“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 The request is on a desk at Arzignano, and it is not being withdrawn.
10 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Joshua Yougye 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.
Squad3 Sep 2040
Lisav Eissat 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.
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead of it.
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. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
The borrowing is past what the bank agreed, which is the line where a debt stops being how football is financed and starts being a problem. Every phone-in in this town will quote the figure for the next five years.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Arzignano can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
Lisav Eissat 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.
Squad6 Aug 2040
Words at Arzignano training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Fabio Cariolato 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.
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
At 25 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 98 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
438 appearances across 11 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Portimonense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.
In brief
BoardroomPortimonense sign 7 boys into the academy
Boardroom$356.1K a year onto the Portimonense books
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 126 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
33 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Portimonense lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Portimonense can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Boardroom6 Jun 2039
An order from above at Portimonense: somebody has to go
Balance sheets do not care about form or about who the manager was planning to build around. The board have decided a sale is required, and the only question left is which name ends up carrying it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Portimonense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Khayon Edwards and Portimonense agree another 2 years.
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.
Pedro Justiniano is 39 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Portimonense have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Portimonense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Feb 2039
Words at Portimonense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Xavier 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Portimonense, another week without a signature from Paulo Correia.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Farense defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
12 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.