Marked for William Bringe
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad9 Jun 2031
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Gubbio will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The dugout9 Jun 2031
Gonzalo Sosa: 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.” Gubbio have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market9 Jun 2031
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Gubbio can pretend not to have heard.
Squad9 Jun 2031
A falling-out at Gubbio
Giovanni Di Noia and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad9 Jun 2031
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Nadir El Majdoub commits to Gubbio for another 4 years.
Boardroom9 Jun 2031
Gubbio still without a manager
8 days since the seat came open, a list of names doing the rounds, and nobody has signed anything. Every week this drags on the shortlist gets shorter.
Transfer targets9 Jun 2031
Gubbio asked and Pergolettese said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Boardroom9 Jun 2031
The Gubbio debt reaches $22.5M
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.
Market9 Jun 2031
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad14 Oct 2030
There were 8 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad14 Oct 2030
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gubbio this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match12 Oct 2030
Beaten 1‑3, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout14 Oct 2030
“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.
The dugout14 Oct 2030
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 1‑3 defeat, delivered by Interim Coach to a room that had heard them before.
Boardroom14 Oct 2030
Nobody arrives at Gubbio until somebody leaves
The club is not barred from spending; it simply has nothing to spend that it has not first raised. Every name linked with Gubbio this window arrives with a name leaving in the same sentence.
The dugout14 Oct 2030
Rafael Melo 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 Rafael Melo trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Squad14 Oct 2030
Words at Gubbio training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicholas Hall 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.
Squad14 Oct 2030
“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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market19 Aug 2030
Gonzalo Sosa 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 Gubbio can pretend not to have heard.
Squad19 Aug 2030
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Cristian Dabellonio has, at Gubbio, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Squad19 Aug 2030
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Flavio Di Marzio is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad19 Aug 2030
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gubbio this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad19 Aug 2030
At 24 the improving is meant to be over, and it is not: 3 points better than a year ago. It happens to the ones who take the boring parts seriously.
Transfer targets19 Aug 2030
Gubbio asked and Pergolettese said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The dugout19 Aug 2030
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Gubbio told Francesco Zallu something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Transfer targets19 Aug 2030
Altamura 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.
Transfer targets19 Aug 2030
Triestina 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.