Marked for Jack Murphy
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad31 May 2032
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Forli will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad31 May 2032
Words exchanged at Forli
Emir Velić and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The dugout31 May 2032
This is not rotation. Cosmin Zamfir has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at Forli is pretending otherwise.
Squad31 May 2032
Álvaro Milhazes 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.
Squad31 May 2032
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Emmanuel Anning and Forli agree another 1 years.
Market31 May 2032
At 35, he has seen every situation this season can produce, twice. The legs will be managed; the head is the purchase.
Market31 May 2032
Forli bring in an old head
Matty Virtue is 35 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.
The dugout31 May 2032
Jack Murphy 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.
The dugout31 May 2032
Axel Thomelier knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Axel Thomelier trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad5 Apr 2032
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.
Market5 Apr 2032
“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.
The dugout5 Apr 2032
“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.
The dugout5 Apr 2032
This is not rotation. Cosmin Zamfir has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at Forli is pretending otherwise.
Squad5 Apr 2032
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Daniele Sorrentino and Forli agree another 2 years.
Squad5 Apr 2032
Words exchanged at Forli
Emir Velić and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Match3 Apr 2032
Forli cannot find the net
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
The terraces5 Apr 2032
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Squad5 Apr 2032
Jacopo Scaccabarozzi 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market22 Dec 2031
Emir Velić 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 Forli can pretend not to have heard.
Match20 Dec 2031
The drought breaks for Forli
11 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Guidonia Montecelio were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Player ratings22 Dec 2031
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.90 for the rest of it.
The dugout22 Dec 2031
Jack Murphy: 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.” Forli have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad22 Dec 2031
Words exchanged at Forli
Emir Velić and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad22 Dec 2031
Words at Forli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jacopo Scaccabarozzi 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 dugout22 Dec 2031
“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.
The dugout22 Dec 2031
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑0, Antonio Del Vecchio could afford to be generous.
From our football correspondent
Steady
The terraces8 Sep 2031
Anger at Forli spills outside the ground
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Squad8 Sep 2031
Cosmin Zamfir breaks a bone — 59 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 59 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market8 Sep 2031
“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.
Squad8 Sep 2031
“The easiest signature of my career.” Jacopo Scaccabarozzi and Forli agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad8 Sep 2031
Josip Nekić gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Josip Nekić has just signed for Forli, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad8 Sep 2031
A row about effort at Forli
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jacopo Scaccabarozzi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Boardroom8 Sep 2031
Forli have to sell first
The manager has a list and the board has a condition attached to it. That is not a crisis — half of football works this way — but it decides which of the two of them gets his way in August.
Market8 Sep 2031
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Market8 Sep 2031
9 months to run and not a word offered. A club that lets the calendar negotiate for it usually ends up losing to the calendar.