Marked for Davide Basile
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad27 Sep 2027
14 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. AlbinoLeffe lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Match22 Sep 2027
The small margins put AlbinoLeffe out
Out, 0‑1 to Gubbio, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Market27 Sep 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AlbinoLeffe can pretend not to have heard.
Match25 Sep 2027
5 matches without a win for AlbinoLeffe
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around AlbinoLeffe are no longer polite ones.
Squad27 Sep 2027
Gabriele Baldi 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.
Match25 Sep 2027
The goals have deserted AlbinoLeffe
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at AlbinoLeffe can tell you which week it ends in.
Squad27 Sep 2027
Simone Potop 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.
Player ratings27 Sep 2027
Successful dribbles: 18. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
The dugout27 Sep 2027
The manager makes an example of Gabriele Boloca
“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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad20 Sep 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Davide Basile
22 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. AlbinoLeffe lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The dugout20 Sep 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” AlbinoLeffe may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market20 Sep 2027
“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 AlbinoLeffe, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Simone Potop was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match18 Sep 2027
0‑1 to Giana Erminio, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout20 Sep 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Gabriele Ferrarini, and the manager let it.
The dugout20 Sep 2027
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 0‑1, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
Squad20 Sep 2027
“I did not sign to watch. Nobody does.” The oldest complaint in the game, and AlbinoLeffe will have to answer it with minutes or with a move.
The dugout20 Sep 2027
Salvatore Di Chiara is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad13 Sep 2027
30 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. AlbinoLeffe lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market13 Sep 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AlbinoLeffe can pretend not to have heard.
Squad13 Sep 2027
At 20 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Transfer targets13 Sep 2027
$64.0K was the most the club would pay and Sampdoria were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Transfer targets13 Sep 2027
AlbinoLeffe asked and Fiorentina said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad13 Sep 2027
Michele Barbella 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 dugout13 Sep 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Gabriele Baldi, and the manager let it.
Player ratings13 Sep 2027
Successful dribbles: 17. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad6 Sep 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Davide Basile
37 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. AlbinoLeffe lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market6 Sep 2027
“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.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
Deadline passes with 12 signed and 14 gone
That is the business done at AlbinoLeffe until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Transfer targets6 Sep 2027
The offer went to Sampdoria this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Squad6 Sep 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AlbinoLeffe this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Simone Potop 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 targets6 Sep 2027
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.
Transfer targets6 Sep 2027
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. AlbinoLeffe will try again when the window opens; Audace Cerignola may not be selling by then.
Market6 Sep 2027
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Gabriele Ferrarini has his answer from AlbinoLeffe; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market23 Aug 2027
“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.
Transfer targets23 Aug 2027
$3.1M was the most the club would pay and Salernitana were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Boardroom23 Aug 2027
5 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Transfer targets23 Aug 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. AS Roma have kept their man, and AlbinoLeffe go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Market23 Aug 2027
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Alberto Villa is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market23 Aug 2027
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Davide Basile is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market23 Aug 2027
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Diego Villa 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.
The dugout23 Aug 2027
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. AlbinoLeffe told Simone Potop something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Transfer targets23 Aug 2027
A loan move for Paulo Brito is in the works
AlbinoLeffe have made the call to Gubbio. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.