Marked for Ameer Ali
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match16 Oct 2032
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. AlbinoLeffe kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Giana Erminio will be asked about the last half hour all week.
Market18 Oct 2032
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Mykyta Sytnykov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Giana Erminio the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Match16 Oct 2032
Whatever happens, Giana Erminio 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.
Squad18 Oct 2032
Nicolas Previtali and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Player ratings18 Oct 2032
The one goal a footballer does not get to celebrate and does not get to forget either. His name is in the wrong column and nothing about it was meant.
Squad18 Oct 2032
A muscle injury sidelines Luca Ruffini for 15 days
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Giana Erminio will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Player ratings18 Oct 2032
Marked 8.23 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Player ratings18 Oct 2032
Ninety minutes of Aaron Centurión at his very best
Marked 8.15. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Giana Erminio.
The dugout18 Oct 2032
The manager makes an example of Ameer Ali
“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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad20 Sep 2032
37 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Giana Erminio lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Boardroom20 Sep 2032
Giana Erminio interviewed the field and appointed the corridor: Interim Coach keeps the job he had been doing in all but title. Sometimes the safest pair of hands is the one already holding the wheel.
Match18 Sep 2032
9 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.
The terraces20 Sep 2032
The mood at Giana Erminio has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Market20 Sep 2032
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Giana Erminio is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Boardroom20 Sep 2032
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.
Squad20 Sep 2032
Late improvement for Ameer Ali
At 24 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.
Squad20 Sep 2032
Laolu Omobolaji 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.
Match18 Sep 2032
Late, late show earns Giana Erminio a point
Minute 95, against Lumezzane, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad13 Sep 2032
44 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Giana Erminio lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match11 Sep 2032
No end in sight to Giana Erminio's wait for a win
8 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Giana Erminio has to find a result from somewhere.
The dugout13 Sep 2032
Fabrizio Zangari: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Giana Erminio have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market13 Sep 2032
“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 Giana Erminio, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad13 Sep 2032
72 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad13 Sep 2032
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Giana Erminio this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom13 Sep 2032
Wages eat 156% of everything Giana Erminio earn
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.
Squad13 Sep 2032
50 shut-outs in 240 appearances. A keeper’s career is counted in games where nothing happened, and none of it happened by accident.
The dugout13 Sep 2032
Ameer Ali gets it from the manager
“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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom23 Aug 2032
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.
Squad23 Aug 2032
65 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Giana Erminio lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The terraces23 Aug 2032
Supporters organise against the Giana Erminio board
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Boardroom23 Aug 2032
An empty coaching office at Giana Erminio
There is nobody left to promote and nobody left to run a session. The board have brought in a name the supporters do not know, and the question of how a club gets here will outlast whoever answers it.
Boardroom23 Aug 2032
“Somebody picks the team on Saturday. This week it is me, and that is as far as I have thought.” No promises were made in either direction, which is how these usually begin.
Market23 Aug 2032
“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 Giana Erminio, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market23 Aug 2032
Darijan Žarkov has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Giana Erminio they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad23 Aug 2032
Nicolas Previtali and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Boardroom23 Aug 2032
6 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad26 Jul 2032
The words a physio says slowly. 93 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.
The terraces26 Jul 2032
Supporters organise against the Giana Erminio board
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Market26 Jul 2032
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Laolu Omobolaji will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Giana Erminio the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad26 Jul 2032
Nicolas Previtali and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets26 Jul 2032
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Guidonia Montecelio have kept their man, and Giana Erminio go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The dugout26 Jul 2032
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.
Market26 Jul 2032
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Giana Erminio know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The dugout26 Jul 2032
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Michaël Akinjogunla trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The dugout26 Jul 2032
Ameer Ali gets it from the manager
“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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match11 Jan 2031
The wait goes on for Wrexham
8 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.
Transfer targets13 Jan 2031
Hull City wanted more than $4.3M and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Market13 Jan 2031
Ameer Ali 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 Wrexham can pretend not to have heard.
Squad13 Jan 2031
A falling-out at Wrexham
David Brooks and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets13 Jan 2031
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.
Squad13 Jan 2031
Callum Doyle 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.
Boardroom13 Jan 2031
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Ikenna Benjamin has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Wrexham have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Player ratings13 Jan 2031
20 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
The dugout13 Jan 2031
Ryan Hardie gets it from the manager
“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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market2 Dec 2030
“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 Wrexham, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market2 Dec 2030
“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.
Squad2 Dec 2030
David Brooks 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.
Squad2 Dec 2030
Callum Doyle 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.
Match30 Nov 2030
Sheffield United left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad2 Dec 2030
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Wrexham are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The dugout2 Dec 2030
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
The dugout2 Dec 2030
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by the manager to a room that had heard them before.
Looking ahead2 Dec 2030
The leaders are next for Wrexham
Queens Park Rangers top the table and they are coming into view. Nothing to lose, which is what every manager says before losing.