22 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AC Milan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Adrien Rabiot 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.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Fikayo Tomori reports back to AC Milan with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
“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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
Mike Maignan 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 Sep 2027
Words at AC Milan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Adrien Rabiot 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 manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Fikayo Tomori has his answer from AC Milan; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Position 2, 74 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
Mike Maignan 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Vanja Milinković-Savić has just signed for AC Milan, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Words at AC Milan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rafael Leão 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.
Mike Maignan 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.
Add another name to the list: Catanzaro have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Diego Moreira. The answer from AC Milan has not changed — yet.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Words at AC Milan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Adrien Rabiot 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.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Crotone will make the call about Mattia Zaramella this week. AC Milan have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
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.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 42 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The offer from Juventus for Fikayo Tomori 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Andrej Kostić is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
The phone has started ringing about Strahinja Pavlović again, and this time the name on the line is Cremonese. AC Milan are listening politely and promising nothing.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Adrien Rabiot 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.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Ardon Jashari has improved at 24, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason AC Milan will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Qualification is done, and next season the floodlights come on for something bigger. A stage for the players, oxygen for the accounts and a passport for everybody else.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and AC Milan have had the benefit of it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AC Milan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
37 games, 4 goals, and a squad option that has arrived without a fee attached. The interesting question at AC Milan now is not whether he plays but who he displaces.
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.
6 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Catanzaro can tell you which week it ends in.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Catanzaro this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad17 May 2027
Words at Catanzaro training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Fabio Miretti 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.
Empoli will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Lorenzo Chiucchiuini has pre-agreed a move to Catanzaro, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
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.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason AC Milan will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Marked 7.20. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
Squad10 May 2027
Words at AC Milan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Zachary Athekame 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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. AC Milan told Samuele Ricci something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. AS Roma defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
4 goals in 36 games at Catanzaro — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at AC Milan updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
In brief
Player ratingsMario Gila spends the afternoon fouling
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.
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.
“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.
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.
Mirko Pigliacelli 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.
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Catanzaro can tell you which week it ends in.
Squad3 May 2027
Words at Catanzaro training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Fabio Miretti 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.
Nothing resets a career like somebody arriving who did not pick the side last season. Fabio Miretti has taken the hint, and Catanzaro are getting a version of him the previous regime had stopped seeing.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 27 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Catanzaro this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
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.
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.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Modena? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 144 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AC Milan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Adrien Rabiot 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AC Milan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Successful dribbles: 22. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Adrien Rabiot 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 86th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and Diego Moreira decided nobody was going anywhere. Napoli had no time left to answer.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AC Milan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Gonçalo Ramos 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Diego Moreira 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Catanzaro will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Player ratings15 Feb 2027
Andrej Kostić, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 9.39
A mark of 9.39 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.
Fabio Miretti 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 paperwork is done long before the player is. Rodolfo Moisés has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Catanzaro have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
At 22 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.
“I watch every Catanzaro game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Guidonia Montecelio runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 99 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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.
Andrej Kostić 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 Feb 2027
Fabio Miretti 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 chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Edoardo Borrelli reports back to Catanzaro with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Mirko Pigliacelli 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.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Words at Catanzaro training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Fabio Miretti 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 paperwork is done long before the player is. Samuele D'Agostino has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Catanzaro have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Nobody at Catanzaro 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Lorenzo Dellavalle is living that version at Catanzaro, and it tends to show in the first month.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.12 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Catanzaro can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Catanzaro they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Fabio Miretti 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 paperwork is done long before the player is. Edoardo Morucci has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Catanzaro have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 19-year-old it feels ownership of. Andrej Kostić 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.
Mike Maignan 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.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words at AC Milan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Adrien Rabiot 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.
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.
12 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.
Fabio Miretti 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.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Words at Catanzaro training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jacopo Petriccione 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 hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Andrej Kostić did not need any: 7.78, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Catanzaro this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Fabio Miretti 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Andrej Kostić. 1‑0 against Spezia, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.92 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Catanzaro this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 19 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Pietro Iemmello. 1‑0 against Mantova, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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.
In brief
Boardroom131% of the income goes out in wages at Catanzaro
Two goals and a mark of 8.16 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Andrej Kostić, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 8.40
A mark of 8.40 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.
Fabio Miretti 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.
At 22 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 17 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.80 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Catanzaro this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 19 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.
7 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Catanzaro can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Catanzaro this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Catanzaro training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Costantino Favasuli 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.
Everyone has stopped pretending: AlbinoLeffe will make the call about Tancredi Vella this week. Catanzaro have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
5 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Nothing about this will be in a press release. A plan went upstairs, came back rejected, and the version of the club that would have existed in three years' time just quietly stopped being possible.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AC Milan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Adrien Rabiot 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.