Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Patrick Enrici will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Avellino the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad30 Apr 2029
Words at Avellino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Michele D'Ausilio 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 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Armando Izzo trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Arezzo defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Luca Pandolfi will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Avellino the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Giorgi Kvernadze. 1‑0 against Pisa, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
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.
The dugout23 Apr 2029
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Nicolò Corsini kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Avellino interviewed the field and appointed the corridor: Nicolò Corsini keeps the job he had been doing in all but title. Sometimes the safest pair of hands is the one already holding the wheel.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Avellino they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Avellino can tell you which week it ends in.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Fallou Cham 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.
Squad16 Apr 2029
Words at Avellino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Michele D'Ausilio 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Luca Pandolfi will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Avellino the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
Marked 3.30, and generously at that. Nothing came off, and by the end the crowd had stopped expecting it to.
The dugout26 Mar 2029
The manager has not finished forgetting Armando Izzo's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
The dugout26 Mar 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 0‑4 Nicolò Corsini left the room before anybody could ask which.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 37 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
Narcis Ilaş 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 Michele D'Ausilio was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
11 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.
Cremonese left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout12 Mar 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 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Nicolò Corsini to a room that had heard them before.
The dugout12 Mar 2029
Somebody else is better right now than Armando Izzo
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Avellino is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
0‑1 to Modena, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad26 Feb 2029
Words at Avellino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Michele D'Ausilio 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout26 Feb 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 Frank Huber left the room before anybody could ask which.
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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 9 goals between Avellino and Sampdoria, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Frosinone kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Avellino will be asked about the last half hour all week.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Narcis Ilaş did not need any: 7.89, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Luca Mazzitelli 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Fiorentina have kept their man, and Avellino go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The name of Andrea Favilli has come up in conversations Avellino were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Michele D'Ausilio was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
10 combined actions and 7.35. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
$4.1M settles it between the clubs for Narcis Ilaş
Sepsi OSK have accepted the money. What Avellino do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Armando Izzo 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Michele D'Ausilio was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Position 12, 21 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Frank Huber has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
The offer from Carpi for Michele Besaggio 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.
Avellino asked and Bari said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Fallou Cham 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.
41 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Avellino lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Armando Izzo 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 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 words a physio says slowly. 62 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
“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 Avellino, and it is not being withdrawn.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Avellino have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Michele D'Ausilio was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
At 36, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
Tomás Palleres 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.
79 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Avellino lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
7 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Avellino has to find a result from somewhere.
Player ratings30 Oct 2028
A brace, and M'Bala Nzola takes the afternoon — 7.97
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. M'Bala Nzola provided it, and the 7.97 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Avellino and Cesena in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
“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; Avellino are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The words a physio says slowly. 94 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Avellino have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Cremonese next, and one man in the Avellino dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Avellino know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Federico Baschirotto may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
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 Avellino that is a harder question to answer.
15 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Avellino lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 Avellino, and it is not being withdrawn.
36 days with the chair empty, a list of names that grows and shrinks by the day, and not one signature on anything. Every week that passes takes the best candidates off it.
“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; Avellino are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Tomás Palleres 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 were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Salvatore Martinelli after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The words a physio says slowly. 23 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Luca Mazzitelli 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 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.
10 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.
33 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Avellino lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Avellino will quote 15 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Juventus have kept their man, and Avellino go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Dimitris Sounas was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Frosinone in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Luca Mazzitelli signs something — a contract at Avellino or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Thomas Battistella trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Avellino spent the window trying to move Federico Baschirotto on and nobody came. He trains with a squad that has already told him he is not part of it, and both sides now wait for the next one.
The words a physio says slowly. 42 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Boardroom4 Sep 2028
Deadline passes with 19 signed and 15 gone
That is the business done at Avellino until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Avellino can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Gabriele Artistico 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.
Avellino asked and Benevento said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Avellino are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
50 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Avellino lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Inter is saying, and nobody at Avellino is enjoying the guessing.
The fee is $9.4M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Udinese drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Marco Sala has gone, the accounts have $5.2M in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Luca Palmiero will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Avellino the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
The terracesAvellino spend $9.4M on the signing the town wanted
Four paragraphs on the club website, none of them about football. The board thanked him, wished him well, and had the search under way before the page went up.
58 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Avellino lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Marco Sala had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
The offer went to Udinese 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Radomlje waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Avellino is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“I am not thinking past Saturday, and I would advise nobody else to.” The caretaker’s first rule is to pretend the job is small; Salvatore Martinelli recited it perfectly.
Senior shirt numbers handed to boys the coaches have known since they were twelve. Most will not make it and all of them have already done the hard part.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Achille Lombardi has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
The words a physio says slowly. 66 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
The phone has started ringing about Marco Sala again, and this time the name on the line is Audace Cerignola. Avellino are listening politely and promising nothing.
