Marked for Davide Macrì
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market7 Aug 2028
“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 The request is on a desk at Forli, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market7 Aug 2028
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Forli is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad7 Aug 2028
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Alessandro Camatta is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad7 Aug 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Forli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Aug 2028
At 24 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 4 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Squad7 Aug 2028
Words at Forli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alessandro Camatta 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.
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From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market10 Jul 2028
“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 The request is on a desk at Forli, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market10 Jul 2028
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Forli is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad10 Jul 2028
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Brando Bettazzi is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad10 Jul 2028
“The easiest signature of my career.” Nicola Mandrelli and Forli agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad10 Jul 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Forli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 Jul 2028
Samuele Giallombardo has improved at 24, 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad26 Jun 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Justin Möbius
21 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Forli lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market26 Jun 2028
“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 Forli, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad26 Jun 2028
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Alessandro Camatta is living that version at Forli, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad26 Jun 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Forli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad26 Jun 2028
Words at Forli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alessandro Camatta 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.
Market26 Jun 2028
Trento are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Forli will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad10 Apr 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Justin Möbius
102 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Forli lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market10 Apr 2028
“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.
Squad10 Apr 2028
Tempers go at Forli
Justin Möbius 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.
Squad10 Apr 2028
Stefano Maiorana 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.
Squad10 Apr 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Lorenzo Saporetti, and the manager let it.
Match8 Apr 2028
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
Player ratings10 Apr 2028
Successful dribbles: 13. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings10 Apr 2028
5.61 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.
Player ratings10 Apr 2028
A mark of 5.63 tells the story without any need for embellishment. He will want the tape of this one quietly lost.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad3 Apr 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Justin Möbius
109 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Forli lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad3 Apr 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Forli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Apr 2028
Words at Forli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicola Farinelli 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.
Squad3 Apr 2028
The manager makes an example of Lorenzo De Leo
“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.
Match1 Apr 2028
Carpi take the points off Forli
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Player ratings3 Apr 2028
A mark of 5.33 tells the story without any need for embellishment. He will want the tape of this one quietly lost.
Market3 Apr 2028
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Diego Rossi’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Player ratings3 Apr 2028
5.54. Every footballer has these and most of them happen away from a full ground; his did not, and he will be aware of that all week.
Player ratings3 Apr 2028
A mark of 5.64 tells the story without any need for embellishment. He will want the tape of this one quietly lost.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces3 Jan 2028
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 7 of the 30 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
Market3 Jan 2028
“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 Forli, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad3 Jan 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Forli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Jan 2028
Diego Rossi 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.
Squad3 Jan 2028
“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.
Match1 Jan 2028
0‑1 to Vis Pesaro, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Market3 Jan 2028
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Forli has been clear about where Giuseppe Battimelli stands, which is more than many ever get.
Squad3 Jan 2028
Cameron Wilson named in the team of the month
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Cameron Wilson is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Market3 Jan 2028
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Giovanni Gabriele Garofani signs something — a contract at Forli or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad30 Aug 2027
The words a physio says slowly. 44 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.
Player ratings30 Aug 2027
A debut Cameron Wilson will not forget — 7.37
There is exactly one of these per career and it does not usually go like this. 1 on the scoresheet, 7.37 beside the name, and a crowd that had never seen him before chanting it by the end.
Squad30 Aug 2027
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.
Match28 Aug 2027
4 matches without a win for Forli
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Forli are no longer polite ones.
Squad30 Aug 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Forli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad30 Aug 2027
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.
Match28 Aug 2027
It finished 2‑2, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Market30 Aug 2027
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Davide Macrì has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Forli.
Player ratings30 Aug 2027
Diego Rossi could not find anything
5.79. Every footballer has these and most of them happen away from a full ground; his did not, and he will be aware of that all week.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad12 Jul 2027
The words a physio says slowly. 95 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.
Market12 Jul 2027
“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.
Squad12 Jul 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Forli may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad12 Jul 2027
Tempers go at Forli
Jacopo Scaccabarozzi 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.
Squad12 Jul 2027
Too much change too quickly at Forli
8 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.
Market12 Jul 2027
Domenico De Tullio is 18, and Forli have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.