Marked for Roberto Méndez
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match19 Sep 2035
Sorrento bow out of the cup
Venezia go through and Sorrento go home, 1‑2 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Market24 Sep 2035
Can Karaman 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 Sorrento can pretend not to have heard.
Match22 Sep 2035
5 matches without a win for Sorrento
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Sorrento are no longer polite ones.
Squad24 Sep 2035
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sorrento this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings24 Sep 2035
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad24 Sep 2035
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Francesco Borriello, and the manager let it.
Match22 Sep 2035
0‑1 to Cosenza, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Boardroom24 Sep 2035
The Sorrento debt reaches $25.7M
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.
Squad24 Sep 2035
Osmani Xhojel 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
Uneasy
Market2 Oct 2034
“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.
Match30 Sep 2034
The wait goes on for Sorrento
4 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.
Squad2 Oct 2034
Daniele Solcia 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.
Squad2 Oct 2034
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Antonio Potenza and Sorrento agree another 4 years.
Squad2 Oct 2034
Leonardo Capezzi 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.
Boardroom2 Oct 2034
The owner puts $1.0M into Sorrento
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
Crisis
Match20 Sep 2034
Potenza ended it 0‑2. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
Player ratings25 Sep 2034
Successful dribbles: 30. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad25 Sep 2034
Osmani Xhojel: 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.” Sorrento have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market25 Sep 2034
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Sorrento can pretend not to have heard.
Squad25 Sep 2034
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sorrento this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad25 Sep 2034
Words at Sorrento training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Leonardo Capezzi 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom7 Aug 2034
Pressure builds in the Sorrento boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Boardroom7 Aug 2034
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Interim Coach has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Boardroom7 Aug 2034
The Sorrento board call everybody in
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.
Market7 Aug 2034
Jacopo Grossi 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 Sorrento can pretend not to have heard.
Squad7 Aug 2034
385 appearances across 9 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
Squad7 Aug 2034
Daniele Solcia 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.
Boardroom7 Aug 2034
The owner puts $1.1M into Sorrento
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.
Squad7 Aug 2034
Aleksandrs Dubra has improved at 33, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Squad7 Aug 2034
Words at Sorrento training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Osmani Xhojel 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.