Marked for Nazar Smotrytskyi
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market16 Jul 2029
“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.
Market16 Jul 2029
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at AlbinoLeffe is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad16 Jul 2029
At 20 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Squad16 Jul 2029
Maguette Fall and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad16 Jul 2029
At 26 the improving is meant to be over, and it is not: 3 points better than a year ago. It happens to the ones who take the boring parts seriously.
Squad16 Jul 2029
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alessandro Lombardi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets16 Jul 2029
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Reggiana have kept their man, and AlbinoLeffe go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The dugout16 Jul 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.
Market16 Jul 2029
The interest is real enough to have reached print. AlbinoLeffe have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market8 Jan 2029
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around AlbinoLeffe people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Market8 Jan 2029
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AlbinoLeffe can pretend not to have heard.
Market8 Jan 2029
The offer from Benevento for Omari Forson was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Market8 Jan 2029
Matthew Hayden has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AlbinoLeffe they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Transfer targets8 Jan 2029
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. AlbinoLeffe have done the hard part with Virtus Entella, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Squad8 Jan 2029
Andrea Mandelli 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.
Squad8 Jan 2029
Words at AlbinoLeffe training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alessandro Lombardi 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.
Boardroom8 Jan 2029
Trapani will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Nazar Smotrytskyi has pre-agreed a move to AlbinoLeffe, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Transfer targets8 Jan 2029
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Empoli have kept their man, and AlbinoLeffe go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match8 Jan 2029
Trapani sink to position 17
12 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Player ratings8 Jan 2029
Two goals and a mark of 8.57 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Market8 Jan 2029
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Trapani have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Squad8 Jan 2029
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.
Market8 Jan 2029
“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 Trapani, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom8 Jan 2029
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Nazar Smotrytskyi has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Squad8 Jan 2029
Mamadou Kanouté 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.
Match6 Jan 2029
Audace Cerignola left with the points after a 2‑3 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad8 Jan 2029
Federico Vázquez 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad14 Feb 2028
13 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Squad14 Feb 2028
18 goals and a season average of 7.36. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Match12 Feb 2028
The wait goes on for Trapani
5 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.
Market14 Feb 2028
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Trapani is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Boardroom14 Feb 2028
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Squad14 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 Trapani this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Feb 2028
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Tay'veon Smithen has just signed for Trapani, and for once the answer mattered.
Match12 Feb 2028
Beaten 1‑3, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout14 Feb 2028
“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.