Marked for Jonathan Marshall
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom2 Aug 2038
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Lazio
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Squad2 Aug 2038
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Lazio will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market2 Aug 2038
Lazio say no — this time
The offer from Padova for Adrian Przyborek 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.
Market2 Aug 2038
“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.
Squad2 Aug 2038
Paolo Ceppi has been here 9 seasons
59 appearances across 9 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
Market2 Aug 2038
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Lazio is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad5 Jul 2038
Oliver Christensen damages knee ligaments — 39 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 39 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.
Boardroom5 Jul 2038
Pressure builds in the Lazio boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Boardroom5 Jul 2038
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Market5 Jul 2038
Lazio say no — this time
The offer from Juve Stabia for Flavio Sulejmani 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.
Market5 Jul 2038
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Lazio they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad5 Jul 2038
Jonathan Marshall is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad5 Jul 2038
Nuno Tavares 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.
Squad5 Jul 2038
Tempers go at Lazio
Sascha Britschgi 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.
Market5 Jul 2038
The phone has started ringing about Alessandro Pentima again, and this time the name on the line is Palermo. Lazio are listening politely and promising nothing.
In brief
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Market
Carrarese are about to pick up the phone
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Boardroom
Lazio sign 11 boys into the academy
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Boardroom
$24.2M taken back off the Lazio table
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad10 May 2038
98 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Lazio lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad10 May 2038
18 goals and a season average of 7.72. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Market10 May 2038
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Lazio they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Player ratings10 May 2038
Fabio Abiuso, 35, rolls back the years — 8.55
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.55 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad10 May 2038
A one-man rearguard from Luca Galli
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad10 May 2038
“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.
Match8 May 2038
No end in sight to Lazio's wait for a win
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Lazio has to find a result from somewhere.
Loan watch10 May 2038
“I watch every Lazio game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Arezzo runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Player ratings10 May 2038
Successful dribbles: 15. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces10 Aug 2037
The mood at Lazio has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Squad10 Aug 2037
Andrea Piazza damages knee ligaments — 95 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 95 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.
Market10 Aug 2037
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Lazio can pretend not to have heard.
Market10 Aug 2037
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Lazio is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad10 Aug 2037
Tijjani Noslin 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.
Squad10 Aug 2037
Jonathan Marshall is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad10 Aug 2037
“The easiest signature of my career.” Lorenzo Calvani and Lazio agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Boardroom10 Aug 2037
Still nobody in the Lazio dugout
9 days with the chair empty, a list of names that grows and shrinks by the day, and not one signature on anything. Every week that passes takes the best candidates off it.
Market10 Aug 2037
Padova are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Lazio will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.