“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 The request is on a desk at Mantova, and it is not being withdrawn.
Daniel da Silva 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.
Squad12 Mar 2029
Words at Mantova training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mattia Valente 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.
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 dugout12 Mar 2029
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 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Silvio Riva to a room that had heard them before.
“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 The request is on a desk at Mantova, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Mantova can pretend not to have heard.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Nicolò Camarda will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Mantova the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Daniel da Silva 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.
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Francesco Ruocco in the middle of it, and Pisa unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Mantova has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad6 Nov 2028
Rareş Ilie 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 Mantova this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
The dugout6 Nov 2028
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 Silvio Riva to a room that had heard them before.
Something was said to Ruben Beliandjou and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.