31 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Arezzo lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
27 goals in 34 games at Foggia — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Arezzo updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Arezzo is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Nobody at Arezzo will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
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 Foggia have had the benefit of it.
8.24. 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.
Player ratings3 May 2027
Federico Zuccon was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.08. 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.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Foggia pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
Squad3 May 2027
Words at Foggia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gianmarco Todisco 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Adriano Pellegrino on a 2‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Position 2 on 75 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Luca Trombini will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Arezzo the goodbyes have quietly begun.
3 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Alessandro Renzi 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.
Marked 8.60 — 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.
12 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
7.96, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Marked 8.50 — 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.
Player ratings19 Apr 2027
Federico Romeo was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.18. 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gianmarco Todisco was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
In brief
The dugoutThe team sheet said everything about Maxime Giron
95 minutes played. Leonardo Mancuso found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Perugia went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Arezzo have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
26 goals in 31 games at Foggia — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Arezzo updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Leonardo Mancuso. 1‑0 against Perugia, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Sebastiano Costa on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
26 goals and a season average of 7.58 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Player ratings5 Apr 2027
A brace, and Mario Ravasio takes the afternoon — 9.01
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mario Ravasio provided it, and the 9.01 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Position 3, 58 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.
“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 Foggia, and it is not being withdrawn.
11 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Foggia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 19 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Foggia have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Foggia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
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 Adriano Pellegrino left the room before anybody could ask which.
Sorrento next, and one man in the Foggia dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Arezzo is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Arezzo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
9 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
The fixture the rest of the division is looking forward to more than either of the sides in it. Both know a win changes the season and a defeat does not end it, which is what makes it hard to play.
10 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Minute 88, against Picerno, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
Successful dribbles: 15. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The dugout22 Mar 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Adriano Pellegrino was not hiding it after 2‑2, and nobody in the Foggia dressing room was either.
A season average of 7.61 with 26 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Player ratings8 Mar 2027
A brace, and Pietro Cianci takes the afternoon — 8.99
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Pietro Cianci provided it, and the 8.99 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“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 Arezzo, and it is not being withdrawn.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Arezzo can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Gianluca Di Chiara 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.
“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 Foggia, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Foggia they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Foggia and Cosenza in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
“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 Arezzo, and it is not being withdrawn.
22 goals in 26 games at Foggia — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Arezzo updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Arezzo know it.
Level with 93 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon Arezzo had all but put away. Sambenedettese will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
Two goals and a mark of 9.05 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“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 Foggia, and it is not being withdrawn.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Mario Ravasio. 3‑1 against Salernitana, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
8 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Marked 8.32 — 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.
1 for Franco Flores, marked 7.78, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Arezzo they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
200 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Gennaro Iaccarino has his answer from Arezzo; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
2 in front and in complete control, and it finished with Benevento the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that Foggia will enjoy reviewing.
500 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
Marked 8.21 — 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.
Eric Biasiol 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.
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.
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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Foggia they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Palermo have kept their man, and Foggia go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The fixture the rest of the division is looking forward to more than either of the sides in it. Both know a win changes the season and a defeat does not end it, which is what makes it hard to play.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Arezzo can pretend not to have heard.
Position 2, 51 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Giana Erminio waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Arezzo is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Deadline passes with 0 signed and 0 gone
That is the business done at Arezzo until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 0 arrived, 2 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Foggia have done the hard part with Genoa, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Foggia asked and Napoli said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
6 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Arezzo have done the hard part with Cagliari, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
17 goals in 21 games at Foggia — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Arezzo updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Arezzo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
The phone has started ringing about Luca Trombini again, and this time the name on the line is Latina. Arezzo are listening politely and promising nothing.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Foggia people have started saying his name in the past tense.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Foggia have done the hard part with Atalanta, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Foggia asked and Venezia said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
200 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Arezzo have lost him in all but the paperwork.
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Arezzo have done the hard part with Sassuolo, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Parma keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
16 goals in 19 games at Foggia — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Arezzo updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Two sides from the top of the table, one afternoon, and a month of talk decided in ninety minutes. Arezzo will not use the word title this week and will not stop thinking it.
