119 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Livorno lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Salernitana have kept their man, and Livorno go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Samuele Regazzetti signs something — a contract at Livorno or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The words a physio says slowly. 149 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Livorno will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Livorno is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Livorno can pretend not to have heard.
Everything agreed with Alcione Milano, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Livorno asked and Salernitana said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Livorno will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“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 The request is on a desk at Livorno, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Livorno this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 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.
Livorno asked and Arezzo said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The name of Paolo Doneda has come up in conversations Livorno were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Livorno people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“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 Livorno, and it is not being withdrawn.
Hernâni 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.
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad11 Jun 2029
Words at Livorno training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mario Noce 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.
Sambenedettese have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
In brief
Transfer targetsA loan move for Marco Lindner is in the works
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Livorno this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 May 2029
Mario Noce 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Michele Camporese trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“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 Livorno, and it is not being withdrawn.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Frédéric Veseli was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody at Livorno 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Livorno, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The standards have slipped, and in a building where everybody watches everybody it has not gone unremarked. This is how a player loses a place before he loses one.
The words a physio says slowly. 104 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Livorno this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mario Noce was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.