It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A mark of 7.64, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
Squad9 Nov 2026
5 new faces, and Avellino 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.
38 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Avellino lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
7 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.
6 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
In brief
Player ratingsThe afternoon belonged to Armando Izzo
Armando Izzo 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Avellino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Cosimo Patierno 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 chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
15 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Avellino lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 words a physio says slowly. 23 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.
Armando Izzo 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.
Boardroom24 Aug 2026
4 academy players handed senior numbers at Avellino
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Boards get told what they have done wrong for years and hear nothing on the days they get it right. This is one of those days: Juan Jesus from Napoli for $2.0M, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Lorenco Šimić 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Simone Troisi is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Giorgio Bernardi has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Orazio Di Stefano is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Sandro Alberti is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The words a physio says slowly. 30 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.
The fee is $2.1M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Mantova drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.