“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 The request is on a desk at Picerno, and it is not being withdrawn.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Luca Baldassin was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Antonio Granata 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 Giuseppe Coppola trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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 Sebastiano Bianchi is on it.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Picerno have no good answer.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Picerno, and both men came out saying it was fine.
He used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.
Nobody at Picerno 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.
It is a strip of cloth and it decides nothing on a Saturday. It still tells the dressing room exactly whose opinion the manager values, which is the whole point of it.
The words a physio says slowly. 26 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 Luca Baldassin was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 94. Latina had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
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.
“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.
1 for Sergio Maselli, marked 7.99, 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Luca Baldassin was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Karim Cardoni and Picerno agree another 4 years.
The dugout12 Apr 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 2‑3 Pierpaolo Bertoni left the room before anybody could ask which.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Luca Baldassin was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Minute 87, against Audace Cerignola, 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.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
It needed Emmanuele Esposito to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Audace Cerignola, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Pierpaolo Bertoni after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Picerno, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Picerno have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 6 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Something was said to Daniele Franco and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
“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 chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 4 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Picerno asked and Lanús said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 19 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Words at Picerno training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luca Baldassin 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.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Davinchi is the division's best young player this month
At 19 he has spent a month being better than everybody his age in the league, which is a different and harder thing than one good afternoon. Picerno will try very hard not to make too much of it.
Léo Abreu wins it after the whistle should have gone
91 minutes played. Léo Abreu found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Cosenza went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Picerno 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Sergio Maselli. 2‑1 against Altamura, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
He is 19 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Léo Abreu. 1‑0 against Cosenza, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Picerno are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Pierpaolo Bertoni after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 14 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
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 7.88 for the rest of it.
Successful dribbles: 22. 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.
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Pierpaolo Bertoni chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
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.
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.
“Nobody outside is coming to save us.” It was short, it was not comfortable, and by all accounts the Picerno squad were quieter afterwards than they had been all season.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Dario Del Fabro trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Nobody at Picerno 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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Sergio Maselli’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Picerno needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Picerno. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Elia Summa has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.07 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Mamadou Kanouté. 1‑0 against Trapani, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
He is 19 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
At 19 he was better than everybody his age in the division for four weeks running, which is harder than one good afternoon. Picerno will try not to make too much of it.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Giuseppe Coppola is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
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.
“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.
The dugout26 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 2‑3 defeat, delivered by Pierpaolo Bertoni to a room that had heard them before.
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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Picerno asked and Spezia said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Almirante Brown have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
“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.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Salernitana? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Shots: 7. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.