Marked for Constantinos Loizou
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market22 Sep 2031
Islam Vagabov 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 Virtus Verona can pretend not to have heard.
Squad22 Sep 2031
Words at Virtus Verona training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Leonardo Zarpellon 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.
Squad22 Sep 2031
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Virtus Verona this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad22 Sep 2031
The medical room confirms 19 days on the sidelines for Constantinos Loizou, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Boardroom22 Sep 2031
99% of the income goes out in wages at Virtus Verona
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.
Squad22 Sep 2031
Gioele Venuti 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 Gioele Venuti trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom18 Aug 2031
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Virtus Verona
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Market18 Aug 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.
Squad18 Aug 2031
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Mattia Mirri is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad18 Aug 2031
Leonardo Zarpellon 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.
Squad18 Aug 2031
54 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad18 Aug 2031
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Virtus Verona this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad27 Jan 2031
Maksim Filipenko damages knee ligaments — 23 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 23 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.
Market27 Jan 2031
“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 Virtus Verona, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market27 Jan 2031
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Mattia Pagliuca will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Virtus Verona the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad27 Jan 2031
Michael De Marchi 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.
Match25 Jan 2031
Novara made Virtus Verona work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad27 Jan 2031
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Virtus Verona this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match25 Jan 2031
Virtus Verona settle it inside twenty minutes
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Novara spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
Player ratings27 Jan 2031
Ninety minutes of Luca Munaretti at his very best
Marked 8.11. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Virtus Verona.
Squad27 Jan 2031
“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.