Marked for Antonio Fabbri
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad24 Aug 2026
Mattia Buniotto damages knee ligaments — 18 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 18 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.
Market24 Aug 2026
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. Hellas Verona have paid $5.1M for Antonio Fabbri, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
Market24 Aug 2026
Junior Ajayi hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Hellas Verona can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Up for the corner, and Sandi Lovrić delivers — 7.45
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Sandi Lovrić scored, was marked 7.45, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Market24 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad24 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hellas Verona this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom24 Aug 2026
1 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
The terraces24 Aug 2026
Hellas Verona spend $5.1M on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $5.1M for Antonio Fabbri, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Tomáš Suslov 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market24 Aug 2026
The unthinkable, invoiced: Antonio Fabbri sold
Hellas Verona arrived with $5.1M and left with the best player in the building. The board will call it business; the queue at the ticket office will use other words.
Squad24 Aug 2026
A fracture rules Afran Khalilzade out for 102 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Inter will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.34, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
The terraces24 Aug 2026
Inter sell a favourite for $5.1M
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Antonio Fabbri was one of the reasons people came, and $5.1M does not replace that by itself.
Market24 Aug 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Inter can pretend not to have heard.
Match22 Aug 2026
It finished 4‑3, and it was Vugar Garayev’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Inter.
Match22 Aug 2026
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Inter and Gabala in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Tempers go at Inter
Bahlul Guseynov 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 36. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 110 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match15 Aug 2026
A 2-goal lead gone for Inter
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Sumgayit kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Inter will be asked about the last half hour all week.
Squad17 Aug 2026
A move Pijus Širvys would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Pijus Širvys is living that version at Inter, and it tends to show in the first month.
Market17 Aug 2026
The deal that would have taken Vugar Dadashov to Kapaz has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Inter with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Squad17 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Inter this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market17 Aug 2026
Everyone has stopped pretending: Hellas Verona will make the call about Antonio Fabbri this week. Inter have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
Graduation day at Inter
4 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Market17 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Dimitrij Nazarov has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 Aug 2026
A fracture rules Afran Khalilzade out for 117 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Inter will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market10 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Vugar Garayev commits to Inter for another 4 years.
Squad10 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Inter this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market10 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Inter have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market3 Aug 2026
Aris come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Inter did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Tempers go at Inter
Vugar Garayev 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
The phone has started ringing about Kamran Khalilzade again, and this time the name on the line is Alashkert. Inter are listening politely and promising nothing.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Inter training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Antonio Fabbri 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Inter know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Shahriyar Amirguliyev and Inter agree another 1 years.