Marked for Simone Trimboli
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad1 Feb 2027
Leonardo Mancuso 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.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Every paper's favourite story and every manager's least. What happened is being dealt with internally, which is the phrase clubs use when they would rather nobody asked again.
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Nicolò Radaelli 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.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Raised voices on the training ground at Mantova
It involved Alessio Castellini, it was loud enough to reach the car park, and it was over by lunch. Dressing rooms run hot; the ones that should worry you are the silent ones.
Match30 Jan 2027
Ninety minutes, two goalkeepers with clean gloves, and not one finish worth keeping. Palermo will be the happier side with the point.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad18 Jan 2027
Leonardo Mancuso 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.
Market18 Jan 2027
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Mantova have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Nicolò Radaelli 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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
“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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Mantova told Fahem Benaïssa something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Match16 Jan 2027
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match3 Oct 2026
The wait goes on for Mantova
7 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.
Squad5 Oct 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 Mantova this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
Wages eat 162% of everything Mantova earn
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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Mantova training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicolò Radaelli 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.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad5 Oct 2026
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match12 Sep 2026
Mantova cannot find the net
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Match12 Sep 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad14 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Tiago Gonçalves
“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.
Squad14 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 Mantova this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Francesco Bardi 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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 14. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 Aug 2026
Leonardo Mancuso 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
48 months to run and not a word offered. A club that lets the calendar negotiate for it usually ends up losing to the calendar.
Market10 Aug 2026
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.