42 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Avellino lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Avellino will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Boris van Schuppen is living that version at Avellino, and it tends to show in the first month.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Avellino they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Alessandro Pentima reports back to Avellino with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
“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 Avellino know it.
$400.0K was the most the club would pay and Bologna 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Udinese have kept their man, and Avellino go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
63 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Avellino lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 111 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Avellino can pretend not to have heard.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Novara waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Avellino is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Player ratings24 Jan 2033
A brace, and Ergis Arifi takes the afternoon — 7.97
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Ergis Arifi provided it, and the 7.97 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Avellino they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The offer went to Bologna 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.
84 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Avellino lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Cremonese kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Avellino will be asked about the last half hour all week.
8 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Avellino can pretend not to have heard.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Adam Belmadi will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Avellino the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Avellino can pretend not to have heard.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Marcel Lefebvre will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Avellino the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Simone Bonetti 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 dugout29 Nov 2032
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 Interim Coach left the room before anybody could ask which.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Tommy Neale was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Victor Boluwatife Ogungbayi trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Something was said to Tommy Neale and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Marcel Lefebvre will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Avellino the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Sandro Cruz 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Simone Raimondi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Avellino have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Avellino is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Matej Gašpar 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Hans Nicolussi Caviglia. 1‑0 against Catania, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Tommy Neale was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Interim Coach could afford to be generous.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Adam Žulevič trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
10 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.
15 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Avellino lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Avellino is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Napoli is saying, and nobody at Avellino is enjoying the guessing.
Squad13 Sep 2032
Words at Avellino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Piotr Zieliński 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.
Avellino ran out of time with Genoa. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Avellino heard it as anything else.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Robert Martin is living that version at Avellino, and it tends to show in the first month.
The words a physio says slowly. 36 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Avellino can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Avellino people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The offer went to Palermo 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Piotr Linetty will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Avellino the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Avellino had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Napoli, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Piotr Zieliński was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Senior shirt numbers handed to boys the coaches have known since they were twelve. Most will not make it and all of them have already done the hard part.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Avellino will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Novara waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Avellino is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ismaël Dabo will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Avellino the goodbyes have quietly begun.
$810.0K on the table at Palermo. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
$1.2M was the most the club would pay and Udinese 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Tshepang Moremi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
42 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Avellino lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Palermo will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Claudio Gomes has pre-agreed a move to Avellino, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Marcel Lefebvre and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad8 Dec 2031
Pol Lirola 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.
“I watch every Avellino game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Al-Fateh runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“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 Avellino, and it is not being withdrawn.
Hans Nicolussi Caviglia 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Tshepang Moremi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Avellino, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The dugout17 Nov 2031
The manager has not finished forgetting Simone Bonetti's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
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 Piotr Linetty is on it.
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.
At 34, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
“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 Avellino know it.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
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.
5 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Avellino can tell you which week it ends in.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 6 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
Squad20 Oct 2031
Words at Avellino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tshepang Moremi 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Michalis Voriazidis 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Pol Lirola 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 Avellino, and 1 appearances in 13 say he has earned the hearing.
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.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Avellino. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
The words a physio says slowly. 17 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.
“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 Avellino, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
“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.
Squad22 Sep 2031
Words at Avellino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Pol Lirola 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 manager kept them in and said what needed saying. A response is expected on Saturday, and if it does not come the questions move upstairs.
The dugout22 Sep 2031
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑3 defeat, delivered by Interim Coach to a room that had heard them before.
38 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Avellino lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
1‑5 to Pescara, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Avellino they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The deal that would have taken Gennaro Iaccarino to Pro Vercelli has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Avellino with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Everything agreed with Picerno, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Boardroom1 Sep 2031
Avellino close the window on a squad of their own making
34 in and 17 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Avellino have gone to Empoli with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The offer from Sampdoria for N'dri Philippe Koffi was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Avellino can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Avellino is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Avellino have gone to Juventus with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Avellino can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Squad28 Jul 2031
Tyrese Shade 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 19 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The offer from Pro Vercelli for Gennaro Iaccarino was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Avellino they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Avellino can pretend not to have heard.
Everything agreed with Hertha BSC, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
The offer went to Empoli 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Napoli have kept their man, and Avellino go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Pol Lirola was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Avellino will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“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 Avellino, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Pietro Ciotti will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Avellino the goodbyes have quietly begun.
The phone has started ringing about Gennaro Iaccarino again, and this time the name on the line is Pro Vercelli. Avellino are listening politely and promising nothing.
Avellino asked and Lazio said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Marcel Lefebvre 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Pol Lirola was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Avellino people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“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 Avellino, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer from Sampdoria for N'dri Philippe Koffi was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Avellino they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The clubs have shaken hands with Gubbio; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
$770.0K on the table at Catanzaro. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Ionuţ Gurău 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.
Hans Nicolussi Caviglia 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.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 15 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Avellino is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad26 May 2031
Words at Avellino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Saba Sazonov 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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; Avellino are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad26 May 2031
9 new faces, and Avellino 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.
In brief
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Demba Samb’s exile
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Pol Lirola was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Avellino can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Gennaro Iaccarino.