolo Bonifazi, and the manager let it.
Squad26 Jun 2028
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
Market26 Jun 2028
The name of Mattia Finotto keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Carrarese say nothing, which says plenty.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom5 Jun 2028
The scrutiny sharpens at Carrarese
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Carrarese is running low.
Boardroom5 Jun 2028
Fabio Barone has until the next board meeting
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Carrarese can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Market5 Jun 2028
Fabio Abiuso 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 Carrarese can pretend not to have heard.
Market5 Jun 2028
Add another name to the list: Grasshopper have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Marco Imperiale. The answer from Carrarese has not changed — yet.
Squad5 Jun 2028
Marco Imperiale 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.
Market5 Jun 2028
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Carrarese will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
Squad5 Jun 2028
61 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad5 Jun 2028
The medical room confirms 53 days on the sidelines for Lorenzo Bernardi, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Squad5 Jun 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Luca Cantarella, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match18 Mar 2028
No end in sight to Carrarese's wait for a win
21 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Carrarese has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad20 Mar 2028
There were 9 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad20 Mar 2028
Nicola Nanni takes the match ball home
3 goals in one afternoon from one man. The other players were also present, a witness confirmed.
Squad20 Mar 2028
Luca Cantarella: 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.” Carrarese have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad20 Mar 2028
15 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Player ratings20 Mar 2028
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 9.18, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings20 Mar 2028
A performance of 9.05 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Match18 Mar 2028
A 4‑4 draw with Pisa leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
Player ratings20 Mar 2028
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match19 Feb 2028
No end in sight to Carrarese's wait for a win
17 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Carrarese has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad21 Feb 2028
There were 7 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad21 Feb 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 Carrarese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match19 Feb 2028
1‑2 to Empoli, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad21 Feb 2028
“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.
Player ratings21 Feb 2028
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings21 Feb 2028
Marked 8.05 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Squad21 Feb 2028
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
Market21 Feb 2028
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Mattia Finotto’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.