The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Arezzo have lost him in all but the paperwork.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Arezzo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Arezzo can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Arezzo, and both men came out saying it was fine.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Giovanni Gabriele Garofani signs something — a contract at Arezzo or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Arezzo can pretend not to have heard.
Camillo Tavernelli 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Francesco Rech is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gennaro Iaccarino was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Arezzo, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Arezzo can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Arezzo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
“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; Arezzo are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Giovanni Gabriele Garofani signs something — a contract at Arezzo or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Arezzo that is a harder question to answer.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Fabrice Djimhoué has written the date down.
“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 Arezzo, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Arezzo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Arezzo, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Nobody at Arezzo 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Luca Chierico signs something — a contract at Arezzo or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Arezzo has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
The words a physio says slowly. 116 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.
Mario Ravasio had done his part in building a 2-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and Pontedera were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 105th minute. Arzignano will replay every second of the added time for a week.
0 on the scoresheet on his first appearance and a mark of 7.31 beside it. Most debuts are got through; this one was enjoyed, by him and by everybody watching it.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Alessandro Rovetini did not need any: 8.34, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
75 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Arezzo lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 47 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“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 Arezzo, and it is not being withdrawn.
Camillo Tavernelli 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Francesco Rech is living that version at Arezzo, and it tends to show in the first month.
Palermo will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Valerio Brutto has pre-agreed a move to Arezzo, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Catanzaro have kept their man, and Arezzo go back to a list with one name crossed off it.