Marked for Giuseppe Padula
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad17 Apr 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Giuseppe Padula
15 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Bari lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The terraces17 Apr 2028
Anger at Bari spills outside the ground
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Player ratings17 Apr 2028
Christian Comotto, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 9.50
A mark of 9.50 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Squad17 Apr 2028
A season average of 7.34 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Bari know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
Market17 Apr 2028
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Riccardo Burgio will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Bari the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad17 Apr 2028
Mehdi Dorval 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 Bari this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad17 Apr 2028
Alfonso Pedraza 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.
Player ratings17 Apr 2028
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The terraces17 Apr 2028
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 19-year-old it feels ownership of. Christian Comotto 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad10 Apr 2028
Giuseppe Padula damages knee ligaments — 23 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 23 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.
Squad10 Apr 2028
There were 10 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Player ratings10 Apr 2028
No sign of nerves from Robinio Vaz at 21 — 8.96
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Robinio Vaz did not need any: 8.96, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Market10 Apr 2028
Only the photograph left for Nicola Bellomo
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Nicola Bellomo will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Bari the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Match8 Apr 2028
The wait goes on for Bari
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.
Boardroom10 Apr 2028
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Nicola Bellomo 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.
Squad10 Apr 2028
Tempers go at Bari
Mehdi Dorval 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 terraces10 Apr 2028
The crowd has taken to Robinio Vaz
At 21 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.
Squad10 Apr 2028
Words at Bari training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Valerio Mantovani 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad3 Apr 2028
Giuseppe Padula damages knee ligaments — 32 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 32 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.
Boardroom3 Apr 2028
Pressure builds in the Bari boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Boardroom3 Apr 2028
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Marcello Messina has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Squad3 Apr 2028
Mehdi Dorval 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 Bari this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Apr 2028
Alfonso Pedraza 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.
Squad3 Apr 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.
Match1 Apr 2028
A bad afternoon for Bari against Spezia
0‑1 to Spezia, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Player ratings3 Apr 2028
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings3 Apr 2028
Shots: 9, 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
Crisis
Squad27 Mar 2028
Giuseppe Padula damages knee ligaments — 39 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 39 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.
Match25 Mar 2028
Bari throw away a 2-goal lead
2 in front and in complete control, and it finished with Hellas Verona the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that Bari will enjoy reviewing.
Player ratings27 Mar 2028
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.41 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Market27 Mar 2028
Éder has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Bari they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad27 Mar 2028
Tempers go at Bari
Mehdi Dorval 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 Mar 2028
Words at Bari training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alfonso Pedraza 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.
Match25 Mar 2028
Hellas Verona left with the points after a 2‑3 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Player ratings27 Mar 2028
Marked 8.20 — 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.
Squad27 Mar 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 Jan 2028
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.
Player ratings10 Jan 2028
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 29 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Agostino Camigliano has just signed for Bari, and for once the answer mattered.
Player ratings10 Jan 2028
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.00 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Market10 Jan 2028
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Bari they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Boardroom10 Jan 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.
Market10 Jan 2028
The fee is $460.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Genoa drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Mehdi Dorval 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 Bari this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Alfonso Pedraza 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
Upbeat
Market10 Jan 2028
Pisa say no — this time
The offer from Virtus Entella for Simone Scuffet 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.
Match8 Jan 2028
Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Rafiu Durosinmi scored in the 86th minute, Catanzaro had already begun thinking about the journey home, and Pisa took the lot.
Market10 Jan 2028
Idrissa Touré has left for Napoli in a $11.8M deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
Market10 Jan 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.
The terraces10 Jan 2028
Pisa sell a favourite for $11.8M
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Idrissa Touré was one of the reasons people came, and $11.8M does not replace that by itself.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Simone Canestrelli 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.
Squad10 Jan 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 Pisa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom10 Jan 2028
Bari will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Giuseppe Padula has pre-agreed a move to Pisa, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Player ratings10 Jan 2028
20 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.