Marked for Djibril Diallo
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad21 Aug 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Djibril Diallo
20 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Parma lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad21 Aug 2028
A fracture rules Harry Cornick out for 33 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad21 Aug 2028
Joel Canchimbo is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad21 Aug 2028
Tempers go at Parma
Zion Suzuki 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.
Market21 Aug 2028
Parma may not be able to give Mariano Troilo what he wants
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Mariano Troilo wants continental football; whether Parma can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Boardroom21 Aug 2028
6 academy players handed senior numbers at Parma
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Market21 Aug 2028
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Carlo Monteleone has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Market21 Aug 2028
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Fabrizio Valentini is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market21 Aug 2028
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Andrea Gallo has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
In brief
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Boardroom
Parma keep producing them
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Boardroom
Parma spend where nobody can see it
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad14 Aug 2028
Djibril Diallo damages knee ligaments — 30 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 30 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.
Squad14 Aug 2028
A fracture rules Harry Cornick out for 40 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad14 Aug 2028
Zion Suzuki 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 Parma this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad7 Aug 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Djibril Diallo
38 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Parma lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad7 Aug 2028
Harry Cornick breaks a bone — 48 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 48 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market7 Aug 2028
Jacob Ondrejka wants to know where this is going
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Parma hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad7 Aug 2028
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Cristian De Angelis is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad7 Aug 2028
Tempers go at Parma
Zion Suzuki 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.
Market7 Aug 2028
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Hans Nicolussi Caviglia signs something — a contract at Parma or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad31 Jul 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Djibril Diallo
45 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Parma lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad31 Jul 2028
Zion Suzuki 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 Parma this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad31 Jul 2028
Alexander Lorenz is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad31 Jul 2028
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.
Market31 Jul 2028
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Parma heard it as anything else.
Market31 Jul 2028
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Giovanni Daffara may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.