Marked for Davide Diaw
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.30 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Market2 Nov 2026
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Words at Cittadella training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alessandro Salvi 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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Davide Castelli, and the manager let it.
Boardroom2 Nov 2026
139% of the income goes out in wages at Cittadella
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.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad2 Nov 2026
A place in the month's best eleven for Diego Falcinelli
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Diego Falcinelli has come out of that comparison in the side, and Cittadella have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
Match31 Oct 2026
A 1‑1 draw with Arzignano leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
Squad2 Nov 2026
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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.15 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Alessandro Salvi 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.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match24 Oct 2026
Union Brescia made Cittadella work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Davide Diaw gets it from the manager
“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.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 16 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match17 Oct 2026
A 1‑0 win over Lumezzane, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Defensive actions: 19, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Marked 7.88 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Cittadella had the best player on the pitch.
Squad19 Oct 2026
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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Nobody at Cittadella 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
Steady
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 Cittadella this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 22. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Alessandro Salvi 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.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match19 Sep 2026
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Cittadella have 4 straight wins of it.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Alex Redolfi pops up at the right end — 7.76
7.76, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Francesco Amatucci 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.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match19 Sep 2026
It finished 2‑1, and it was Francesco D'Alessio’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Cittadella.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
A performance of 8.63 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match12 Sep 2026
4‑1, and Davide Castelli took the headlines on an afternoon when everything Cittadella tried came off. Days like this are retold all winter.
Squad14 Sep 2026
3 goals in one game. The first was taken well, the second was taken greedily, and by the third the crowd were simply waiting for him to get the ball.
Market14 Sep 2026
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Cittadella heard it as anything else.
Match12 Sep 2026
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Marked 9.92 — 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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.37, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.75, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
The terraces7 Sep 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Francesco D'Alessio 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Gianluca Saro
“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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
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.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
The cruellest goal, and it is Alessio Rizza's
A touch he did not want, a bounce he could not have read, and his name in the wrong column. There is no consoling a man after one of these, and Cittadella will not try tonight.
Squad7 Sep 2026
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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
The captaincy has been taken off Federico Casolari. Cittadella will call it a decision about the team; a dressing room reads it as a verdict on a man.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Marked 4.78. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.