The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Parma have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The name of Abdoulaye Ndiaye has come up in conversations Parma were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Carlos Augusto 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.
“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 The request is on a desk at Parma, and it is not being withdrawn.
5 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.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Parma have done the hard part with Napoli, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
At 18 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
The name of Mandela Keita has come up in conversations Parma were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Parma can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.95 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Vincenzo Fabozzi is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Costantino Favasuli 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.
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.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until André-Franck Zambo Anguissa signs something — a contract at Napoli or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Como defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Bologna in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Marked 8.28 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Napoli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Luca Bernardi chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until André-Franck Zambo Anguissa signs something — a contract at Napoli or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Leonardo Spinazzola’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Napoli needing him to play as if none of it matters.
In brief
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Lorenzo Lucca’s exile
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. AC Milan kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Napoli will be asked about the last half hour all week.
Two goals and a mark of 8.78 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
Marked 7.47 on 12 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Alex Meret, and the manager let it.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
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 2‑3 Luca Bernardi left the room before anybody could ask which.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Napoli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.