“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 The request is on a desk at Giana Erminio, and it is not being withdrawn.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.20 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Giana Erminio this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom16 Apr 2035
126% of the income goes out in wages at Giana Erminio
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.
“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 The request is on a desk at Giana Erminio, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Giana Erminio this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad18 Dec 2034
Words at Giana Erminio training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicolas Previtali 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.
Boardroom18 Dec 2034
126% of the income goes out in wages at Giana Erminio
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Nicolas Previtali signs something — a contract at Giana Erminio or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Marked 5.43. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
“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 The request is on a desk at Giana Erminio, and it is not being withdrawn.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.” Giana Erminio have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Nicolas Previtali 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 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.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Giana Erminio can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Luca Ruffini and Giana Erminio agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Jul 2034
Words at Giana Erminio training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicolas Previtali 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 shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Giana Erminio this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Giana Erminio told Eber Ocampos something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
A brace, and Máximo Seggio takes the afternoon — 8.84
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Máximo Seggio provided it, and the 8.84 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Nicolas Previtali 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Máximo Seggio. 2‑1 against Dolomiti Bellunesi, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Nicolas Previtali signs something — a contract at Giana Erminio or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Giana Erminio is running low.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.94 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
14 goals and a season average of 7.21. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Squad27 Mar 2034
Words at Giana Erminio training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mikael Soisalo 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.
Francesco Rillo 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.
14 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Giana Erminio lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Giana Erminio have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Giana Erminio they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Nicolas Previtali 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.
Boardroom9 Jan 2034
138% of the income goes out in wages at Giana Erminio
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.
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.
Marked 4.81. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
49 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Giana Erminio lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Giana Erminio will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
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.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Giana Erminio is running low.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Luca Ruffini and Giana Erminio agree another 2 years.
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead of it.