Marked for Ignacio Flores
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market16 Aug 2027
“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.
Transfer targets16 Aug 2027
The offer went to Modena this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Transfer targets16 Aug 2027
Giana Erminio asked and Pescara said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Vincenzo Vitale 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.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Samuele Magni and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout16 Aug 2027
Vincenzo Vitale asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces31 May 2027
Supporters organise against the Giana Erminio board
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Match31 May 2027
26 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Boardroom31 May 2027
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Giana Erminio is running low.
Market31 May 2027
“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.
Squad31 May 2027
Alesandro Comita and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad31 May 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nicolas Previtali was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout31 May 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Andrea Sergio Mazza's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Market31 May 2027
A stepping stone, not a home, for Ignacio Flores
He is doing his job and he is not settling. Giana Erminio were supposed to be a step up in his own reckoning, and his own reckoning has been adjusted since he arrived.
Market31 May 2027
He is 20, and nobody at Giana Erminio signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad8 Feb 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Santiago Wanderers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Cristóbal Cáceres was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout8 Feb 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.
The dugout8 Feb 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Luis Ureta, and the manager let it.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Facundo Gulli arrived with a record at a bigger club than this one, and the room has treated him accordingly. The young ones watch him train; the senior ones watch to see whether it lasts.
Squad8 Feb 2027
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.