2 in front and in complete control, and it finished with Pianese the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that Ravenna will enjoy reviewing.
“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 The request is on a desk at Ravenna, and it is not being withdrawn.
“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; Ravenna are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Ravenna have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Giacomo Poluzzi 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Giulio Donati 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.
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.
0‑4 against Pescara, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Giulio Donati 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.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Beaten 4 times, 3 saves, and an afternoon that will go on his record whether it was his fault or the defence’s. It is the quiet unfairness of the position.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Campobasso in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
“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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
8 new faces, and Ravenna 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.
The team at the top of the table next, and the honest measure of where this side actually is. Anybody can beat the club below them; the question is what happens against Reggiana.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Matteo Solini’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Ravenna needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Nobody at Ravenna 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.
What was a back-page story is now a matter for the terraces, and the terraces do not do nuance. Ravenna would like it dealt with before it becomes the only question anybody asks.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Ravenna. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Matteo Solini 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.
Federico Vietto 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.
Marked 8.00 — 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.
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.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Ravenna would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Ravenna that is a harder question to answer.