Marked for Simone Martino
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad18 Sep 2028
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Cosenza have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Player ratings18 Sep 2028
Successful dribbles: 22. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad18 Sep 2028
Alessandro Caporale 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.
Squad18 Sep 2028
Tommaso D'Orazio 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.
Squad18 Sep 2028
No hiding place for Wellerson
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Wellerson, and the manager let it.
Match16 Sep 2028
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market28 Aug 2028
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Match26 Aug 2028
Nobody wants to play Cosenza right now
4 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Squad28 Aug 2028
Manuel Peretti 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.
Squad28 Aug 2028
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Nicolò Contiliano and Cosenza agree another 3 years.
Squad28 Aug 2028
Tommaso D'Orazio 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.
Match26 Aug 2028
A 2‑1 win over Altamura, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad28 Aug 2028
Christos Kourfalidis has improved at 25, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 4 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Player ratings28 Aug 2028
Marked 8.71 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Market28 Aug 2028
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Cosenza will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.