19 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.
2 in front and in complete control, and it finished with Potenza the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that Foggia will enjoy reviewing.
The deal with Racing Santander is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
50 for the club now, each one filed in somebody’s memory with a date and a scoreline. Numbers like this are what supporters argue about in twenty years.
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 Foggia 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 Foggia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Foggia have made the call to Ferro Carril Oeste. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Giuseppe Panico has come out of that comparison in the side, and Foggia have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Pierluca Luciani is on it.
Federico Zuccon 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.
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.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
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.
Somebody watched every match in the division at the weekend and decided he was the best thing in any of them. A small honour, and most careers end without one.
Inter go through and Arezzo go home, 1‑3 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 8 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Arezzo have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Franco Flores 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.
14 goals in 16 games at Foggia — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Arezzo updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Marked 8.04 — 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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Arezzo told Luca Chierico something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑1, Adriano Pellegrino could afford to be generous.
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 particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Marco Olivieri provided it, and the 9.08 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
8.57. 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.
13 goals in 15 games at Foggia — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Arezzo updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
200 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
Two goals and a mark of 9.08 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“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
A place in the month's best eleven for Mario Ravasio
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Mario Ravasio has come out of that comparison in the side, and Foggia have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Adriano Pellegrino, on a 3‑2 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Gianmarco Todisco 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.
In brief
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Maxime Giron
Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Gianmarco Cangiano scored in the 87th minute, Cavese had already begun thinking about the journey home, and Foggia took the lot.
Marked 8.23 — 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.
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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Filippo Perucchini and Foggia agree another 1 years.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Adriano Pellegrino, on a 2‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.07 at 39, and nobody on the pitch was better.
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Ascoli next, and the two sides the division is watching meet each other. Whoever wins will be told nothing is decided in the same breath as being congratulated.
11 goals in 13 games at Foggia — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Arezzo updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Foggia they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Marked 7.02 on 12 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
A point taken on 91 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gianmarco Todisco was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
200 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
The fixture the rest of the division is looking forward to more than either of the sides in it. Both know a win changes the season and a defeat does not end it, which is what makes it hard to play.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Marco Chiosa has his answer from Arezzo; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Two goals and a mark of 9.50 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Federico Zuccon 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.
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.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Giuseppe Panico was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.02. 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.
Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Adriano Pellegrino, on a 3‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Marked 9.68 — 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.
Successful dribbles: 20. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Words at Foggia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Giuseppe Panico 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.
Successful dribbles: 20. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
200 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
A brace, and Mario Ravasio takes the afternoon — 9.19
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mario Ravasio provided it, and the 9.19 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Foggia they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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: Mario Ravasio. 2‑0 against Cosenza, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Cosenza spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
Defensive actions: 16, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Adriano Pellegrino kept it short after the 2‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Franco Flores 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.
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Sebastiano Costa to a room that had heard them before.
Nobody at Arezzo will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Mario Ravasio wins it after the whistle should have gone
94 minutes played. Mario Ravasio found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Salernitana went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Gianluca Saro has improved at 26, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Giuseppe Panico was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Marked 7.99. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
Squad12 Oct 2026
13 new faces, and Foggia 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.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Maxime Giron
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Arezzo, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Somebody watched every match in the division at the weekend and decided he was the best thing in any of them. A small honour, and most careers end without one.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Matteo Cortesi’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Arezzo needing him to play as if none of it matters.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Foggia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
Foggia asked and Boca Juniors said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Federico Zuccon 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.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Federico Zuccon was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.14. 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.
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Siracusa kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Foggia will be asked about the last half hour all week.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Paris Saint-Germain have kept their man, and Foggia go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Giuseppe Panico was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.61. 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.
Marked 8.10 — 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.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 2‑2 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Maxime Giron
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 11 arrived, 7 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
“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.
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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Foggia, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Michele Bigonzoni will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Foggia the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Marked 8.57 — 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
13 new faces, and Foggia 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.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Adriano Pellegrino kept it short after the 2‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
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.