Marked for Edoardo Biondini
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad16 Aug 2038
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad16 Aug 2038
Tempers go at Empoli
Giuseppe Ambrosino 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.
Squad16 Aug 2038
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Giacomo Baldi is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad16 Aug 2038
Salvatore Elia 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.
Loan watch16 Aug 2038
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Empoli, and 0 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
Market16 Aug 2038
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Empoli will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad29 Mar 2038
A knee injury of the worst kind for Stiven Shpendi
60 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Empoli lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad29 Mar 2038
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 11 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Match27 Mar 2038
Empoli win it in stoppage time
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 92th minute. Modena will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Player ratings29 Mar 2038
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 10.00 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Match27 Mar 2038
Empoli make it 5 in a row
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Empoli have 5 straight wins of it.
Squad29 Mar 2038
A season average of 7.74 with 11 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Squad29 Mar 2038
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Empoli may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Player ratings29 Mar 2038
Up for the corner, and Edoardo Biondini delivers — 7.73
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Edoardo Biondini scored, was marked 7.73, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Market29 Mar 2038
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Empoli is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match19 Dec 2037
Empoli strike at the death to beat Südtirol
There were 85 minutes on the clock and Südtirol had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and Empoli did not stop to explain themselves.
Match21 Dec 2037
Empoli up to position 3
33 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Player ratings21 Dec 2037
Stiven Shpendi, 34, rolls back the years — 8.56
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.56 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Player ratings21 Dec 2037
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.90 for the rest of it.
Squad21 Dec 2037
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Empoli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 Dec 2037
Defences have started doubling up on Farès Bousnina
10 goals and a season average of 7.56 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Match19 Dec 2037
Nobody wins at Empoli
10 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Squad21 Dec 2037
Words at Empoli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Salvatore Elia 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.
Match19 Dec 2037
A 3‑2 win over Südtirol, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad13 Apr 2037
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.
Squad13 Apr 2037
A season average of 7.53 with 22 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Player ratings13 Apr 2037
Two goals and a mark of 8.93 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings13 Apr 2037
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 9.17 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad13 Apr 2037
Edoardo Biondini: 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.” Empoli have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad13 Apr 2037
Tempers go at Empoli
Faustino Anjorin 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.
Match11 Apr 2037
Avellino made Empoli work for it, but the scoreboard read 3‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Match11 Apr 2037
Empoli settle it inside twenty minutes
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Avellino spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
Loan watch13 Apr 2037
“I watch every Empoli game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Triestina runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad16 Feb 2037
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad16 Feb 2037
A season average of 7.69 with 13 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Player ratings16 Feb 2037
Stiven Shpendi, 33, rolls back the years — 8.26
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.26 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad16 Feb 2037
Tempers go at Empoli
Faustino Anjorin 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.
Squad16 Feb 2037
Words at Empoli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Duccio Degli Innocenti 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.
Player ratings16 Feb 2037
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 9.05, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Match14 Feb 2037
A 2‑1 win over Carrarese, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings16 Feb 2037
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.69, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Loan watch16 Feb 2037
“I did not go to Triestina to sit and watch. I want to come back to Empoli and fight for my place.” 5 appearances in 34 matches say the rest.