Marked for Andrea Luongo
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad19 Jun 2028
Davide Faraoni breaks a bone — 121 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 121 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Transfer targets19 Jun 2028
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.
The dugout19 Jun 2028
Davide Faraoni: 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.” Pescara have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market19 Jun 2028
“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 The request is on a desk at Pescara, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market19 Jun 2028
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Boardroom19 Jun 2028
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Alessandro Shehaj has agreed terms with Catanzaro for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Transfer targets19 Jun 2028
$99.0K was the most the club would pay and Atalanta were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Market19 Jun 2028
He is 20, and nobody at Pescara signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
Squad19 Jun 2028
Sergio Kalaj 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 Pescara this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market19 Jun 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.
Market19 Jun 2028
Torino say no — this time
The offer from Grazer AK for Jean Butez 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.
Market19 Jun 2028
Andrea Luongo has left for Pescara in a $2.9M deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
Market19 Jun 2028
Nobody at the club will say out loud who this signing is for, which is how you know exactly who it is for. Daniil Khudyakov has been brought in to take a shirt somebody is still wearing.
Transfer targets19 Jun 2028
$1.5M was the most the club would pay and Modena were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Boardroom19 Jun 2028
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Enrico Manzi 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.
Squad19 Jun 2028
Tempers go at Torino
Youssef En-Nesyri 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.
Transfer targets19 Jun 2028
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.
Squad19 Jun 2028
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad12 Jun 2028
129 days out for Davide Faraoni after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Pescara will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Match10 Jun 2028
Whatever happens, Pescara do not lose
13 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.
Market12 Jun 2028
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Pescara have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Match12 Jun 2028
Pescara finish in position 6
61 points, and the season has a number on it. Whatever it felt like from the inside, this is what it will look like in a book.
Market12 Jun 2028
Napoli pay $17.5M, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Market12 Jun 2028
AS Roma pay $12.6M, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Market12 Jun 2028
Pescara say no — this time
The offer from Fiorentina for Riccardo Capellini 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.
Transfer targets12 Jun 2028
The deal with Torino is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
The terraces12 Jun 2028
Supporters turn on the $17.5M sale of Nuno Tavares
He is going to Napoli, the club has $17.5M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match20 Jan 2027
Torino march on in the cup
Sassuolo are out and Torino go through, 1‑0 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Transfer targets25 Jan 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Spartak Moscow have kept their man, and Torino go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Market25 Jan 2027
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Torino people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Transfer targets25 Jan 2027
Torino offered $17.3M; Genoa said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Player ratings25 Jan 2027
Andrea Luongo, 18, plays like he has been here for years — 7.94
A mark of 7.94 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 18-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Player ratings25 Jan 2027
At 35 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 7.85, and nobody on the pitch better.
Market25 Jan 2027
Torino say no — this time
The offer from Udinese for Alberto Paleari 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.
Market25 Jan 2027
Add another name to the list: Sion have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Cristiano Biraghi. The answer from Torino has not changed — yet.
The dugout25 Jan 2027
The manager makes an example of Duván Zapata
“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.
In brief
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The terraces
Torino supporters have found a favourite in Zannetos Savva
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Squad
Words at Torino training over how hard people work
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Match
Torino rescue it on 86 minutes
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match28 Nov 2026
6 matches without a win for Torino
The run now stands at 6, and the questions being asked around Torino are no longer polite ones.
Match28 Nov 2026
Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑2 Sebastiano Baraldi left the room before anybody could ask which.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
Saúl Coco knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Saúl Coco trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 11. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
Andrea Luongo gets picked when it counts
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Andrea Luongo is on it.
Market30 Nov 2026
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Gvidas Gineitis’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Squad30 Nov 2026
At 26 he is in the side on merit and somebody else is watching from the bench. Places at Torino are won quietly and lost loudly.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Loan watch5 Oct 2026
“I watch every Torino game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Cagliari runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Match3 Oct 2026
Napoli left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Market5 Oct 2026
Gvidas Gineitis is free to find somewhere else
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Torino has been clear about where Gvidas Gineitis stands, which is more than many ever get.
Squad5 Oct 2026
The medical room confirms 25 days on the sidelines for Matej Houser, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Sandro Kulenović 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 dugout5 Oct 2026
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 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Sebastiano Baraldi to a room that had heard them before.
Squad5 Oct 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Tiago Codinha and Torino agree another 5 years.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Lucas Perri
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
Saúl Coco asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.