Marked for Roberto Ventura
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom2 Jun 2031
Pressure builds in the Pro Vercelli boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
The dugout2 Jun 2031
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Pro Vercelli have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market2 Jun 2031
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Pro Vercelli is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Player ratings2 Jun 2031
Successful dribbles: 20. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad2 Jun 2031
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Lorenzo Moschetta was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match31 May 2031
1‑2 to Monza, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The terraces2 Jun 2031
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.
Player ratings2 Jun 2031
Ninety minutes of Lorenzo Cancila at his very best
Marked 8.20. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Pro Vercelli.
The dugout2 Jun 2031
“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
Uneasy
Squad24 Mar 2031
Juan de Tomaso damages knee ligaments — 41 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 41 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.
Market24 Mar 2031
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Pro Vercelli they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Match22 Mar 2031
No end in sight to Pro Vercelli's wait for a win
7 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Pro Vercelli has to find a result from somewhere.
Match22 Mar 2031
6 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Pro Vercelli can tell you which week it ends in.
The dugout24 Mar 2031
This is not rotation. Haruna Abubakar has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at Pro Vercelli is pretending otherwise.
Squad24 Mar 2031
Lorenzo Moschetta 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.
Squad24 Mar 2031
Words at Pro Vercelli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Angelo Burruano 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.
Player ratings24 Mar 2031
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The dugout24 Mar 2031
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Haruna Abubakar will call it something else in private.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market11 Nov 2030
Only the photograph left for Daouda Fofana
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Daouda Fofana will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Pro Vercelli the goodbyes have quietly begun.
The dugout11 Nov 2030
Nedved Owusu: 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.” Pro Vercelli have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Player ratings11 Nov 2030
Kevin Gorica did the work nobody counts — 6.68
13 combined actions and 6.68. 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.
Squad11 Nov 2030
Lorenzo Moschetta 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.
Squad11 Nov 2030
Haruna Abubakar 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 terraces11 Nov 2030
He is 22 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.
Player ratings11 Nov 2030
Ninety minutes of Lorenzo Cancila at his very best
Marked 8.08. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Pro Vercelli.
Match9 Nov 2030
A goal on 88 minutes turned three points into one and a good afternoon into an argument about game management that will run until Saturday.
The dugout11 Nov 2030
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Roberto Ventura, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Boardroom1 Jul 2030
Confirmed, mathematical, and a town awake all night. Whatever else the season contained, it finishes a division higher than it started.
Squad1 Jul 2030
35 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Pro Vercelli lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market1 Jul 2030
Emiliano Pino has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Pro Vercelli they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Transfer targets1 Jul 2030
$1.2M settles it between the clubs for Cas Odenthal
Sassuolo have accepted the money. What Pro Vercelli do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Market1 Jul 2030
“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.
Market1 Jul 2030
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Salernitana moved on, Simone Perucchini reports back to Pro Vercelli, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Transfer targets1 Jul 2030
$38.0K on the table at Foggia. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Squad1 Jul 2030
Larios Romney 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.
Transfer targets1 Jul 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.