The Lugano Chronicle
Squad31 May 2027
Lukas Mai damages knee ligaments — 77 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 77 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.
Boardroom31 May 2027
Continental nights are coming to Lugano
Qualification is secured, and next season the big floodlit nights are continental ones. For the players it is a stage; for the accounts it is a lifeline; for the supporters it is passports.
Squad31 May 2027
Anto Grgic honoured for the season
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Lugano had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
Squad31 May 2027
A falling-out at Lugano
Hannes Delcroix and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Market31 May 2027
Lugano sign Ígor, one for the future
Ígor is 20, and Lugano 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.
The dugout31 May 2027
When it matters, Yanis Cimignani plays
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 dugout31 May 2027
Luis Ureta gets it from the manager
“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.
Squad31 May 2027
Ígor is a square peg at Lugano
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
The dugout31 May 2027
The manager makes Lukas Mai a promise
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Lugano. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
In brief
- Loan watch Nobody is scoring past David Von Ballmoos at Lugano
- Market Uran Bislimi linked with a move away
- Market Lugano shop where it costs nothing