Marked for Coco
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market9 Jun 2031
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Lumezzane have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Market9 Jun 2031
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Lumezzane can pretend not to have heard.
Market9 Jun 2031
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Lumezzane have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Transfer targets9 Jun 2031
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Napoli keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Squad9 Jun 2031
A move Pavlos Samaris would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Pavlos Samaris is living that version at Lumezzane, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad9 Jun 2031
A row about effort at Lumezzane
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Michele Rocca was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets9 Jun 2031
Lumezzane asked and Atalanta said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad9 Jun 2031
Words exchanged at Lumezzane
Mauro Soldani 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.
Squad9 Jun 2031
Home is on Coco's mind
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Lumezzane are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom21 Apr 2031
Pressure builds in the Lumezzane boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Match19 Apr 2031
Nowhere to hide for Lumezzane
0‑3 against Dolomiti Bellunesi, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Match21 Apr 2031
Lumezzane finish in position 8
44 points, and the season has a number on it. Whatever it felt like from the inside, this is what it will look like in a book.
Boardroom21 Apr 2031
The accounts make uncomfortable reading. Wages first and ambition second is the order of business at Lumezzane now.
Squad21 Apr 2031
A row about effort at Lumezzane
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Michele Rocca was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Boardroom21 Apr 2031
Wages eat 149% of everything Lumezzane 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.
Squad21 Apr 2031
Words exchanged at Lumezzane
Luan Silva 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 dugout21 Apr 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.
Boardroom21 Apr 2031
Nobody left the Lumezzane dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad9 Dec 2030
Moamen Mahmoud damages knee ligaments — 94 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 94 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.
Player ratings9 Dec 2030
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.91, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
The dugout9 Dec 2030
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Lumezzane have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad9 Dec 2030
Words at Lumezzane training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Federico Pirruccio 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.
Squad9 Dec 2030
Zeynəddin Abdurahmanov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match7 Dec 2030
Three points for Lumezzane, 2‑0 the final word against Cittadella in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad9 Dec 2030
Coco wants to go home
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Lumezzane can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Loan watch9 Dec 2030
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Lumezzane, and 4 appearances in 26 say he has earned the hearing.
Player ratings9 Dec 2030
16 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad18 Nov 2030
A knee injury of the worst kind for Moamen Mahmoud
115 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Lumezzane lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The dugout18 Nov 2030
Coco: 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.” Lumezzane have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad18 Nov 2030
Words at Lumezzane training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Federico Pirruccio 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.
Squad18 Nov 2030
Josh Weah 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.
The dugout18 Nov 2030
Matteo Enza 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.
Squad18 Nov 2030
Everybody at Lumezzane saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 37 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
Market18 Nov 2030
Eric Lanini is free to find somewhere else
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Lumezzane has been clear about where Eric Lanini stands, which is more than many ever get.
The dugout18 Nov 2030
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Thiago Sánchez is on it.
The dugout18 Nov 2030
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match5 Oct 2030
4‑0, and Eric Lanini took the headlines on an afternoon when everything Lumezzane tried came off. Days like this are retold all winter.
Player ratings7 Oct 2030
Age has not caught Michele Rocca yet — 7.81
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.81 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Player ratings7 Oct 2030
Andrea Di Siena did the work nobody counts — 7.96
17 combined actions and 7.96. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
Squad7 Oct 2030
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Andrea Boffelli commits to Lumezzane for another 2 years.
Boardroom7 Oct 2030
The numbers do not look good at Lumezzane
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
The terraces7 Oct 2030
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Alejandro González has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
The dugout7 Oct 2030
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Matteo Enza, and the manager let it.
Player ratings7 Oct 2030
A performance of 8.02 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad7 Oct 2030
Coco wants to go home
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Lumezzane know it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market10 Jun 2030
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Transfer targets10 Jun 2030
The deal with Parma is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Boardroom10 Jun 2030
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.
Squad10 Jun 2030
A row about effort at Lumezzane
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Andrea Boffelli was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets10 Jun 2030
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.
Squad10 Jun 2030
Alain Taho 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 Lumezzane this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom10 Jun 2030
Wages swallow 113% of the Lumezzane income
Every club 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 it has been tried.
Market10 Jun 2030
He is 19, and nobody at Lumezzane signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
Squad10 Jun 2030
Too much change too quickly at Lumezzane
6 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.