Marked for Claudio Morra
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match24 Oct 2026
No end in sight to Vicenza's wait for a win
7 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Vicenza has to find a result from somewhere.
Match24 Oct 2026
Beaten 1‑3, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at Vicenza training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lorenzo Caferri 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 dugout26 Oct 2026
Riccardo Gagno 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Vicenza are still strangers to each other
11 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.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 15. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Looking ahead26 Oct 2026
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Maxime Leverbe’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Vicenza needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad12 Oct 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Thomas Sandon and Vicenza agree another 4 years.
Market12 Oct 2026
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Claudio Morra has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Vicenza.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
Claudio Morra asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Filippo Costa wants to know why he earns less
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 Vicenza have no good answer.
Squad12 Oct 2026
The language has come, the shrug has gone, and he argues in training like a man who expects to be here next year. None of it shows up on a fee and all of it shows up on the pitch.
Looking ahead12 Oct 2026
Next up at home: Mantova, who go into it in position 4. The kind of fixture a season is quietly built on or quietly loses its shape in.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match3 Oct 2026
5 matches without a win for Vicenza
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Vicenza are no longer polite ones.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
Wages swallow 167% 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
The manager makes an example of Filippo Costa
“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.
Match3 Oct 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad5 Oct 2026
A row about effort at Vicenza
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Lorenzo Caferri was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
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 Paolo Bonaventura left the room before anybody could ask which.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Vicenza will explain it as a decision about the team, and it may well be one. A dressing room has never once read it that way.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Nicola Rauti beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 12. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
Claudio Morra knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Claudio Morra trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market14 Sep 2026
“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.
Transfer targets14 Sep 2026
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.
Transfer targets14 Sep 2026
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Vicenza will try again when the window opens; Parma may not be selling by then.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Match12 Sep 2026
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad14 Sep 2026
A row about effort at Vicenza
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Lorenzo Caferri was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
“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.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
Loris Zonta 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.
Looking ahead14 Sep 2026
Cesena 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.