Marked for Miloš Bočić
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match23 Jan 2027
7 matches without a win for Picerno
The run now stands at 7, and the questions being asked around Picerno are no longer polite ones.
Market25 Jan 2027
“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 The request is on a desk at Picerno, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings25 Jan 2027
Giuseppe Coppola, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.80
A mark of 7.80 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Mamadou Coulibaly 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 Picerno training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Laurent Abergel 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 terraces25 Jan 2027
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Mamadou Coulibaly 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.
Squad25 Jan 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Elia Summa, and the manager let it.
Player ratings25 Jan 2027
Ninety minutes of Mamadou Coulibaly at his very best
Marked 8.00. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Picerno.
Player ratings25 Jan 2027
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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad26 Oct 2026
A one-man rearguard from Elia Summa
There were 7 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Match24 Oct 2026
Still nobody has beaten Picerno
The unbeaten run reaches 7. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad26 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 Picerno this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The terraces26 Oct 2026
Picerno supporters have found a favourite in Elia Summa
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Elia Summa 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 ratings26 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Squad26 Oct 2026
5 new faces, and Picerno 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.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
15 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.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
14 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
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 Picerno this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Sep 2026
A move Michael Mortume would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Michael Mortume is living that version at Picerno, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Laurent Abergel 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
Marked 7.55 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Picerno had the best player on the pitch.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Marked 7.59. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
Squad28 Sep 2026
5 new faces, and Picerno 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.
Match26 Sep 2026
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 ratings28 Sep 2026
Defensive actions: 14, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad31 Aug 2026
A one-man rearguard from Elia Summa
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Mamadou Kanouté 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
The medical room confirms 21 days on the sidelines for Laurent Abergel, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Match29 Aug 2026
0‑1 to Salernitana, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad31 Aug 2026
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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market17 Aug 2026
Elia Summa linked with a move away
The name of Elia Summa keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Picerno say nothing, which says plenty.
Market17 Aug 2026
Picerno have made Antonio Granata available for transfer. A career at this club is over in all but paperwork.
Squad17 Aug 2026
The manager plants his flag on Miloš Bočić
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Miloš Bočić’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.