Marked for Ivan Saio
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 27. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad4 Jan 2027
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Pescara had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
Market4 Jan 2027
Pisa come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Pescara did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad4 Jan 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pescara this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets4 Jan 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Catania have kept their man, and Pescara go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad4 Jan 2027
13 clean sheets and counting. Strikers leave this ground muttering his name, which is exactly how a goalkeeper measures a good season.
The terraces4 Jan 2027
He is 22 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.
Match2 Jan 2027
It finished 2‑0, and it was Frank Tsadjout’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Pescara.
Match2 Jan 2027
The drought breaks for Pescara
5 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Reggiana were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad28 Sep 2026
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Match26 Sep 2026
Pescara make it 3 in a row
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Pescara have 3 straight wins of it.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words exchanged at Pescara
Giacomo Olzer 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.
Match26 Sep 2026
Pescara keep winning on the road
3 away wins in a row. Travelling support is the truest kind, and this season it is being repaid in the only currency that counts.
Match26 Sep 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Frank Tsadjout. 1‑0 against Bari, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad28 Sep 2026
A late step up for Ivan Saio
At 24 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Squad28 Sep 2026
14 new faces, and Pescara 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 ratings28 Sep 2026
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.68 on the card, and the Pescara support went home talking about one name.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
Roberto Inglese dropped after a run of poor form
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
Market7 Sep 2026
Fiorentina come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Pescara did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 13 signed and 1 gone
That is the business done at Pescara until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Squad7 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 Pescara this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market7 Sep 2026
So close: Ivan Saio’s move dies late
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Hellas Verona moved on, Ivan Saio reports back to Pescara, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. 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.
Market7 Sep 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Pescara have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Match5 Sep 2026
Modena left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad7 Sep 2026
100 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
Squad7 Sep 2026
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Giorgio Altare has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad31 Aug 2026
Gianluca Mancini 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.
Match29 Aug 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Giacomo Olzer. 1‑0 against Padova, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Marked 7.96. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
Squad31 Aug 2026
14 new faces, and Pescara 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.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
“That is what I want every week. Not the result, the way they went about it.” The manager, after 1‑0, already talking about the next one.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
Filippo Guccione dropped after a run of poor form
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.
Market31 Aug 2026
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Pescara will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 13. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Market31 Aug 2026
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Giacomo Olzer’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market24 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market24 Aug 2026
Ivan Saio hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pescara can pretend not to have heard.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Hellas Verona wanted more than $1.6M and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Young Boys keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words exchanged at Pescara
Gianluca Mancini 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.
Boardroom24 Aug 2026
1 academy players handed senior numbers at Pescara
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Market24 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Matteo Marchetti is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Boardroom24 Aug 2026
Pescara say no to the training-ground money
The plan went upstairs and came back down. Nothing about that will make a headline anywhere else, and everybody who works at the training ground will remember it for years.
The terraces24 Aug 2026
The Gastón Brugman rumours reach the terraces
What was a back-page link has become a chant, and the chant is not friendly. Pescara would rather it were settled quietly, and it has stopped being quiet.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Pescara 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.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
$4.1M on the table at AS Roma. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Gastón Brugman and Pescara agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
A falling-out at Pescara
Giacomo Olzer and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Market3 Aug 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Market3 Aug 2026
The clock runs on Giacomo Olzer's contract
49 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Pescara training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gennaro Acampora 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Too much change too quickly at Pescara
11 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.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
La Equidad 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.
In brief
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Market
Pescara bring in an old head
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Market
Ivan Saio is free to find somewhere else