Position 3, 56 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
The offer from Lumezzane for Fabio Ponsi 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.
Marco Silvestri 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
Squad10 Jul 2028
Nemanja Matić 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.
5 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.
“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 The request is on a desk at Catania, and it is not being withdrawn.
Add another name to the list: Lumezzane have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Fabio Ponsi. The answer from Catania has not changed — yet.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Lorenzo Coco has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
The fee is $520.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Audace Cerignola drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Marco Silvestri 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.
In brief
SquadNemanja Matić falls out with a teammate over standards
The terracesCatania spend $520.0K on the signing the town wanted
SquadThe manager has not finished forgetting Andrea Corbari's mistake
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.
Giovanni Bruzzaniti 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.
Squad29 May 2028
Words at Catania training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Emanuele Cicerelli 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.
20 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Catania lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 16 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Catania have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
27 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take 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 Catania this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
48 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Catania lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Catania will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Emanuele Cicerelli 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 words a physio says slowly. 35 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Catania will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Giovanni Bruzzaniti provided it, and the 8.19 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Catania have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
4 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.
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. 13 actions, 7.05, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 104 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Salvatore Caturano provided it, and the 8.85 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
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 7.94 for the rest of it.
Marco Silvestri 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.
Squad7 Feb 2028
Words at Catania training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Emanuele Cicerelli 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.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Fabio Ponsi will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Catania the goodbyes have quietly begun.
At 33 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Catania this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad31 Jan 2028
Kaleb Jimenez 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.
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.
“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 Catania, and it is not being withdrawn.
Giovanni Bruzzaniti 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.
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: Nemanja Matić from Sassuolo for $570.0K, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
Squad24 Jan 2028
Words at Catania training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Emanuele Cicerelli 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 phone has started ringing about Gianfranco Quiróz again, and this time the name on the line is Crotone. Catania are listening politely and promising nothing.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Catania will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Catania is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Giovanni Bruzzaniti 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.
Squad3 Jan 2028
Words at Catania training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Emanuele Cicerelli 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 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.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.22 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Emanuele Cicerelli 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 1‑0 win over Altamura, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad20 Dec 2027
Words at Catania training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kaleb Jimenez 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 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.
Squad20 Dec 2027
Getting past Andrea Dini has become the hardest job in the division
8 clean sheets and counting. Forwards used to back themselves here; now they shoot early, shoot wide, and look for somebody to blame.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Catania 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Catania is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Giovanni Bruzzaniti 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.
Squad6 Dec 2027
Words at Catania training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Emanuele Cicerelli 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 crowd waited for a goal that never came. Salernitana defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Catania this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Catania they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Andrea Allegretto has agreed terms with Ascoli for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Marko Petković 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.
Squad22 Nov 2027
Words at Catania training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Emanuele Cicerelli 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.
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.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.09 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Catania they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Emanuele Cicerelli 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.
It finished 2‑1, and it was Salvatore Caturano’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Catania.
Squad8 Nov 2027
Words at Catania training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kaleb Jimenez 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Catania have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Catania they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Giovanni Bruzzaniti 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.
In brief
SquadWords at Catania training over how hard people work
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.
12 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Catania 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Catania they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Emanuele Cicerelli 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Laerte Tognetti is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Gabriel Lunetta will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Catania the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Giovanni Bruzzaniti 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.
Squad19 Jul 2027
Words at Catania training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Emanuele Cicerelli 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 Catania this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
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 offer from Hellas Verona for Giovanni Bruzzaniti 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.
He is going to Pescara, the club has $1.2M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
Pescara paid $1.2M and Catania took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Catania this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Catania will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
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.
Still no offer on the table, and Andrea Allegretto’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
This is the season the town will measure the next twenty against. The trophy travels home with the squad, and the route through the streets was agreed days ago.
Mathematically certain, and nobody in this town is going to bed early. Whatever else happened this season, it finishes a division above where it started.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Catania 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.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 16 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Emanuele Cicerelli 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.
22 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
20 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
17 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Squad10 May 2027
Words at Catania training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alessandro Quaini 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.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Catania have had the benefit 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 Catania this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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.
Squad3 May 2027
Kaleb Jimenez 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.
Position 2, 53 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking 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 Catania 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.
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.
5 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.
Giovanni Bruzzaniti 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 Apr 2027
Words at Catania training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Emanuele Cicerelli 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 has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Giovanni Di Noia signs something — a contract at Catania or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
4 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.
Tiago Real 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.
“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; Catania 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 Catania 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.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Andrea Dini will call it something else in private.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Catania 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.
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.
Chances created: 5. Not on the scoresheet and not remotely anonymous — a passing performance that pulled a defence apart without leaving a mark on the column that gets read.
In brief
MarketThe window shut and Gabriel Lunetta is still in the building
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Catania scored in the 90th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
Giovanni Bruzzaniti 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.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Words at Catania training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Emanuele Cicerelli 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 is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Klāvs Bethers 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.
3 straight away victories. Sides that win away are usually sides that can defend and can counter, and the table has begun to reflect what those journeys have earned.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Catania this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
AS Roma will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Manuel Scacchi has pre-agreed a move to Catania, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Words at Catania training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Javi García 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 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Catania this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words at Catania training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Javi García 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.
Tiago Real 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.
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.