6 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Player ratings27 Sep 2027
A brace, and Omar Correia takes the afternoon — 7.95
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Omar Correia provided it, and the 7.95 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Pisa is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pisa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
15 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Catanzaro were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
“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 The request is on a desk at Pisa, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Martín Taborda will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Pisa the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
At 22 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pisa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
14 combined actions and 6.91. 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.
At 26 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
“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 The request is on a desk at Pisa, and it is not being withdrawn.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Simone Canestrelli was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Samuele Angori signs something — a contract at Pisa or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Pisa would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Pisa have no good answer.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Jonathan Hereñú has written the date down.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pisa can pretend not to have heard.
The offer from Persik for Mateus Lusuardi 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 want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Pisa heard it as anything else.
Mattéo Tramoni 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.
“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 Pisa know it.
Pisa asked and Bologna said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
In brief
SquadWords at Pisa training over how hard people work
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Pisa have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pisa can pretend not to have heard.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Simone Scuffet wants continental football; whether Pisa can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pisa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Pisa asked and Juve Stabia said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“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 Pisa, and it is not being withdrawn.
Felipe Loyola has gone, the accounts have $12.6M 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.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Pisa heard it as anything else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pisa 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.
In brief
Loan watchAnte Vuković’s loan is measured in nothing happening
The end came on a Tuesday, as these things usually do: a short meeting, a shorter statement, and Alessio Longo clearing his office by noon. Football’s cruellest ritual, performed to schedule.
14 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.
“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 Pisa, and it is not being withdrawn.
“Somebody has to pick the team on Saturday, and this week that is me.” An interim appointment with no promises attached, which is how most of them start.
6 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Pisa can tell you which week it ends in.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
“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 Pisa, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
Mattéo Tramoni 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.
4 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
“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 Pisa, and it is not being withdrawn.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Pisa can tell you which week it ends in.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Juan Guillermo Cuadrado was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pisa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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.
7 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.
5 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
“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; Pisa are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
19 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Pisa lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Pisa have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pisa can pretend not to have heard.
5 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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Luca Landriel has, at Pisa, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Pisa hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Mattéo Tramoni 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Kryvbas waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Pisa 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 Pisa can pretend not to have heard.
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.
14 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.
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. 11 actions, 6.73, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
In brief
SquadWords at Pisa training over how hard people work
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pisa can pretend not to have heard.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
“Somebody picks the team on Saturday. This week it is me, and that is as far as I have thought.” No promises were made in either direction, which is how these usually begin.
Stefano Moreo 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 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.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 9 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pisa can pretend not to have heard.
The offer from Giresunspor for Emirhan İlkhan 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.
Mattéo Tramoni 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.
Three points for Pisa, 1‑0 the final word against Parma in a contest settled by the finer margins.
The dugout25 Jan 2027
Stefano Moreo is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
11 games now with at least two against. The back line has been rearranged, the goalkeeper has been backed publicly, and the goals keep going in anyway.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Pisa people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pisa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
16 goals in 20 games at Carpi — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Pisa updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Pisa can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
15 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pisa lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 10 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pisa can pretend not to have heard.
The words a physio says slowly. 31 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pisa can pretend not to have heard.
8 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Stefano Moreo 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.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Pisa and Como in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
38 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Pisa lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Pisa have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Two goals and a mark of 8.83 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Two goals and a mark of 8.51 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
7 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.
Successful dribbles: 28. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The terraces14 Dec 2026
A cup hiding at Atalanta leaves Pisa explaining themselves
2-5, and long before the end the away end had switched from encouragement to something considerably more pointed. Nobody rings a phone-in about losing narrowly.
55 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pisa lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
“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 Pisa, 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.” Pisa have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pisa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The words a physio says slowly. 63 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“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 Pisa, and it is not being withdrawn.
14 goals in 15 games at Derby County — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Pisa updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
The words a physio says slowly. 71 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pisa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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 Pisa, and 1 appearances in 14 say he has earned the hearing.
10 goals in 12 games at Carpi — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Pisa updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
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.
79 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Pisa lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Filippo Pittarello obliged against Benevento. 1‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Pisa.
Mattéo Tramoni 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.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Pisa and Hellas Verona in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
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.
Stefano Moreo 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.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Pisa can tell you which week it ends in.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gabriele Piccinini 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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
117 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Pisa lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
7 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Mattéo Tramoni 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.
Marked 6.56 on 9 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
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.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
125 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Pisa lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
1‑6 to Juventus, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
6 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.
1 for Simone Canestrelli, marked 7.46, 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.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Pisa can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Pisa and Juventus in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
0‑7 to AS Roma, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pisa can pretend not to have heard.
The deal with Sassuolo 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Pisa and AS Roma, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Stefano Moreo 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.
Pisa asked and Spezia 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 offer from Torres for Francesco Coppola 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.
Stefano Moreo 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.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Pisa hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Danilo Cecconi is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Ignazio Riva 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.
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.