“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Pontedera have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Umberto Saracco 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Sanasi Sy 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pontedera this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 20 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
“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.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Words at Pontedera training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Daniel Leo 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.
Words at Pontedera training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sanasi Sy 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.
Philip Yeboah 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 one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
In brief
Player ratingsThe pass was always on for Louis Buffon
Umberto Saracco 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Pontedera, another week without a signature from Luca Piana.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Luciano Ballan has his answer from Pontedera; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Still no offer on the table, and Guillermo Wagner’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.