It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pescara this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Boschilia was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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; Pescara are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The dugout21 May 2029
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Giulio Martini left the room before anybody could ask which.
He has had enough of the noise. Whether Pescara can be a quieter place for him, or whether the only cure is a move somewhere the phone-ins are gentler, is a question for the next few months.
Every long career reaches the week the last one is thought about. He would like it to be where he started, and Pescara know now that the thought has arrived.
Squad16 Apr 2029
Words at Pescara training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kevin Zeroli 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.
“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.
The dugout16 Apr 2029
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 1‑3 defeat, delivered by Giulio Martini to a room that had heard them before.
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Amir Richardson 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.
“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 Lazio know it.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 4 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
5 call-ups is a compliment to the squad and a headache for the man running it. He will get them back in a fortnight, tired, in various states of repair.
9 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.
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.
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.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.18 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Pescara they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pescara this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Kevin Zeroli was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Riccardo Capellini 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.
Squad25 Dec 2028
Boschilia 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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Pescara, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The dugout25 Dec 2028
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Giulio Martini chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
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.
Riccardo Capellini 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.
Squad4 Dec 2028
Boschilia 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Pescara, and 0 appearances in 23 say he has earned the hearing.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Giulio Martini after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
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.
Riccardo Capellini 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Boschilia was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Ascoli made Pescara work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad6 Nov 2028
Iván López is the division's best young player this month
At 20 he has spent a month being better than everybody his age in the league, which is a different and harder thing than one good afternoon. Pescara will try very hard not to make too much of it.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Pescara told Gianmarco Cangiano something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Giulio Martini has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pescara this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
The name of Angelo Talia has come up in conversations Pescara were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Every squad has men who were signed by a particular manager and men who were merely inherited. Emil Audero is in the first group, and the man who wanted him here is no longer in the building.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: AC Milan keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Pescara offered $11.2M; Lazio said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pescara can pretend not to have heard.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Pescara have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Pescara have gone to Fiorentina with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Avellino have kept their man, and Pescara go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Pescara they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Iván López is 20, and Pescara have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
Iván López was the name on every phone-in, and the club has gone and signed him for $4.1M. For one week the board can do no wrong, which is a week most boards never get.
In brief
SquadWords at Pescara training over how hard people work
The offer went to Lazio this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
“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 Pescara, and it is not being withdrawn.
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $2.7M has been paid because Filippo Faggi is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
$1.2M on the table at Venezia. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
$730.0K was the most the club would pay and Napoli were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Pescara will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
The terraces26 Jun 2028
Pescara spend $2.7M on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $2.7M for Filippo Faggi, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
Squad26 Jun 2028
Words at Pescara training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bongani Kekana 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.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: AC Milan keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 43 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
Pescara have gone to Lazio with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Casarano did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $2.7M for Borna Knezović, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
42 days since the seat came open, a list of names doing the rounds, and nobody has signed anything. Every week this drags on the shortlist gets shorter.
“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 Pescara know it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pescara this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
$120.0K on the table at Lazio. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
“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 Lazio, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer from Stade Rennais for Edoardo Motta was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Elseid Hysaj had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Lazio offered $6.6M; Catanzaro said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
The deal that would have taken Lucas Da Cunha to AC Milan has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Lazio with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Lazio, and 0 appearances in 36 say he has earned the hearing.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Lazio people have started saying his name in the past tense.
$6.6M on the table at Catanzaro. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
The phone has started ringing about Edoardo Motta again, and this time the name on the line is Stade Rennais. Lazio are listening politely and promising nothing.
Boardroom7 Feb 2028
Lazio close the window on a squad of their own making
5 in and 10 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.