Marked for Claudio Morra
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market4 Jan 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Vicenza can pretend not to have heard.
Market4 Jan 2027
Cittadella come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Vicenza did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Boardroom4 Jan 2027
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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Words exchanged at Vicenza
Filippo Costa 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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Riccardo Gagno 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.
Transfer targets4 Jan 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Krasnodar have kept their man, and Vicenza go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Daniel Farías wants one last season at home
Every long career reaches the week the last one is thought about. He would like it to be where he started, and Vicenza know now that the thought has arrived.
Market4 Jan 2027
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Filippo Costa has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Vicenza.
Market4 Jan 2027
The name of Filippo Alessio has come up in conversations Vicenza were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad7 Dec 2026
A falling-out at Vicenza
Riccardo Gagno and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words at Vicenza training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maxime Leverbe 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.
Match5 Dec 2026
The goals have deserted Vicenza
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Vicenza can tell you which week it ends in.
Match5 Dec 2026
0‑1 to Pro Patria, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
The manager makes an example of Claudio Morra
“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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Lorenzo Caferri commits to Vicenza for another 3 years.
Squad7 Dec 2026
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Simone Saporetti has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 14. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad26 Oct 2026
Riccardo Gagno 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at Vicenza training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maxime Leverbe 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Mattia Della Rocca and Vicenza agree another 4 years.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Simone Saporetti, and the manager let it.
Squad26 Oct 2026
10 new faces, and Vicenza are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Market26 Oct 2026
Mattia Della Rocca is 20, and Vicenza 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.
Looking ahead26 Oct 2026
Dolomiti Bellunesi next, and one man in the Vicenza dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Market26 Oct 2026
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Vicenza know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match3 Oct 2026
0‑4 to Ospitaletto, 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Vicenza this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Oct 2026
A row about effort at Vicenza
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Maxime Leverbe was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
Wages swallow 175% of the Vicenza 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
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Claudio Morra, and the manager let it.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
Nobody left the Vicenza dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑4, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Four or five weekends of consistency, measured against everybody else in the division. A quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.