Marked for Omar Lebyad
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom8 Jan 2029
Four paragraphs on the club website, none of them about football. The board thanked him, wished him well, and had the search under way before the page went up.
Squad8 Jan 2029
Joyce Anacoura damages knee ligaments — 34 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 34 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.
Match6 Jan 2029
No end in sight to Pergolettese's wait for a win
8 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Pergolettese has to find a result from somewhere.
Boardroom8 Jan 2029
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.
Boardroom8 Jan 2029
“I am not thinking past Saturday, and I would advise nobody else to.” The caretaker’s first rule is to pretend the job is small; Fabrizio Pellegrini recited it perfectly.
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 The request is on a desk at Pergolettese, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad8 Jan 2029
Simone Lupo is the real thing at 20
A season average of 7.05 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Pergolettese know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
Squad8 Jan 2029
Samuele Careccia 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 Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicola Sansone 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad1 Jan 2029
Joyce Anacoura damages knee ligaments — 41 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 41 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.
Match30 Dec 2028
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Nicola Sansone will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Pergolettese escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
Market1 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 Pergolettese can pretend not to have heard.
Match30 Dec 2028
7 matches without a win for Pergolettese
The run now stands at 7, and the questions being asked around Pergolettese are no longer polite ones.
Player ratings1 Jan 2029
No sign of nerves from Omar Lebyad at 20 — 7.99
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Omar Lebyad did not need any: 7.99, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Player ratings1 Jan 2029
Age has not caught Nicola Sansone yet — 8.42
At 38 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.42 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad1 Jan 2029
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pergolettese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad1 Jan 2029
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rubén Pérez 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 ratings1 Jan 2029
Samuele Careccia was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.23. 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad25 Dec 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Joyce Anacoura
49 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pergolettese lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market25 Dec 2028
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pergolettese can pretend not to have heard.
Match23 Dec 2028
No end in sight to Pergolettese's wait for a win
6 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Pergolettese has to find a result from somewhere.
Player ratings25 Dec 2028
Omar Lebyad, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.91
A mark of 7.91 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Squad25 Dec 2028
Samuele Careccia 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.
Squad25 Dec 2028
Rubén Pérez 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.
Squad25 Dec 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Mario Prezioso, and the manager let it.
Match23 Dec 2028
A 1‑1 draw with Pro Vercelli leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
Market25 Dec 2028
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Marco Andrea Tremolada signs something — a contract at Pergolettese or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad11 Dec 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Joyce Anacoura
63 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pergolettese lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad11 Dec 2028
A fracture rules Guille Donoso out for 23 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Pergolettese will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market11 Dec 2028
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pergolettese can pretend not to have heard.
Match9 Dec 2028
4 matches without a win for Pergolettese
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Pergolettese are no longer polite ones.
Squad11 Dec 2028
Simone Lupo is the real thing at 20
A season average of 7.00 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Pergolettese know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
Match9 Dec 2028
4 matches without a goal for Pergolettese
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.
Squad11 Dec 2028
Nicola Sansone 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 ratings11 Dec 2028
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match9 Dec 2028
0‑1 to Giana Erminio, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad4 Dec 2028
Guille Donoso breaks a bone — 31 days out
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.
Boardroom4 Dec 2028
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Pergolettese
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Boardroom4 Dec 2028
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.
Squad4 Dec 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 Pergolettese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad4 Dec 2028
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rubén Pérez 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.
Match2 Dec 2028
3 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.
Match2 Dec 2028
Alcione Milano left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad4 Dec 2028
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Pergolettese know it.
Player ratings4 Dec 2028
Successful dribbles: 15. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad13 Nov 2028
Guille Donoso breaks a bone — 52 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 52 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings13 Nov 2028
Age has not caught Nicola Sansone yet — 9.10
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.10 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Market13 Nov 2028
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pergolettese can pretend not to have heard.
Squad13 Nov 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.
Player ratings13 Nov 2028
23 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Squad13 Nov 2028
Nicola Sansone 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 Nov 2028
Rubén Pérez 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 terraces13 Nov 2028
The crowd has taken to Omar Lebyad
At 20 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Match11 Nov 2028
Lumezzane made Pergolettese work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad23 Oct 2028
Guille Donoso breaks a bone — 73 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 73 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market23 Oct 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.
