Marked for Igor Wiśniewski
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market26 Jun 2028
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Transfer targets26 Jun 2028
Cavese have gone to Juve Stabia with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Transfer targets26 Jun 2028
Door shut on Lucão
Cavese asked and Picerno said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad26 Jun 2028
Words exchanged at Cavese
Raffaele Maria Di Costanzo 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.
Squad26 Jun 2028
Words at Cavese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bahiano Farías 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.
Market26 Jun 2028
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Mattia Macchi has his answer from Cavese; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
The dugout26 Jun 2028
“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.
Market26 Jun 2028
The name of Valerio Boffelli keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Cavese say nothing, which says plenty.
The dugout26 Jun 2028
Xander Ekberg has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Cavese will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad20 Dec 2027
There were 6 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.
The dugout20 Dec 2027
“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.
Match18 Dec 2027
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Player ratings20 Dec 2027
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 11 actions, 7.35, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
The dugout20 Dec 2027
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Claudio Spinelli after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Squad20 Dec 2027
Tempers go at Cavese
Michalis Konstantinidis 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.
The dugout20 Dec 2027
“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.
Market20 Dec 2027
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Thomas Alberti signs something — a contract at Cavese or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The dugout20 Dec 2027
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
Uneasy
Market5 Jul 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Cavese can pretend not to have heard.
Market5 Jul 2027
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Cavese people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Squad5 Jul 2027
A move Xander Ekberg would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Xander Ekberg is living that version at Cavese, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad5 Jul 2027
“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; Cavese are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Boardroom5 Jul 2027
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
Transfer targets5 Jul 2027
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.
Transfer targets5 Jul 2027
Lumezzane 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.
Market5 Jul 2027
Xander Ekberg is 20, and Cavese 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.
Market5 Jul 2027
He is 19, and nobody at Cavese signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.