Marked for Matteo Carbone
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match9 Aug 2027
Carrarese are in real trouble now
Position 19, 28 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Mattia Suppa gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Mattia Suppa has just signed for Carrarese, and for once the answer mattered.
Transfer targets9 Aug 2027
The deal with Virtus Entella 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.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Matthias Braunöder has improved at 25, 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.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Words at Carrarese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Simone Zanon 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.
Boardroom9 Aug 2027
Still nobody in the Carrarese dugout
8 days with the chair empty, a list of names that grows and shrinks by the day, and not one signature on anything. Every week that passes takes the best candidates off it.
Transfer targets9 Aug 2027
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.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Gabriele Platto 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 dugout9 Aug 2027
Julián Illanes is playing like a man with something to prove
The oldest phenomenon in the sport: a new voice in the dressing room and suddenly everybody is available for everything. Julián Illanes is training as though the last team sheet never existed, because as far as he is concerned it does not.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market9 Aug 2027
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Hellas Verona waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Virtus Entella is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Market9 Aug 2027
The offer from Milton Keynes Dons for Maguette Fall 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.
Market9 Aug 2027
“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 Virtus Entella, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Andrea Tiritiello 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 targets9 Aug 2027
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.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Luca Parodi 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.
Transfer targets9 Aug 2027
Modena have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
The dugout9 Aug 2027
“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.
Market9 Aug 2027
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Bernat Guiu’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad3 May 2027
Davide Bariti damages knee ligaments — 22 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 22 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.
Player ratings3 May 2027
Successful dribbles: 28. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Player ratings3 May 2027
Fabio Baldé, 21, steals the show — 7.80
Marked 7.80 at 21, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Squad3 May 2027
Stefano Di Mario and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad3 May 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Andrea Tiritiello was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The terraces3 May 2027
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 19-year-old it feels ownership of. Matteo Carbone 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.
The dugout3 May 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Renato Sartori kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
The dugout3 May 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Ovidijus Siaulys, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad7 Dec 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 29 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 30. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match5 Dec 2026
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Virtus Entella are no longer polite ones.
Match5 Dec 2026
5 matches without a goal for Virtus Entella
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 5 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Andrea Tiritiello 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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Andrea Franzoni 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.
Match5 Dec 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
“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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Matteo Carbone and Virtus Entella agree another 5 years.