Marked for Robert Smith
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad21 Jul 2042
153 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Audace Cerignola lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad21 Jul 2042
Robert Smith breaks a bone — 102 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 102 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market21 Jul 2042
Enzo Salomon 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 Audace Cerignola can pretend not to have heard.
Squad21 Jul 2042
Vincenzo Mesisca 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.
Squad21 Jul 2042
Nathan Hughes gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Nathan Hughes has just signed for Audace Cerignola, and for once the answer mattered.
Boardroom21 Jul 2042
153% of the income goes out in wages at Audace Cerignola
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad14 Jul 2042
160 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Audace Cerignola lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Boardroom14 Jul 2042
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Audace Cerignola
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Squad14 Jul 2042
Robert Smith breaks a bone — 109 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 109 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad14 Jul 2042
Luca Bonassi: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Audace Cerignola have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market14 Jul 2042
“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.
Squad14 Jul 2042
Oscar Moreso 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
Boardroom7 Jul 2042
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Squad7 Jul 2042
Robert Smith breaks a bone — 116 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 116 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad7 Jul 2042
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Boardroom7 Jul 2042
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
Squad7 Jul 2042
Oscar Moreso in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Audace Cerignola this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom7 Jul 2042
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.
Boardroom7 Jul 2042
The embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
Squad7 Jul 2042
Words at Audace Cerignola training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Peter Dragovic 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.
Market7 Jul 2042
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Luca Bergaglio’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad12 May 2042
Eden Eboa M'bella damages knee ligaments — 26 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 26 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.
Match10 May 2042
2 in front and in complete control, and it finished with Giugliano the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that Audace Cerignola will enjoy reviewing.
Squad12 May 2042
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Player ratings12 May 2042
Peter Dragovic, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.75
A mark of 7.75 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Player ratings12 May 2042
Luca Bergaglio, 36, rolls back the years — 8.19
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.19 at 36, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad12 May 2042
Matteo Bosi in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Audace Cerignola this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom12 May 2042
The embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
Boardroom12 May 2042
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.
Match10 May 2042
A 2‑2 draw with Giugliano leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad5 May 2042
Eden Eboa M'bella damages knee ligaments — 33 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 33 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.
Boardroom5 May 2042
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Match3 May 2042
Michael Johnson had done his part in building a 3-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and Cavese were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
Squad5 May 2042
A season's verdict on Peter Dragovic: the best of his age
Audace Cerignola have a 21-year-old the division has just voted its finest young footballer. The club's next problem is that everybody else now knows it too.
Boardroom5 May 2042
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.
Squad5 May 2042
A season average of 7.23 with 28 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Squad5 May 2042
A one-man rearguard from Robert Smith
There were 7 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Player ratings5 May 2042
Peter Dragovic, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.16
A mark of 8.16 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Market5 May 2042
“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 Audace Cerignola, and it is not being withdrawn.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad31 Mar 2042
Eden Eboa M'bella damages knee ligaments — 68 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 68 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.
Squad31 Mar 2042
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Market31 Mar 2042
“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 Audace Cerignola, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad31 Mar 2042
Defences have started doubling up on Vincenzo Mesisca
24 goals and a season average of 7.20 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Squad31 Mar 2042
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Boardroom31 Mar 2042
Wages eat 146% of everything Audace Cerignola earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Match29 Mar 2042
A 2‑0 win over Cosenza, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings31 Mar 2042
Successful dribbles: 15. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings31 Mar 2042
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 15 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad17 Mar 2042
Eden Eboa M'bella damages knee ligaments — 82 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 82 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.
Match15 Mar 2042
6 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Squad17 Mar 2042
Oscar Moreso in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Audace Cerignola this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad17 Mar 2042
Words at Audace Cerignola training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gaetano Vitale 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.
Squad17 Mar 2042
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Match15 Mar 2042
Benevento left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Player ratings17 Mar 2042
Successful dribbles: 12. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market17 Mar 2042
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Carmine Cretella’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Market17 Mar 2042
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad3 Feb 2042
Eden Eboa M'bella damages knee ligaments — 124 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 124 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.
Match1 Feb 2042
5‑1, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Squad3 Feb 2042
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Boardroom3 Feb 2042
Interim Coach has until the next board meeting
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Audace Cerignola can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Boardroom3 Feb 2042
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
Market3 Feb 2042
“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.
Squad3 Feb 2042
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Audace Cerignola may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Player ratings3 Feb 2042
Gaetano Vitale scored one and made one — 7.72
Two of the goals had his name somewhere on them, which is the afternoon a manager wants from anybody asked to both create and finish. 7.72, and 2 involvements.
Match1 Feb 2042
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Audace Cerignola and Potenza, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match25 Sep 2041
A 2‑0 win over Reggiana, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Squad30 Sep 2041
A fracture rules Benjamin Parlov out for 21 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Audace Cerignola will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad30 Sep 2041
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Market30 Sep 2041
“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.
Squad30 Sep 2041
Oleg Nekrasov: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Audace Cerignola have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad30 Sep 2041
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Audace Cerignola this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match28 Sep 2041
0‑1 to Casarano, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Player ratings30 Sep 2041
A defender's afternoon for Oleg Nekrasov
Defensive actions: 14. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Market30 Sep 2041
1 months left and the two sides are nowhere near each other. Every week this drags on takes money off what Audace Cerignola could get for him.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom3 Jun 2041
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Boardroom3 Jun 2041
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
Squad3 Jun 2041
Robert Smith: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Audace Cerignola have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad3 Jun 2041
A muscle injury sidelines Oscar Moreso for 15 days
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Audace Cerignola will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Squad3 Jun 2041
Matteo Bosi in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Audace Cerignola this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom3 Jun 2041
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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Boardroom13 May 2041
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Audace Cerignola
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Squad13 May 2041
A one-man rearguard from Robert Smith
There were 9 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Match11 May 2041
Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Enzo Salomon scored in the 89th minute, Giugliano had already begun thinking about the journey home, and Audace Cerignola took the lot.
Squad13 May 2041
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Audace Cerignola this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings13 May 2041
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad13 May 2041
The manager makes an example of Jiri Sykora
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad13 May 2041
Tommaso Vannucci has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Audace Cerignola will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Market13 May 2041
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Gaetano Vitale’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad24 Sep 2040
A one-man rearguard from Robert Smith
There were 9 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Match19 Sep 2040
Out, 2‑3 to Salernitana, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Market24 Sep 2040
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Audace Cerignola is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Match22 Sep 2040
No end in sight to Audace Cerignola's wait for a win
6 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Audace Cerignola has to find a result from somewhere.
Player ratings24 Sep 2040
Age has not caught Luca Bergaglio yet — 8.01
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.01 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad24 Sep 2040
Robert Smith: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Audace Cerignola have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Boardroom24 Sep 2040
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Squad24 Sep 2040
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Audace Cerignola this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings24 Sep 2040
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.