Marked for Simone Mazzocchi
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
No sign of nerves from Mario Perlingieri at 20 — 7.93
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Mario Perlingieri did not need any: 7.93, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Squad19 Oct 2026
60 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Tommaso Vannucchi is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Nicolò Contiliano 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 terraces19 Oct 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Mario Perlingieri 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.
Match17 Oct 2026
Trapani made Cosenza work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces12 Oct 2026
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 5 of the 25 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
Match10 Oct 2026
Beaten 1‑3, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad12 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 Cosenza this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Jaime Báez gets it from the manager
“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.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Ninety minutes of Aldo Florenzi at his very best
Marked 8.50. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Cosenza.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 14. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad12 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.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
5.29 on the card. Some afternoons a footballer looks like a man who has only just been introduced to the game, and this was one of them.
Squad12 Oct 2026
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad5 Oct 2026
Tommaso D'Orazio 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.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Cosenza training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Paolo Dametto 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.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.13, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad5 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Antonio Ferrara, and the manager let it.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
Wages eat 92% of everything Cosenza earn
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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match23 Sep 2026
Cosenza through in the cup
A 1‑0 win over Siracusa, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Squad28 Sep 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 Cosenza this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad28 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Thomas Vettorel, and the manager let it.
Match26 Sep 2026
A bad afternoon for Cosenza against Cavese
0‑1 to Cavese, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Kevin Cannavò was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.43. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Paolo Dametto 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.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
17 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.
Squad28 Sep 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
The terraces31 Aug 2026
Supporters turn on the $680.0K sale of Alessandro Arioli
He is going to Perugia, the club has $680.0K 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.
The terraces31 Aug 2026
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 6 of the 25 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
Market31 Aug 2026
Alessandro Arioli has left for Perugia in a $680.0K deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
Squad31 Aug 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 Cosenza this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match29 Aug 2026
Altamura left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad31 Aug 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.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Marked 8.51 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Squad31 Aug 2026
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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Cosenza have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.