Player ratings23 Oct 2028
Age has not caught Nicola Sansone yet — 8.77
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.77 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad23 Oct 2028
31 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Match21 Oct 2028
4 matches without a win for Pergolettese
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Pergolettese are no longer polite ones.
Squad23 Oct 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 Pergolettese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad23 Oct 2028
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rubén Pérez 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 ratings23 Oct 2028
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match21 Oct 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad16 Oct 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Máximo Perrone
42 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Como lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings16 Oct 2028
A brace, and Martin Baturina takes the afternoon — 9.29
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Martin Baturina provided it, and the 9.29 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Squad16 Oct 2028
Luis Milla 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 Como this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market16 Oct 2028
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Como is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Market16 Oct 2028
Como may not be able to give Martin Baturina what he wants
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Martin Baturina wants continental football; whether Como can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Match14 Oct 2028
Como make home a hard place to visit
9 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.
Match14 Oct 2028
Como get the job done against Sassuolo
A 2‑1 win over Sassuolo, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad16 Oct 2028
Words at Como training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Arthur 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.
Squad16 Oct 2028
The manager makes an example of Arthur
“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
Upbeat
Squad18 Sep 2028
Máximo Perrone damages knee ligaments — 75 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 75 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.
Squad18 Sep 2028
Luis Milla 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 Como this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market18 Sep 2028
Only the photograph left for Thomas Boccia
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Thomas Boccia will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Como the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad18 Sep 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Jean Butez, and the manager let it.
Match16 Sep 2028
Como come up short against Inter
Inter left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad18 Sep 2028
Words at Como training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Arthur 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 ratings18 Sep 2028
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Loan watch18 Sep 2028
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Como, and 2 appearances in 11 say he has earned the hearing.
Player ratings18 Sep 2028
Shots: 14, not one of them in. A centre forward is paid for one thing, and on this evidence he has forgotten which thing it is.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad18 Sep 2028
Guille Donoso breaks a bone — 108 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 108 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match16 Sep 2028
3‑0, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Squad18 Sep 2028
The match ball belongs to Niccolò Corti, whose 3 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Squad18 Sep 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.
Market18 Sep 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.
Squad18 Sep 2028
Nicola Sansone 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 ratings18 Sep 2028
Niccolò Corti was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.90. 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.
Player ratings18 Sep 2028
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 19 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Player ratings18 Sep 2028
17 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad7 Aug 2028
Máximo Perrone damages knee ligaments — 126 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 126 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.
Market7 Aug 2028
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Como they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Market7 Aug 2028
Almería come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Como did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad7 Aug 2028
Jacobo Ramón is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
Squad7 Aug 2028
Tempers go at Como
Luis Milla 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.
Squad7 Aug 2028
Lucas Da Cunha 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
Steady
Squad22 May 2028
Alessio Maestrelli damages knee ligaments — 37 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 37 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.
Market22 May 2028
Nico Paz wants European nights
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Squad22 May 2028
Nico Paz 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 Como this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad22 May 2028
Words at Como training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Máximo Perrone 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.
Squad22 May 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.
Loan watch22 May 2028
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Como, and 1 appearances in 17 say he has earned the hearing.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad3 Apr 2028
93 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Como lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings3 Apr 2028
Successful dribbles: 31. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad3 Apr 2028
Tempers go at Como
Nico Paz 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.
Market3 Apr 2028
Martin Baturina 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 Como hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad3 Apr 2028
Defences have started doubling up on Martin Baturina
7 goals and a season average of 7.58 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Squad3 Apr 2028
The manager makes an example of Assane Diao
“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.
Player ratings3 Apr 2028
Jesús Rodríguez was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.62. 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.
Loan watch3 Apr 2028
“I did not go to Sambenedettese to sit and watch. I want to come back to Como and fight for my place.” 8 appearances in 10 matches say the rest.
Player ratings3 Apr 2028
The chances came and went for Tasos Douvikas
14 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.