The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Torino people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Torino is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Alessio Cacciamani is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Zakaria Aboukhlal 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Torino, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
In brief
The dugoutSaúl Coco asks for a word with the manager
The dugoutViery has become a man the manager trusts
Rolando Mandragora and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad31 May 2027
Words at Torino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ardian Ismajli 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.
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.
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.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Torino 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.
Duván Zapata 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Che Adams trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
5 goals in 23 games at Empoli — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Torino updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.94 for the rest of it.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.94 for the rest of it.
8 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and AS Roma were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Che Adams and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Words at Torino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rolando Mandragora 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Torino can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Torino asked and Palermo said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Torino hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Rolando Mandragora was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Torino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
6 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.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
In brief
SquadA place in the month's best eleven for Pietro Comuzzo
Torino asked and Como said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The offer went to Como this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Torino will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Lorenzo Carvalho has agreed terms with Cittadella for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Che Adams 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 16 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Rolando Mandragora was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Duván Zapata 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 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 crowd waited for a goal that never came. Hellas Verona defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
24 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Torino lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 2 arrived, 5 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Rolando Mandragora 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.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Giuseppe Leone, and the manager let it.
Squad7 Sep 2026
8 new faces, and Torino 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.
41 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Torino lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Che Adams scored in the 86th minute, Cagliari had already begun thinking about the journey home, and Torino took the lot.
$8.2M was the most the club would pay and Parma were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Successful dribbles: 28. 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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Giuseppe Leone has, at Torino, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Che Adams 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: Che Adams. 1‑0 against Cagliari, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 8.38 — 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.
In brief
The dugoutThe view from the dugout
BoardroomTorino turn down the training-ground plan