Marked for Caleb Asante
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match29 Dec 2035
Beaten 0‑5 by Palermo, and beaten everywhere it matters. The inquest starts on the training pitch on Monday morning.
Match29 Dec 2035
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Virtus Entella can tell you which week it ends in.
The dugout31 Dec 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.
Squad31 Dec 2035
Everybody at Virtus Entella saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 33 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
Squad31 Dec 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 Virtus Entella this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom31 Dec 2035
Nobody left the Virtus Entella dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
Boardroom31 Dec 2035
Wages eat 104% of everything Virtus Entella 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.
Squad31 Dec 2035
Luca Ferrara 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.
The dugout31 Dec 2035
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 0‑5, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad2 Apr 2035
A fracture rules Joaquín Rivero out for 60 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Virtus Entella will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market2 Apr 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.
The dugout2 Apr 2035
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Virtus Entella may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad2 Apr 2035
Simone Rabbi and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad2 Apr 2035
Andrea Lantignotti 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.
Squad2 Apr 2035
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Virtus Entella can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Market2 Apr 2035
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
The dugout2 Apr 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 dugout2 Apr 2035
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market20 Nov 2034
“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 Virtus Entella, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market20 Nov 2034
Only the photograph left for Lucas Hagan
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Lucas Hagan will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Virtus Entella the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad20 Nov 2034
Stefano Di Mario and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad20 Nov 2034
Words at Virtus Entella training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andrea Lantignotti 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 dugout20 Nov 2034
This is not rotation. Alan Salas has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at Virtus Entella is pretending otherwise.
The dugout20 Nov 2034
“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.
Squad20 Nov 2034
6 new faces, and Virtus Entella 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.
Squad20 Nov 2034
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Caleb Asante and Virtus Entella agree another 2 years.
Market20 Nov 2034
At 35, he has seen every situation this season can produce, twice. The legs will be managed; the head is the purchase.