Marked for Noah Lewis
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad9 Aug 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Tiago Ferreira
36 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Perugia lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market9 Aug 2027
“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 The request is on a desk at Perugia, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Paolo Bartolomei: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Perugia have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Iván Esculino is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad9 Aug 2027
King Udoh 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.
Market9 Aug 2027
Add another name to the list: Salernitana have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Luca Moro. The answer from Perugia has not changed — yet.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad12 Jul 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Tiago Ferreira
68 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Perugia lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market12 Jul 2027
“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 The request is on a desk at Perugia, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market12 Jul 2027
The paperwork is done: King Udoh joins from Pro Patria in a deal worth $720.0K. Now comes the harder part.
Squad12 Jul 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Perugia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The terraces12 Jul 2027
Perugia spend $720.0K on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $720.0K for King Udoh, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
Squad12 Jul 2027
9 new faces, and Perugia 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
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Squad
Words at Perugia training over how hard people work
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Market
The Luca Gemello talk will not go away
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad17 May 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Tiago Ferreira
130 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Perugia lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad17 May 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Perugia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom17 May 2027
96% of the income goes out in wages at Perugia
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings19 Apr 2027
Successful dribbles: 31. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad19 Apr 2027
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Perugia have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Words at Perugia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Riccardo Ladinetti 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.
Player ratings19 Apr 2027
19 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Squad19 Apr 2027
“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; Perugia are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Luca Calapai 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.
Loan watch19 Apr 2027
“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 Perugia, and 6 appearances in 35 say he has earned the hearing.
Player ratings19 Apr 2027
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.62 on the card, and the Perugia support went home talking about one name.
Boardroom19 Apr 2027
Wages eat 88% of everything Perugia 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad15 Feb 2027
A fracture rules Francesco Lisi out for 39 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Perugia will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market15 Feb 2027
“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 Perugia, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad15 Feb 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Perugia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Riccardo Ladinetti 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.
Player ratings15 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 20. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings15 Feb 2027
Marked 8.62 — 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.
Squad15 Feb 2027
“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 Perugia know it.
Match13 Feb 2027
A 1‑1 draw with Carpi leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
Loan watch15 Feb 2027
20 starts and an average of 7.06. He went there to play and he is playing, which is the only thing a loan was ever for.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad31 Aug 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Mattia Bartolini
17 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Perugia lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market31 Aug 2026
“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.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
25 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
23 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Market31 Aug 2026
The fee is $160.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Ravenna drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 22. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Riccardo Ladinetti 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.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
A performance of 9.10 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad31 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Perugia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.