Pedro Blanco

Left Back - Ascoli
21 Mar 2032
Sunday
Process

Marked for Pedro Blanco

272 Edition

The Ascoli Gazette

13 Oct 2031
From our football correspondent Triumph

Squad

The knee: Petar Mišić out for 73 days

73 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Ascoli lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.

Match

No mercy from Ascoli

Gubbio will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Ascoli were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.

Player ratings

A brace, and Gabriele Gori takes the afternoon — 9.46

There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Gabriele Gori provided it, and the 9.46 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.

Player ratings

Stefano De Luca, 19, steals the show — 9.15

Marked 9.15 at 19, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.

Match

Ascoli cannot stop winning

3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.

Squad

Words exchanged at Ascoli

Federico Gattoni 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.

Boardroom

The numbers do not look good at Ascoli

Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.

The terraces

The crowd has taken to Stefano De Luca

At 19 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.

Squad

Francesco Galuppini 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.

In brief

Back issues
262 Edition

The Ascoli Gazette

4 Aug 2031
From our football correspondent Steady

Squad

Cooper Stewart damages knee ligaments — 31 days out

The words a physio says slowly. 31 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.

Market

Matteo Raffaelli has said yes to Torino

The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Ascoli have lost him in all but the paperwork.

Squad

Ascoli count the cost of losing Abdoul Guiebré

42 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.

Market

Samuele Vitale raises the bar for Ascoli

“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Ascoli heard it as anything else.

Transfer targets

No thanks: Agustín Fernández rejects the move

Ascoli had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Benevento, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.

Squad

Words exchanged at Ascoli

Gabriele Gori 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.

Market

Only the photograph left for Thomas Cattani

Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Thomas Cattani will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Ascoli the goodbyes have quietly begun.

Squad

Gabriele Pagliai out for 28 days

The medical room confirms 28 days on the sidelines for Gabriele Pagliai, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.

Market

Eyes on Giacomo Sandrolini again

The phone has started ringing about Giacomo Sandrolini again, and this time the name on the line is Torino. Ascoli are listening politely and promising nothing.

In brief