Marked for Bas Weghorst
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match29 Dec 2035
Nobody wants to play Carpi right now
5 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.
Squad31 Dec 2035
Words exchanged at Carpi
Amaury Delas 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.
Squad31 Dec 2035
At 35, 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.
Squad31 Dec 2035
A row about effort at Carpi
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Niccolò Pietra was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match29 Dec 2035
Another one collected away from home
3 on the bounce on the road for Carpi. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
Match29 Dec 2035
It finished 1‑0, and it was Amaury Delas’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Carpi.
Looking ahead31 Dec 2035
Two sides from the top of the table, one afternoon, and a month of talk decided in ninety minutes. Carpi will not use the word title this week and will not stop thinking it.
Market31 Dec 2035
Kristijan Jakić is free to find somewhere else
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Carpi has been clear about where Kristijan Jakić stands, which is more than many ever get.
Match31 Dec 2035
Halfway: Carpi sit in position 2
32 points at the turn. The first half of a season is a promise; the second is a bill, and the town is about to find out which of the two this one was.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market29 Oct 2035
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Carpi is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Market29 Oct 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.
Squad29 Oct 2035
A falling-out at Carpi
Amaury Delas and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match27 Oct 2035
6 unbeaten for Carpi
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 6 matches without defeat is a foundation Carpi did not have in the autumn.
Squad29 Oct 2035
Words at Carpi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Niccolò Pietra 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.
Boardroom29 Oct 2035
Hellas Verona will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Namory Cissé has pre-agreed a move to Carpi, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Match27 Oct 2035
After 5 games, Carpi finally taste it again
The first defeat in 5 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against AlbinoLeffe; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
The dugout29 Oct 2035
“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
“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 Carpi know it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market10 Sep 2035
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Carpi have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The dugout10 Sep 2035
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Carpi may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market10 Sep 2035
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Carpi can pretend not to have heard.
Market10 Sep 2035
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Carpi is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad10 Sep 2035
A falling-out at Carpi
Paolo De Sousa Rodrigues and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad10 Sep 2035
A move Valentín Gradín would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Valentín Gradín is living that version at Carpi, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad10 Sep 2035
Words at Carpi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Niccolò Pietra 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.
Transfer targets10 Sep 2035
Carpi asked and Raków Częstochowa said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The dugout10 Sep 2035
“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
Upbeat
Match2 Jul 2035
Carpi up to position 2
58 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Market2 Jul 2035
Carpi say no — this time
The offer from Fiorentina for Guillaume Perrin 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 Jul 2035
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Alcione Milano waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Carpi is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Market2 Jul 2035
Luis Peralta has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Carpi they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad2 Jul 2035
“The easiest signature of my career.” Niccolò Pietra and Carpi agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad2 Jul 2035
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Carpi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets2 Jul 2035
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. AS Roma have kept their man, and Carpi go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad2 Jul 2035
Miguel Ángel Godoy 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.
Market2 Jul 2035
The name of Marcel Duval has come up in conversations Carpi were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad7 May 2035
A fracture rules Rodrick Tcheuna out for 69 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Carpi will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match7 May 2035
Carpi up to position 2
58 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Squad7 May 2035
Words exchanged at Carpi
Matteo Figoli 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.
Squad7 May 2035
Words at Carpi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Niccolò Pietra 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 dugout7 May 2035
Louis Fouble gets it from the manager
“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.
Squad7 May 2035
“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; Carpi are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Market7 May 2035
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Market7 May 2035
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Juan Román Zarza has his answer from Carpi; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Market7 May 2035
The name of Guillaume Perrin keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Carpi say nothing, which says plenty.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match24 Feb 2035
The run at home goes on for Carpi
55 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Squad26 Feb 2035
15 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Carpi lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Squad26 Feb 2035
137 days out for Šime Perko after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Carpi will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Player ratings26 Feb 2035
A brace, and Cristian Samaritani takes the afternoon — 8.97
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Cristian Samaritani provided it, and the 8.97 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Squad26 Feb 2035
Words exchanged at Carpi
Niccolò Pietra 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.
Squad26 Feb 2035
Brenden Howard arrives at the club he grew up with
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Brenden Howard has, at Carpi, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Match24 Feb 2035
It finished 3‑1, and it was Cristian Samaritani’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Carpi.
The terraces26 Feb 2035
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 ratings26 Feb 2035
10 combined actions and 7.89. 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.