Marked for Davide Diaw
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad15 Mar 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Alessandro Salvi
119 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Cittadella lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match15 Mar 2027
The view from the top for Cittadella
68 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
Match13 Mar 2027
Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Davide Castelli scored in the 87th minute, Trento had already begun thinking about the journey home, and Cittadella took the lot.
Squad15 Mar 2027
A season average of 7.36 with 20 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Market15 Mar 2027
Joseph Ekuban hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Cittadella can pretend not to have heard.
Match13 Mar 2027
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Davide Castelli. 1‑0 against Trento, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Giovanni Giunti 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 dugout15 Mar 2027
Nicola Pavan left out for the big one
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Nicola Pavan will call it something else in private.
Squad15 Mar 2027
“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 Cittadella know it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The dugout16 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Andrea Barberis, and the manager let it.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Simone Addessi 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.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
Diego Falcinelli asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
Davide Diaw has become a man the manager trusts
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.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Market16 Nov 2026
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Rodrigo Pepe may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match23 Sep 2026
A 1‑0 win over Giana Erminio, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 29. 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.
Match26 Sep 2026
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Cittadella have 5 straight wins of it.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Grégoire Defrel, 35, rolls back the years — 7.99
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.99 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Match26 Sep 2026
Three points for Cittadella, 1‑0 the final word against Triestina in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Nobody on the pitch touched Andrea Ghezzi
7.86, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Cittadella had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
Squad28 Sep 2026
11 new faces, and Cittadella 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Simone Addessi 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 dugout28 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Filippo Ferri, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
The deal with Padova is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Raffaele Negri 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Marcello D'Angelo 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Achille Caruso 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Daniele Martinelli 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.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
A loan move for Manuel Martic is in the works
Cittadella have made the call to Catania. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Simone Addessi 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Mirko Antonucci has seen what the next man earns
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 Cittadella that is a harder question to answer.