11 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Fiorentina is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Pedro Rodríguez has just signed for Fiorentina, and for once the answer mattered.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Simone Pafundi has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Fiorentina have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
8.41. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Rodrigo Mora 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 general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Fiorentina they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Bartłomiej Drągowski is living that version at Fiorentina, and it tends to show in the first month.
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Bartłomiej Drągowski is a Fiorentina player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Fiorentina pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
Words at Giana Erminio training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicolas Previtali 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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Interim Coach after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Rodrigo Mora 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Demián Troya will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Fiorentina the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Fiorentina can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Successful dribbles: 16. 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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nicolas Previtali was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Wout Dumfries 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 players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 3‑2, Interim Coach could afford to be generous.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Tiziano Ditanto and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad18 Feb 2036
Words at Giana Erminio training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicolas Previtali 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.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Stephen Clark is 19, and Giana Erminio have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑0, Interim Coach could afford to be generous.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Giana Erminio will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nicolas Previtali was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Everybody at Giana Erminio saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 33 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 31 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Two goals and a mark of 8.63 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Israel Joseph and Giana Erminio agree another 2 years.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Giana Erminio this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Lukas Toivio 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Giana Erminio will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Boardroom31 Dec 2035
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Giana Erminio
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
“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 Giana Erminio, and it is not being withdrawn.
Tiziano Ditanto 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.
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.
Everybody at Giana Erminio saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 36 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.
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.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 45 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Tiziano Ditanto will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Giana Erminio the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Tiziano Ditanto and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad24 Dec 2035
Words at Giana Erminio training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicolas Previtali 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.
8 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Giana Erminio will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
22 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Giana Erminio lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Giana Erminio is running low.
“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 Giana Erminio, and it is not being withdrawn.
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 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.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Adrian Frănculescu: 3 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
50 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Giana Erminio lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
7 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Giana Erminio have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
Tiziano Ditanto 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.
57 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Giana Erminio lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Tiziano Ditanto will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Giana Erminio the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
“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.
Squad29 Oct 2035
5 new faces, and Giana Erminio are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Nobody at Giana Erminio will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
In brief
Player ratingsLukas Toivio beats them one at a time
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Fiorentina is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Fiorentina this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Emil Holm was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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 Fiorentina, and 5 appearances in 15 say he has earned the hearing.
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 Kerim Alajbegović is on it.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Fiorentina would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
85 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Giana Erminio lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 23 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Tiziano Ditanto will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Giana Erminio the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Successful dribbles: 26. 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nicolas Previtali was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Giana Erminio this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Giana Erminio, another week without a signature from Tiziano Ditanto.
65 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Giana Erminio lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 114th minute. Dolomiti Bellunesi will replay every second of the added time for a week.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Giana Erminio will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.38, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad24 Sep 2035
Words at Giana Erminio training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicolas Previtali 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.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Fiorentina people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Fiorentina will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Fiorentina is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Fiorentina hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Tarek Buchmann has just signed for Fiorentina, and for once the answer mattered.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Fiorentina can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Squad10 Sep 2035
Jacopo Bacci 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.
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 Lautaro Millán is on it.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Fiorentina will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Fiorentina have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Fiorentina they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The chase for Martino Serra ended with $1.5M changing hands and Juventus out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Fiorentina can pretend not to have heard.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Ignacio Pérez has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
$520.0K was the most the club would pay and Juventus 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Martino Serra is living that version at Fiorentina, and it tends to show in the first month.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Fiorentina this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 101 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Giana Erminio have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Tiziano Ditanto 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.
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 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.
Squad16 Jul 2035
Words at Giana Erminio training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gerard 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.
A loan enquiry to Virtus Entella: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Giana Erminio, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 115 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Giana Erminio have done the hard part with Empoli, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Virtus Entella have kept their man, and Giana Erminio go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Giana Erminio this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Giana Erminio know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
Giana Erminio have made the call to Cesena. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Signed today, seen by nobody for years, and one of them may one day be the reason the club exists. That is the whole of the argument for an academy, and it is a good one.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Giana Erminio will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Giana Erminio people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The deal with Cesena 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Torino have kept their man, and Giana Erminio go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Giana Erminio have made the call to Fiorentina. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
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.
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 Filippo Lancia is on it.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Fiorentina people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Everything agreed with Cremonese, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Add another name to the list: Ajax have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Matteo Palma. The answer from Fiorentina has not changed — yet.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $1.8M — a club that wants Nazihary Siaka enough to be asked twice.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Inter keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Fiorentina will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Fiorentina they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Fiorentina have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“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 Fiorentina know it.
Successful dribbles: 16. 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 clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Fiorentina people have started saying his name in the past tense.
He arrived for a fee and leaves for a fraction of it. $190.0K of what Fiorentina paid for Elia Boseggia is money the club will not see again, and the boardroom will be asked about it for two seasons.
He is going to Arsenal, the club has $31.9M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
Nobody at the club will say out loud who this signing is for, which is how you know exactly who it is for. William Barboza has been brought in to take a shirt somebody is still wearing.
“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 Fiorentina, and it is not being withdrawn.
1 for Sadik Fofana, marked 7.98, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Fiorentina they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“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 Fiorentina know it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Fiorentina this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody at Fiorentina will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Squad16 Oct 2034
Rafa Barcelos 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Fiorentina is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Player ratings2 Oct 2034
Up for the corner, and Matteo Palma delivers — 7.86
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Matteo Palma scored, was marked 7.86, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Elia Boseggia has agreed terms with Lazio for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Four or five weekends of consistency, measured against everybody else in the division. A quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The dugout2 Oct 2034
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Simone De Santis, on a 2‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.