Marked for Leonardo Franchetti Rosada
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad17 Sep 2035
Yevhenii Voloshko damages knee ligaments — 91 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 91 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.
Squad17 Sep 2035
A fracture rules Agostino Rizzo out for 79 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Altamura will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market17 Sep 2035
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Altamura can pretend not to have heard.
Squad17 Sep 2035
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.
Match15 Sep 2035
No end in sight to Altamura's wait for a win
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Altamura has to find a result from somewhere.
Market17 Sep 2035
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Altamura is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad17 Sep 2035
Francesco Ruocco 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.
Match15 Sep 2035
Giuseppe Simone scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑2 to Picerno, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Market17 Sep 2035
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Altamura know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad6 Aug 2035
Yevhenii Voloshko damages knee ligaments — 133 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 133 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.
Squad6 Aug 2035
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 90 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market6 Aug 2035
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Altamura can pretend not to have heard.
Squad6 Aug 2035
Francesco Ruocco 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.
Boardroom6 Aug 2035
$602.7K of the owner's money at Altamura
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
Boardroom6 Aug 2035
No signings allowed at Altamura
The manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
Boardroom6 Aug 2035
The Altamura debt reaches $23.1M
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.
Squad6 Aug 2035
21 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Boardroom6 Aug 2035
106% of the income goes out in wages at Altamura
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
Crisis
Squad16 Jul 2035
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 111 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad16 Jul 2035
A knee injury of the worst kind for Akhmed Kumyshev
79 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Altamura lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Boardroom16 Jul 2035
Pressure builds in the Altamura boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Market16 Jul 2035
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Altamura can pretend not to have heard.
Squad16 Jul 2035
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Altamura this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Jul 2035
Words at Altamura training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Leonardo Franchetti Rosada 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
Squad25 Jun 2035
A knee injury of the worst kind for Akhmed Kumyshev
100 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Altamura lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market25 Jun 2035
“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.
Market25 Jun 2035
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Altamura they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad25 Jun 2035
Francesco Ruocco 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 Jun 2035
63 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad25 Jun 2035
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
Crisis
Squad4 Jun 2035
A knee injury of the worst kind for Akhmed Kumyshev
121 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Altamura lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Boardroom4 Jun 2035
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Matteo Andreoli has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Boardroom4 Jun 2035
The Altamura board call everybody in
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.
Market4 Jun 2035
“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.
Boardroom4 Jun 2035
The Altamura board want somebody sold
The instruction has come from upstairs rather than from the dugout, which is the version of this conversation no manager enjoys. Somebody in that squad is now available whether the man who picks the team thinks so or not.
Squad4 Jun 2035
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Altamura this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom4 Jun 2035
The owner puts $689.3K into Altamura
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead of it.
Market4 Jun 2035
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Altamura have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad4 Jun 2035
“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; Altamura are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market2 Apr 2035
“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 Altamura, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings2 Apr 2035
Francesco Ruocco, 34, rolls back the years — 8.30
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.30 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad2 Apr 2035
Vlad Dragusin: 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.” Altamura have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad2 Apr 2035
Francesco Ruocco 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.
Match31 Mar 2035
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Altamura and Audace Cerignola in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Squad2 Apr 2035
“The easiest signature of my career.” Lassana N'Diaye and Altamura agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Boardroom2 Apr 2035
$691.2K of the owner's money at Altamura
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
Player ratings2 Apr 2035
Yevhenii Voloshko was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.89. 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
Uneasy
Market26 Feb 2035
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Altamura can pretend not to have heard.
Match24 Feb 2035
8 matches without a win for Altamura
The run now stands at 8, and the questions being asked around Altamura are no longer polite ones.
Boardroom26 Feb 2035
The scrutiny sharpens at Altamura
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Altamura is running low.
Squad26 Feb 2035
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Altamura this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad26 Feb 2035
“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 ratings26 Feb 2035
Marked 8.25 — 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.
Squad26 Feb 2035
The medical room confirms 17 days on the sidelines for Michele Adorante, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Squad26 Feb 2035
Words at Altamura training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lassana N'Diaye 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.
Match24 Feb 2035
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market29 Jan 2035
“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 Altamura, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom29 Jan 2035
The scrutiny sharpens at Altamura
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Altamura is running low.
Match27 Jan 2035
No end in sight to Altamura's wait for a win
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Altamura has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad29 Jan 2035
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Altamura this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad29 Jan 2035
45 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad29 Jan 2035
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Yevhenii Voloshko, and the manager let it.
Match27 Jan 2035
A 1‑1 draw with Monopoli leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
Squad29 Jan 2035
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.
The terraces29 Jan 2035
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market20 Nov 2034
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Altamura is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad20 Nov 2034
Francesco Ruocco 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 ratings20 Nov 2034
Yevhenii Voloshko was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.57. 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.
Squad20 Nov 2034
Lassana N'Diaye 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 ratings20 Nov 2034
Successful dribbles: 14. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad20 Nov 2034
Nobody at Altamura will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Squad20 Nov 2034
“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.
Market20 Nov 2034
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Vittorio Agostinelli signs something — a contract at Altamura or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market13 Nov 2034
“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.
Squad13 Nov 2034
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Altamura this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad13 Nov 2034
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Francesco Ruocco, and the manager let it.
