Marked for Andrea Rispoli
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 25. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Words exchanged at Crotone
Matteo Maggio 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.
Squad21 Dec 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Filippo Groppelli and Crotone agree another 4 years.
Match19 Dec 2026
Zak Ruggiero scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑2 to Monopoli, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Cristian Andreoni 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 dugout21 Dec 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 1‑2 Valerio Tedesco left the room before anybody could ask which.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Gregorio Tanco, and the manager let it.
Looking ahead21 Dec 2026
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Sorrento in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad19 Oct 2026
A fracture rules Matteo Maggio out for 70 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Crotone will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 35. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Matteo Maggio 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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
15 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Filippo Grosso is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Match17 Oct 2026
It finished 1‑0, and it was Antonino Musso’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Crotone.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.12, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Valerio Tedesco kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
Andrea Rispoli has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Crotone will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad12 Oct 2026
A fracture rules Matteo Maggio out for 78 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Crotone will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad12 Oct 2026
9 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Squad12 Oct 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 Crotone this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Oct 2026
William Feola is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
Match10 Oct 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Valerio Tedesco after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 14. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Andrea Rispoli, and the manager let it.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
Nicolò Armini knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Crotone, and both men came out saying it was fine.