Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 14 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Marco Da Graca. 1‑0 against Renate, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Successful dribbles: 18. 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.
Player ratings8 Mar 2027
Andrea Valdesi was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.06. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
“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 Novara know it.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 102 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Adriano Rossetti has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Gianmarco Tarantino is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Eric Lanini. 1‑0 against Carpi, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Riccardo Arboscello and Novara agree another 3 years.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Paolo Farina on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
“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 Novara, and it is not being withdrawn.
At 35, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
The board was up, the win was priced in, and then Lumezzane scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Paolo Farina after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Adrian Cannavaro is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Eric Lanini signs something — a contract at Novara 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.
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at Novara the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
A side in position 14 visits next. The result will not make anybody’s season and it could quietly break the shape of one, which is why the manager has been watching the video since Sunday.
Omar Khailoti 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.
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.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Novara, and both men came out saying it was fine.
At 25 he has taken a place rather than been given one, and somebody else has to find something to say about it. Novara have a decision that made itself.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Raffaele Sibilio obliged against Sorrento. 2‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Novara.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Raffaele Sibilio did not need any: 7.64, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Marco Romano has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Successful dribbles: 17. 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.
Marked 7.67. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
Squad28 Sep 2026
5 new faces, and Novara 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.
100 for the club now, each one filed in somebody’s memory with a date and a scoreline. Numbers like this are what supporters argue about in twenty years.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Novara this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.18, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 2‑3 defeat, delivered by Paolo Farina to a room that had heard them before.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
1 error, one goal, and a night in front of the same three seconds. He will see it tonight, tomorrow and probably in February, and everybody who has played knows exactly which frame he keeps stopping on.
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.
In brief
The dugoutAndrea Valdesi asks for a word with the manager
Novara asked and LOSC Lille said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Successful dribbles: 15. 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Eric Lanini signs something — a contract at Novara or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nobody at Novara is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
“I am not asking anybody to be better than they are. I am asking everybody to be as good as they are, every week.” Said out loud, in front of everybody, and the room at Novara was different afterwards.
Federico Brancolini has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
That is the business done at Novara until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Roberto Ranieri 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.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Eyob Zambataro is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Andrea Valdesi has moved up it.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Giana Erminio in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Federico Brancolini may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Novara can pretend not to have heard.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at AZ is saying, and nobody at Novara is enjoying the guessing.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Torino have kept their man, and Novara go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
8.17. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
A point taken on 85 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
It finished 2‑2, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Squad31 Aug 2026
5 new faces, and Novara 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.
Successful dribbles: 14. 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.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Paolo Farina was not hiding it after 2‑2, and nobody in the Novara dressing room was either.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Marco Romano
6 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
In brief
The dugoutElia Boseggia knocks on the manager's door