Marked for Fallou Cham
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings27 Dec 2032
Successful dribbles: 27. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad27 Dec 2032
Piotr Zieliński and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad27 Dec 2032
Antoine Bernede 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 dugout27 Dec 2032
The manager makes an example of Diogo Leite
“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.
Match25 Dec 2032
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout27 Dec 2032
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 0‑1, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
Squad27 Dec 2032
One yellow too many, and a match watched from the stand. The most avoidable absence in football, and Hellas Verona will feel it on Saturday.
The dugout27 Dec 2032
Fallou Cham asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad20 Sep 2032
A knee injury of the worst kind for Chidera Oparaocha
18 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Hellas Verona lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad20 Sep 2032
Piotr Zieliński and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad20 Sep 2032
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Rafik Belghali was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match18 Sep 2032
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Edoardo Iannoni. 2‑0 against Südtirol, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings20 Sep 2032
Ninety minutes of Stefan Mitrović at his very best
Marked 8.62. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Hellas Verona.
Player ratings20 Sep 2032
Edoardo Iannoni was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.25. 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 ratings20 Sep 2032
Ninety minutes of Dailon Livramento at his very best
Marked 8.17. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Hellas Verona.
Player ratings20 Sep 2032
Ninety minutes of Rafik Belghali at his very best
Marked 8.03. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Hellas Verona.
The dugout20 Sep 2032
The manager makes an example of Fallou Cham
“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
Squad13 Sep 2032
25 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Hellas Verona lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market13 Sep 2032
Serkan has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Hellas Verona they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Market13 Sep 2032
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Squad13 Sep 2032
Rafik Belghali and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad13 Sep 2032
Grigoris Kastanos 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.
Transfer targets13 Sep 2032
The clock did what Sassuolo would not, and ended it. Supporters who watched the countdown will spend the next window doing it again.
Player ratings13 Sep 2032
Successful dribbles: 18. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad13 Sep 2032
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Hellas Verona can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Boardroom13 Sep 2032
86% of the income goes out in wages at Hellas Verona
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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad19 Apr 2032
Piotr Zieliński damages knee ligaments — 80 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 80 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.
Match17 Apr 2032
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.
Player ratings19 Apr 2032
Successful dribbles: 25. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad19 Apr 2032
Rafik Belghali and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad19 Apr 2032
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Grigoris Kastanos was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout19 Apr 2032
“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.
The dugout19 Apr 2032
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Interim Coach was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Hellas Verona dressing room was either.
The dugout19 Apr 2032
When it matters, Isaac plays
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Market19 Apr 2032
The Diogo Leite story refuses to die
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Diogo Leite signs something — a contract at Hellas Verona or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings9 Feb 2032
Successful dribbles: 44. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market9 Feb 2032
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Braga moved on, Matías Magdaleno reports back to Hellas Verona, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Squad9 Feb 2032
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Sebastian Heredia-Randen is living that version at Hellas Verona, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad9 Feb 2032
Marco Bleve 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.
Squad9 Feb 2032
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Piotr Zieliński was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad9 Feb 2032
Getting past Marco Bleve has become the hardest job in the division
14 clean sheets and counting. Forwards used to back themselves here; now they shoot early, shoot wide, and look for somebody to blame.
Boardroom9 Feb 2032
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Alexandr Shmarov has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Hellas Verona have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Player ratings9 Feb 2032
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.40 on the card, and the Hellas Verona support went home talking about one name.
The dugout9 Feb 2032
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Rafik Belghali is on it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad17 Nov 2031
25 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Hellas Verona lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Squad17 Nov 2031
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 81 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match17 Nov 2031
Hellas Verona refuse to drop out of the race
Position 2, 25 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Player ratings17 Nov 2031
Successful dribbles: 30. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Match15 Nov 2031
Whatever happens, Hellas Verona do not lose
8 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Squad17 Nov 2031
Idrissa Guèye and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad17 Nov 2031
Words at Hellas Verona training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rafik Belghali 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.
The dugout17 Nov 2031
The manager makes an example of Fallou Cham
“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.
Match15 Nov 2031
Level with 91 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon Hellas Verona had all but put away. Bari will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings15 Sep 2031
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.88 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Market15 Sep 2031
Denzel Gato 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 Hellas Verona can pretend not to have heard.
Match13 Sep 2031
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Player ratings15 Sep 2031
Successful dribbles: 23. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Squad15 Sep 2031
Marco Bleve and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad15 Sep 2031
Rafik Belghali 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.
Squad15 Sep 2031
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Fallou Cham and Hellas Verona agree another 4 years.
Boardroom15 Sep 2031
Udinese will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Duván Sevillano has pre-agreed a move to Hellas Verona, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.