Marked for Ruggero Medici
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Everything agreed with Sparta Prague, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Benfica keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Boardroom24 Aug 2026
1 academy players handed senior numbers at Potenza
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Yuri Rocchetti 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.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Basel have kept their man, and Potenza go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Market24 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Pierpaolo Gatti is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
A loan enquiry to Sint-Truiden: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Squad24 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Ruggero Medici commits to Potenza for another 3 years.
Boardroom24 Aug 2026
Potenza turn down the training-ground plan
It is the quietest way a club tells you what its ambitions are. The money was asked for, the money was refused, and the people who work there every day now know exactly where they stand.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Everything agreed with Benfica, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Luca Petrungaro 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.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Foggia wanted more than $43.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Squad17 Aug 2026
A row about effort at Potenza
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Yuri Rocchetti was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Potenza asked and Juventus said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Market17 Aug 2026
He signed expecting a bigger stage than the one he found. It has not taken long, and it has not taken the dressing room long to notice either.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Boardroom10 Aug 2026
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $45.0K — a club that wants Federico Valietti enough to be asked twice.
Squad10 Aug 2026
A falling-out at Potenza
Luca Petrungaro and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
$43.0K on the table at Foggia. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Yuri Rocchetti 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.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Market10 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Romano Vannucci has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Market10 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Ruggero De Carli is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Roberto Iannuzzi 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Ruggero Medici has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.