Avellino asked and Renate said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Everybody at Avellino saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 36 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
13 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Alessandro Fontanarosa trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Lorenco Šimić has his answer from Avellino; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Tommaso Biasci signs something — a contract at Avellino or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
74 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Avellino lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“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 Avellino know it.
Gabriele Artistico 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.
Add another name to the list: Radomlje have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Vid Chinoso Juvančič. The answer from Avellino has not changed — yet.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Avellino, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The money the manager was told he had is now money the manager used to have. $15.8M, gone from the table without a statement, and a dressing room that understands what it means.
The words a physio says slowly. 81 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
The offer from Torino for Patrick Enrici 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Avellino they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Devis Vásquez 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.
Avellino asked and Napoli said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Michele Besaggio trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
89 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Avellino lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Avellino can pretend not to have heard.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Radomlje waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Avellino is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Hellas Verona paid $8.0M and Avellino took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Andrea Adorante has gone, the accounts have $8.0M in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Napoli keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
The terraces24 Jul 2028
Avellino spend $25.7M on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $25.7M for Giorgi Kvernadze, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
Avellino asked and Inter said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The words a physio says slowly. 98 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Avellino people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“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 Avellino, and it is not being withdrawn.
Palermo have accepted the money. What Avellino do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
The phone has started ringing about Patrick Enrici again, and this time the name on the line is Torino. Avellino are listening politely and promising nothing.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Dimitris Sounas was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
106 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Avellino lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 Avellino, and it is not being withdrawn.
Avellino had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Juventus, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Bologna paid $11.4M and Avellino took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
The fee is $5.9M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Empoli drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Valerio Crespi has gone, the accounts have $11.4M in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
Boards get told what they have done wrong for years and hear nothing on the days they get it right. This is one of those days: Bautista Arricau from Empoli for $5.9M, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
In brief
SquadDimitris Sounas falls out with a teammate over standards
Armando Izzo damages knee ligaments — 116 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 116 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Bologna waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Avellino is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Avellino can pretend not to have heard.
The offer went to Empoli 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.
The shirt still fits. Davide Bove is back at Avellino, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Avellino is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Lorenco Šimić 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.
123 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Avellino lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“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 Avellino, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Avellino is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Andrea Adorante 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.
Casarano paid $260.0K and Avellino took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
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.
Squad26 Jun 2028
Words at Avellino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dimitris Sounas 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Avellino, and both men came out saying it was fine.
132 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Avellino lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Udinese is saying, and nobody at Avellino is enjoying the guessing.
The fee is $1.8M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Campobasso drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Avellino will quote 14 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
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.
Matteo Brunori arrives at 33 with nothing left to prove and plenty left to pass on. Legs are a young man's currency; knowing where to stand never ages.
139 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Avellino lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Avellino had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Juventus, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $3.4M has been paid because Devis Vásquez is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
Avellino have gone to Palermo 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Catanzaro have kept their man, and Avellino go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Avellino know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
146 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Avellino lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The offer went to AS Roma 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Parma have kept their man, and Avellino go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.80 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Avellino is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Sviatoslav Barasiuk has, at Avellino, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Dimitris Sounas was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
154 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Avellino lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 Avellino, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Avellino they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Luca Mazzitelli 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.
Squad29 May 2028
Words at Avellino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dimitris Sounas 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.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
161 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Avellino lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.84 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Avellino pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Vid Chinoso Juvančič will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Avellino the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Andrea Adorante 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.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 14 actions, 6.95, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
Squad8 May 2028
Words at Avellino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aymen Sliti 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.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Avellino can tell you which week it ends in.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Antony Iannarilli will call it something else in private.
“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 Avellino, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino 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 Aymen Sliti was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The fixture the rest of the division is looking forward to more than either of the sides in it. Both know a win changes the season and a defeat does not end it, which is what makes it hard to play.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Ignazio Ferrigno after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Benevento defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Dimitris Sounas trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“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 Avellino, and it is not being withdrawn.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Avellino have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.09 for the rest of 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 Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Avellino and Torino, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
The club looked outside for a month, found nothing it preferred, and handed the job to the man who had been doing it anyway. He knows the building; now he has to prove he knows the rest.
The offer from Novara for Luca Palmiero 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.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.19 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“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 Avellino, and it is not being withdrawn.
1 for Federico Baschirotto, marked 7.49, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Valerio Crespi 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.
In brief
SquadWords at Avellino training over how hard people work
“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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Novara waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Avellino is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The offer went to Norwich City 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.
Avellino offered $3.7M; Bari 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 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.
Domenico Pio Donato 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.