David Okereke 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 chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 4 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Squad25 Dec 2028
Words at Crotone training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bartosz Bereszyński 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.
Bartosz Bereszyński 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 Nov 2028
Andrea Gallo 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.
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.
18 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Crotone lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Fabrizio Marazzotti obliged against Fiorentina. 1‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Crotone.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Crotone heard it as anything else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Crotone this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad6 Nov 2028
Words at Crotone training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andrea Gallo 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Fabrizio Marazzotti has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
The words a physio says slowly. 26 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.
David Okereke 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.
4 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Squad30 Oct 2028
Andrea Gallo 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.
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.
34 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Crotone lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Crotone this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad23 Oct 2028
Words at Crotone training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vinícius 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.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Crotone can tell you which week it ends in.
David Okereke 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 Sep 2028
Words at Crotone training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bartosz Bereszyński 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.
“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.
Squad11 Sep 2028
5 new faces, and Crotone are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Niccolò Cocetta has his answer from Crotone; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Trapani defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
Bartosz Bereszyński 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.
At 31 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 4 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Antonio Energe signs something — a contract at Crotone or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Crotone have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Crotone heard it as anything else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Crotone this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Crotone know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Federico Pavan is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Bartosz Bereszyński 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.
Squad17 Jul 2028
Andrea Gallo has improved at 31, 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.
Add another name to the list: Virtus Verona have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Deny Sugamiele. The answer from Crotone has not changed — yet.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Crotone can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
The terraces3 Jul 2028
Supporters turn on the $620.0K sale of Matteo Soncin
He is going to Venezia, the club has $620.0K it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
Bartosz Bereszyński 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.
Venezia pay $620.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
The terraces3 Jul 2028
Crotone spend $3.1M on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $3.1M for David Okereke, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
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.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Manuel Lucchesi has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Thiago Fiore 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.
Bartosz Bereszyński 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.
Squad5 Jun 2028
Andrea Gallo 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.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Mattia Sandri has his answer from Crotone; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Crotone will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Crotone can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Crotone they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
11 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Crotone this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 Apr 2028
Words at Crotone training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bartosz Bereszyński 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.
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.
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Crotone can tell you which week it ends in.
10 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Squad10 Apr 2028
Words at Crotone training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bartosz Bereszyński 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.
Mattia Novella 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.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Federico Pavan.
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.
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.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Manuel Lucchesi has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Guido Gomez 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 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.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Federico Pavan has come out of that comparison in the side, and Crotone have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
Bartosz Bereszyński 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.
Squad14 Feb 2028
Andrea Gallo 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 Matteo Soncin trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
21 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
“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 Crotone, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
Mattia Terranova 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.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
19 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.
19 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Crotone can tell you which week it ends in.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Crotone this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The unbeaten run reaches 6. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad27 Dec 2027
Words at Crotone training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bartosz Bereszyński 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.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Crotone will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 17 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Bartosz Bereszyński 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.
Squad13 Dec 2027
Andrea Gallo 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.
13 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.
13 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Crotone can tell you which week it ends in.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Federico Pavan has just signed for Crotone, and for once the answer mattered.
Bartosz Bereszyński 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 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.