Marked for Matteo Pautassi
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad13 Mar 2028
Matteo Pautassi damages knee ligaments — 89 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 89 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.
Match11 Mar 2028
At last: Bra win one
15 matches without a win, and then this, against Campobasso. Relief is a strange noise in a football ground and it was the only noise at the end.
Match11 Mar 2028
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 88th, and Campobasso spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
Player ratings13 Mar 2028
Mirko Franchi, 19, steals the show — 8.29
Marked 8.29 at 19, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
The dugout13 Mar 2028
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Squad13 Mar 2028
Tempers go at Bra
Gennaro Acampora 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.
Squad13 Mar 2028
A row about effort at Bra
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Niccolò Belloni was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match11 Mar 2028
Campobasso made Bra work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
The terraces13 Mar 2028
At 19 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match4 Mar 2028
The wait goes on for Bra
15 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.
Squad6 Mar 2028
97 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Bra lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Match6 Mar 2028
Bra are in real trouble now
Position 17, 20 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Boardroom6 Mar 2028
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Gianmarco Del Vecchio has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Match4 Mar 2028
Chastening afternoon for Bra
A 0‑3 beating by Carpi was the sort of result that empties a stadium long before the final whistle.
Market6 Mar 2028
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Market6 Mar 2028
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Lorenzo Lancellotti will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Bra the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad6 Mar 2028
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Enrico Baldini and Bra agree another 3 years.
Squad6 Mar 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Bra this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match26 Feb 2028
The wait goes on for Bra
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.
Squad28 Feb 2028
104 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Bra lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Boardroom28 Feb 2028
Pressure builds in the Bra boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Player ratings28 Feb 2028
At 33 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 7.92, and nobody on the pitch better.
The dugout28 Feb 2028
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Market28 Feb 2028
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Bra is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad28 Feb 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Bra this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout28 Feb 2028
The manager makes an example of Enrico Baldini
“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.
Squad28 Feb 2028
100 games in these colours. Service of that kind gets rarer every season, and the crowd knows it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad21 Feb 2028
111 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Bra lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Match19 Feb 2028
No end in sight to Bra's wait for a win
13 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Bra has to find a result from somewhere.
The terraces21 Feb 2028
Anger at Bra spills outside the ground
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.
Player ratings21 Feb 2028
Iván López, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.67
A mark of 7.67 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Market21 Feb 2028
Tibério Cunha has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Bra they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad21 Feb 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Bra this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 Feb 2028
A row about effort at Bra
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Niccolò Belloni was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Boardroom21 Feb 2028
111% of the income goes out in wages at Bra
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
The dugout21 Feb 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Gustavo Rigazzi, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad14 Feb 2028
118 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Bra lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Match12 Feb 2028
No end in sight to Bra's wait for a win
12 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Bra has to find a result from somewhere.
The dugout14 Feb 2028
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Match12 Feb 2028
The goals have deserted Bra
5 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Bra can tell you which week it ends in.
Squad14 Feb 2028
Words exchanged at Bra
Niccolò Belloni 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.
Squad14 Feb 2028
Words at Bra training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Omar Khailoti 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 dugout14 Feb 2028
The manager makes an example of Mattia Leoncini
“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 dugout14 Feb 2028
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Velizar-Iliya Iliev will call it something else in private.
Market14 Feb 2028
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Bra, another week without a signature from Niccolò Belloni.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match3 Oct 2026
The wait goes on for Bra
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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Davide Renzetti is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Tempers go at Bra
Enrico Baldini 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
A row about effort at Bra
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mattia Rossetti was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
Wages swallow 151% of the Bra income
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The manager makes an example of Rodrigo Linares
“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.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Ninety minutes of Ismet Sinani at his very best
Marked 8.10. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Bra.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
Mattia Rossetti dropped after a run of poor form
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.
Match3 Oct 2026
It needed Ismet Sinani to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Gubbio, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.