Marked for Marcus Brolund
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market7 Aug 2028
Adil Bourabaa 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 Forli can pretend not to have heard.
Squad7 Aug 2028
Words exchanged at Forli
Jacopo Scaccabarozzi 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.
Transfer targets7 Aug 2028
$5.0K on the table at Gubbio. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Squad7 Aug 2028
Felipe Fernández 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 targets7 Aug 2028
Forli asked and Cosenza 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 dugout7 Aug 2028
“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 Aug 2028
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Forli are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Transfer targets7 Aug 2028
Union Brescia 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.
Squad7 Aug 2028
Somebody has moved past him. It is not a dropping and it is worse than one, because a dropping is about a Saturday and this is about where he stands.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market12 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.
Squad12 Jun 2028
Words exchanged at Forli
Jacopo Scaccabarozzi 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.
Transfer targets12 Jun 2028
$13.0K on the table at Vicenza. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Transfer targets12 Jun 2028
The offer went to Carrarese this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Market12 Jun 2028
Juve Stabia pay $140.0K, 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.
Transfer targets12 Jun 2028
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. AS Roma have kept their man, and Forli go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The dugout12 Jun 2028
Morgan Bates gets it from the manager
“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.
Squad12 Jun 2028
“The easiest signature of my career.” Marcus Brolund and Forli agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
The dugout12 Jun 2028
When it matters, Diego Rossi plays
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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market5 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 Forli, and it is not being withdrawn.
Transfer targets5 Jun 2028
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Forli have done the hard part with Lecco, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Squad5 Jun 2028
Words at Forli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Felipe Fernández 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.
Transfer targets5 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 dugout5 Jun 2028
“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.
Market5 Jun 2028
A stepping stone, not a home, for Marcus Brolund
He is doing his job and he is not settling. Forli were supposed to be a step up in his own reckoning, and his own reckoning has been adjusted since he arrived.
Market5 Jun 2028
He is 20, and nobody at Forli signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
Market5 Jun 2028
Marcus Brolund is 19, and Forli have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
Squad5 Jun 2028
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Marcus Brolund commits to Forli for another 4 years.