Match11 Nov 2034
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad13 Nov 2034
Words at Altamura training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lassana N'Diaye 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.
Boardroom13 Nov 2034
Altamura are $24.3M in the red
The borrowing is past what the bank agreed, which is the line where a debt stops being how football is financed and starts being a problem. Every phone-in in this town will quote the figure for the next five years.
Player ratings13 Nov 2034
Successful dribbles: 14. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad13 Nov 2034
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Yevhenii Voloshko trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market13 Nov 2034
2 months remain and no agreement is close. Every week without a signature costs Altamura money.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad30 Oct 2034
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.
Squad30 Oct 2034
“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.
Market30 Oct 2034
“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.
Market30 Oct 2034
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Vittorio Salera will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Altamura the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Boardroom30 Oct 2034
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.
Squad30 Oct 2034
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Altamura this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match28 Oct 2034
A 2‑1 win over Foggia, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings30 Oct 2034
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.61, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad30 Oct 2034
Words at Altamura training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lassana N'Diaye 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
Upbeat
Market23 Oct 2034
Only the photograph left for Mattia Saitta
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Mattia Saitta will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Altamura the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Player ratings23 Oct 2034
Lassana N'Diaye, 34, rolls back the years — 7.87
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.87 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Market23 Oct 2034
Nicolò Gamba 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 Altamura can pretend not to have heard.
Squad23 Oct 2034
Francesco Ruocco 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.
Match21 Oct 2034
Three points for Altamura, 2‑1 the final word against Trapani in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad23 Oct 2034
Lassana N'Diaye 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 ratings23 Oct 2034
Ninety minutes of Yevhenii Voloshko at his very best
Marked 8.07. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Altamura.
Squad23 Oct 2034
Nobody at Altamura will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Squad23 Oct 2034
“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
Match20 Sep 2034
Altamura march on in the cup
Cosenza are out and Altamura go through, 5‑2 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Match23 Sep 2034
0‑3 to Sorrento, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Player ratings25 Sep 2034
A brace, and Akhmed Kumyshev takes the afternoon — 8.92
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Akhmed Kumyshev provided it, and the 8.92 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings25 Sep 2034
Two goals and a mark of 8.45 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The terraces25 Sep 2034
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 8 of the 30 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
Squad25 Sep 2034
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Altamura may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Match23 Sep 2034
Altamura leaking at the back
7 matches, two or more conceded in every one of them. Sides that create as much as this can live with it for a while. Nobody lives with it forever.
Market25 Sep 2034
“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.
Squad25 Sep 2034
Francesco Ruocco 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad11 Sep 2034
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Altamura have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Match9 Sep 2034
The wait goes on for Altamura
6 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.
Squad11 Sep 2034
Francesco Ruocco 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.
Match9 Sep 2034
No clean sheets in sight for Altamura
4 games now with at least two against. The back line has been rearranged, the goalkeeper has been backed publicly, and the goals keep going in anyway.
Boardroom11 Sep 2034
No signings allowed at Altamura
The manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
Boardroom11 Sep 2034
134% of the income goes out in wages at Altamura
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.
Squad11 Sep 2034
Lassana N'Diaye 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.
Boardroom11 Sep 2034
The Altamura debt reaches $24.5M
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.
Squad11 Sep 2034
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Lassana N'Diaye, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market7 Aug 2034
“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.
Squad7 Aug 2034
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Altamura have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market7 Aug 2034
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Altamura they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad7 Aug 2034
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Giorgio Tumbarello and Altamura agree another 2 years.
Squad7 Aug 2034
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Altamura this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom7 Aug 2034
The owner puts $753.5K into Altamura
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead of it.
Squad7 Aug 2034
At 26 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 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.
Boardroom7 Aug 2034
Altamura cannot sign anybody
The embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
Boardroom7 Aug 2034
Wages eat 130% of everything Altamura 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market31 Jul 2034
“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 Altamura, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad31 Jul 2034
Francesco Ruocco 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.
Squad31 Jul 2034
Lassana N'Diaye 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.
Squad31 Jul 2034
24 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad31 Jul 2034
Nobody at Altamura will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Market31 Jul 2034
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Marco Ferilli’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad26 Jun 2034
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Altamura this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad26 Jun 2034
Words at Altamura training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lassana N'Diaye 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.
Market26 Jun 2034
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Altamura will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom19 Jun 2034
Pressure builds in the Altamura boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Market19 Jun 2034
Cavese come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Altamura did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market19 Jun 2034
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Altamura is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad19 Jun 2034
Francesco Ruocco 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.
Squad19 Jun 2034
Words at Altamura training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Giuseppe Simone 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.
Squad19 Jun 2034
“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
Squad29 May 2034
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Altamura this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad29 May 2034
Words at Altamura training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lassana N'Diaye 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.
Squad29 May 2034
“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
Player ratings1 May 2034
Francesco Ruocco, 33, rolls back the years — 7.96
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.96 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Market1 May 2034
“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 Altamura, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad1 May 2034
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Altamura this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match29 Apr 2034
Catania left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad1 May 2034
“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.
Market1 May 2034
12 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
Squad1 May 2034
Words at Altamura training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mergim Qarri 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 May 2034
11 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.
Player ratings1 May 2034
Vilim Gec runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 13. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.