Marked for Edoardo Antoni
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market12 Jun 2028
“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.
Transfer targets12 Jun 2028
The deal with AC Milan 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.
Transfer targets12 Jun 2028
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Cremonese have kept their man, and Monopoli go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Transfer targets12 Jun 2028
Monopoli have gone to Pineto with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Squad12 Jun 2028
Words exchanged at Monopoli
Salvatore Longo 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.
Squad12 Jun 2028
Ivan Tasev 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.
The dugout12 Jun 2028
“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 dugout12 Jun 2028
Edoardo Antoni asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
Market12 Jun 2028
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Monopoli know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The dugout5 Jun 2028
Raffaele Pucino: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Monopoli have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market5 Jun 2028
“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 The request is on a desk at Monopoli, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market5 Jun 2028
Philip Yeboah has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Monopoli they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Market5 Jun 2028
Vicenza come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Monopoli did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Transfer targets5 Jun 2028
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.
The dugout5 Jun 2028
“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.
Squad5 Jun 2028
Ivan Tasev 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.
Squad5 Jun 2028
Aiham Dahche 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.
Transfer targets5 Jun 2028
A loan move for Matteo Cichella is in the works
Monopoli have made the call to Frosinone. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market3 Jan 2028
“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 Monopoli, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings3 Jan 2028
At 35 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 7.90, and nobody on the pitch better.
Match1 Jan 2028
Another one collected away from home
4 on the bounce on the road for Monopoli. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
Market3 Jan 2028
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Monopoli have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Match28 Dec 2027
A bad afternoon for Monopoli against Latina
1‑2 to Latina, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Match1 Jan 2028
It finished 1‑0, and it was Gabriele Bernardotto’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Monopoli.
The dugout3 Jan 2028
Ivan Tasev gets it from the manager
“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.
Boardroom3 Jan 2028
Wages swallow 94% of the Monopoli income
Every club 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 it has been tried.
Transfer targets3 Jan 2028
A loan enquiry to Monza: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The dugout22 Nov 2027
“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.
Player ratings22 Nov 2027
A mark of 7.84, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
Loan watch22 Nov 2027
“I did not go to Mantova to sit and watch. I want to come back to Monopoli and fight for my place.” 1 appearances in 17 matches say the rest.
Player ratings22 Nov 2027
Freddi Greco beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 15. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Match20 Nov 2027
A 1‑1 draw with Trapani leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
The dugout22 Nov 2027
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.” Davide Caputo chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
The dugout22 Nov 2027
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.
Looking ahead22 Nov 2027
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Raffaele Spanò’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Monopoli needing him to play as if none of it matters.
The dugout22 Nov 2027
Bruno Valenti asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The dugout6 Sep 2027
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Monopoli have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market6 Sep 2027
“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.
Transfer targets6 Sep 2027
No thanks: John Yeboah rejects the move
Monopoli had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Venezia, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
Monopoli close the window on a squad of their own making
13 in and 7 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Transfer targets6 Sep 2027
$620.0K on the table at Monza. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Squad6 Sep 2027
A falling-out at Monopoli
Luca Garritano and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets6 Sep 2027
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.
Transfer targets6 Sep 2027
The window shuts on the Nicolò Rota deal
Monopoli ran out of time with Atalanta. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Market6 Sep 2027
Add another name to the list: Forli have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Dijanis Dudić. The answer from Monopoli has not changed — yet.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad24 May 2027
A fracture rules Raffaele Pucino out for 21 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Monopoli will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The dugout24 May 2027
Diego Ronco: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Monopoli have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad24 May 2027
Words exchanged at Monopoli
Lorenzo Bordo 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.
The dugout24 May 2027
“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.
Loan watch24 May 2027
27 appearances at Pontedera and the goals keep coming. Monopoli are watching this more closely than the borrowing club would like.
The dugout24 May 2027
Davide Bove asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.