Marked for Samuele Righetti
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings9 Feb 2032
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 9.22, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Market9 Feb 2032
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Arezzo they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad9 Feb 2032
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Arezzo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad9 Feb 2032
“The easiest signature of my career.” Muhamed Varela Djamanca and Arezzo agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Transfer targets9 Feb 2032
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Cosenza have kept their man, and Arezzo go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Player ratings9 Feb 2032
A performance of 8.51 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad9 Feb 2032
Samuele Righetti 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.
Squad9 Feb 2032
10 goals and a season average of 7.22. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Match7 Feb 2032
A point taken on 94 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets19 Jan 2032
The clubs have shaken hands with Bologna; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Transfer targets19 Jan 2032
Arezzo offered $11.0M; AC Milan said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
The dugout19 Jan 2032
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Arezzo may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Transfer targets19 Jan 2032
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Udinese have kept their man, and Arezzo go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Match17 Jan 2032
4 matches without a win for Arezzo
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Arezzo are no longer polite ones.
Squad19 Jan 2032
Tempers go at Arezzo
Camillo Tavernelli 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.
Player ratings19 Jan 2032
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market19 Jan 2032
Add another name to the list: Bari have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Gianluca Ruggi. The answer from Arezzo has not changed — yet.
Player ratings19 Jan 2032
A performance of 8.37 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings29 Dec 2031
Successful dribbles: 31. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market29 Dec 2031
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Arezzo is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Player ratings29 Dec 2031
Age has not caught Matteo Cortesi yet — 8.28
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.28 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad29 Dec 2031
Defences have started doubling up on Matteo Cortesi
14 goals and a season average of 7.43 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Squad29 Dec 2031
Words exchanged at Arezzo
Camillo Tavernelli 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.
Match27 Dec 2031
Whatever happens, Arezzo do not lose
6 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Squad29 Dec 2031
A row about effort at Arezzo
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Samuele Righetti was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad29 Dec 2031
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Arezzo know it.
The dugout29 Dec 2031
“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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Transfer targets23 Jun 2031
$3.2M settles it between the clubs for Gaetano Castrovilli
AS Roma have accepted the money. What Arezzo do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Market23 Jun 2031
Arezzo say no — this time
The offer from Padova for Sebastián Muñoz was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Squad23 Jun 2031
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Arezzo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets23 Jun 2031
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad23 Jun 2031
A row about effort at Arezzo
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Samuele Righetti was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad23 Jun 2031
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Arezzo can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
The dugout23 Jun 2031
Matteo Cortesi has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Arezzo 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.
Market23 Jun 2031
The name of Camillo Tavernelli keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Arezzo say nothing, which says plenty.
Market23 Jun 2031
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Gianluca Ruggi may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Boardroom2 Jun 2031
Arezzo lift the trophy
The season a town measures the next twenty against. The trophy comes home with the squad, and the route through the streets was agreed days ago.
Boardroom2 Jun 2031
Up they go: Arezzo promoted
Confirmed, mathematical, and a town awake all night. Whatever else the season contained, it finishes a division higher than it started.
Squad2 Jun 2031
26 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Arezzo lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market2 Jun 2031
“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.
Squad2 Jun 2031
A falling-out at Arezzo
Camillo Tavernelli and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad2 Jun 2031
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Matteo Cortesi commits to Arezzo for another 3 years.
Transfer targets2 Jun 2031
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad2 Jun 2031
A row about effort at Arezzo
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Samuele Righetti was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout2 Jun 2031
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 Muhamed Varela Djamanca is on it.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad16 Dec 2030
Gianluca Di Chiara damages knee ligaments — 51 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 51 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.
Squad16 Dec 2030
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Arezzo will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Match16 Dec 2030
32 points and nobody above them. The word is not being said around the ground yet, and it is being thought in every seat.
Player ratings16 Dec 2030
Successful dribbles: 29. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad16 Dec 2030
A falling-out at Arezzo
Camillo Tavernelli and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match14 Dec 2030
Whatever happens, Arezzo do not lose
6 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Squad16 Dec 2030
A row about effort at Arezzo
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alessandro Renzi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match14 Dec 2030
After 4 games, Arezzo finally taste it again
The first defeat in 4 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Guidonia Montecelio; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
Player ratings16 Dec 2030
Marked 7.39. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad1 Apr 2030
A season average of 7.88 with 36 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Match30 Mar 2030
Still nobody has beaten Arezzo
The unbeaten run reaches 21. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad1 Apr 2030
96 days out for Giacomo Venturi after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Arezzo will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Squad1 Apr 2030
A knee injury of the worst kind for Kaya Makosso
56 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Arezzo lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match1 Apr 2030
Nobody above Arezzo
First, on 76 points. The table is a fact and a fact is allowed to be enjoyed, which is as far as anybody at the club is prepared to go in public.
Market1 Apr 2030
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Arezzo can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings1 Apr 2030
Successful dribbles: 29. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad1 Apr 2030
43 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Looking ahead1 Apr 2030
Top-of-the-table clash for Arezzo
Perugia next, and the two sides the division is watching meet each other. Whoever wins will be told nothing is decided in the same breath as being congratulated.