Marked for Danilo Marchetti
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market21 Jan 2036
“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 The request is on a desk at Mantova, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings21 Jan 2036
Successful dribbles: 27. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Transfer targets21 Jan 2036
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Lazio keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Transfer targets21 Jan 2036
$1.0M on the table at Lazio. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Squad21 Jan 2036
Words exchanged at Mantova
Gabriele Platto 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 targets21 Jan 2036
$17.0K was the most the club would pay and Padova 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 targets21 Jan 2036
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Torino have kept their man, and Mantova go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The dugout21 Jan 2036
Gabriele Platto has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Mantova 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.
The dugout21 Jan 2036
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Jackson Russell, and the manager let it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings31 Dec 2035
Successful dribbles: 24. 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.
Match29 Dec 2035
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad31 Dec 2035
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Danilo Marchetti and Mantova agree another 3 years.
Boardroom31 Dec 2035
Wages eat 111% of everything Mantova 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.
Match31 Dec 2035
Mantova at the halfway mark
Half the programme played, position 4, 24 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
The dugout31 Dec 2035
“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.
The dugout31 Dec 2035
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 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Interim Coach to a room that had heard them before.
The dugout31 Dec 2035
Nicolò Guerra asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
The dugout31 Dec 2035
The manager has not finished forgetting Emanuele Longo'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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market17 Dec 2035
“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.
Squad17 Dec 2035
A row about effort at Mantova
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gabriele Platto was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad17 Dec 2035
A falling-out at Mantova
Mattia Arioli and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match15 Dec 2035
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad17 Dec 2035
“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 Mantova know it.
Player ratings17 Dec 2035
Successful dribbles: 17. 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 dugout17 Dec 2035
“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.
The dugout17 Dec 2035
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 Gabriele Platto is on it.
The dugout17 Dec 2035
The manager makes an example of Biel Montero
“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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
The dugout12 Nov 2035
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad12 Nov 2035
A row about effort at Mantova
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gabriele Platto was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match10 Nov 2035
Three points for Mantova, 1‑0 the final word against Reggiana in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Player ratings12 Nov 2035
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The dugout12 Nov 2035
The manager makes an example of Manuel Lombardi
“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.
Player ratings12 Nov 2035
Marked 7.92 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Mantova had the best player on the pitch.
The dugout12 Nov 2035
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Interim Coach on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
The dugout12 Nov 2035
Fahem Benaïssa has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Mantova 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.
Player ratings12 Nov 2035
10 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.