“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Sorrento can pretend not to have heard.
Leonardo Capezzi 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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Sorrento told Denis Portanova something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ludovico Del Sorbo trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
“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 The request is on a desk at Sorrento, and it is not being withdrawn.
1 for Denis Portanova, marked 7.69, 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.
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.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Sorrento can pretend not to have heard.
The deal with Juventus 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.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Sorrento can tell you which week it ends in.
Sorrento asked and KAA Gent 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 did not go to Dolomiti Bellunesi to sit and watch. I want to come back to Sorrento and fight for my place.” 5 appearances in 22 matches say the rest.
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.
In brief
The dugoutThe view from the dugout
The dugoutDaniele Solcia dropped after a run of poor form
37 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Sorrento lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
1 for Leonardo Capezzi, marked 7.97, 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.
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 watch every Sorrento game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Dolomiti Bellunesi runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑0, Pietro Fiorentino could afford to be generous.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Sorrento told Denis Portanova something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
15 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.
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
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 Pietro Fiorentino left the room before anybody could ask which.
Cavese next, and one man in the Sorrento dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
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.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Sorrento. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
At 22 he has taken a place rather than been given one, and somebody else has to find something to say about it. Sorrento have a decision that made itself.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Sorrento will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
“I am not asking anybody to be better than they are. I am asking everybody to be as good as they are, every week.” Said out loud, in front of everybody, and the room at Sorrento was different afterwards.
Chances created: 4. Nothing on the scoresheet and everything in the match: the pass before the pass, over and over, until the defence stopped guessing right.