Marked for Klāvs Bethers
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match30 Oct 2027
9 matches without a win for Latina
The run now stands at 9, and the questions being asked around Latina are no longer polite ones.
Match30 Oct 2027
A 2-goal lead gone for Latina
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Forli kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Latina will be asked about the last half hour all week.
Player ratings1 Nov 2027
A brace, and Jaime Báez takes the afternoon — 9.18
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Jaime Báez provided it, and the 9.18 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Market1 Nov 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.
Squad1 Nov 2027
A falling-out at Latina
Antonino De Marco and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout1 Nov 2027
The manager makes an example of Federico Pace
“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.
Boardroom1 Nov 2027
Wages swallow 120% of the Latina 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.
Match30 Oct 2027
It needed Jaime Báez to find the net to bring anything home at all: 3‑3 against Forli, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Squad1 Nov 2027
A goalkeeper’s error has no defender behind it to tidy it away. He knew before the ball crossed the line, the crowd knew a second later, and there is nothing anybody can say tonight.
In brief
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The dugout
The manager has not finished forgetting Klāvs Bethers's mistake
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Squad
5 new faces, and Latina are still learning each other
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The dugout
Leandro Piazza: “We have to be better”
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match2 Oct 2027
6 matches without a win for Latina
The run now stands at 6, and the questions being asked around Latina are no longer polite ones.
Squad4 Oct 2027
6 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
The dugout4 Oct 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Latina may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
The dugout4 Oct 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Stefano Cella, and the manager let it.
Match2 Oct 2027
Perugia left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Boardroom4 Oct 2027
Wages swallow 128% of the Latina 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.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Latina are still strangers to each other
8 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
The dugout4 Oct 2027
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 0‑1, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
Squad4 Oct 2027
The captaincy has been taken off Davide Mastrantonio. Latina will call it a decision about the team; a dressing room reads it as a verdict on a man.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The dugout20 Sep 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Latina may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Elia Plicco is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
Player ratings20 Sep 2027
Successful dribbles: 17. 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.
Player ratings20 Sep 2027
A mark of 7.06, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
The dugout20 Sep 2027
The manager makes an example of Elia Plicco
“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.
Squad20 Sep 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 Latina this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout20 Sep 2027
“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 dugout20 Sep 2027
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Latina, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Squad20 Sep 2027
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad13 Sep 2027
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Catania will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The dugout13 Sep 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Catania may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad13 Sep 2027
A falling-out at Catania
Fabrizio Caligara and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets13 Sep 2027
$210.0K was the most the club would pay and Carrarese were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Transfer targets13 Sep 2027
The window shuts on the Rodrigo Gallo deal
Catania ran out of time with Dolomiti Bellunesi. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Transfer targets13 Sep 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Picerno have kept their man, and Catania go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Match11 Sep 2027
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Match11 Sep 2027
The run is over for Catania
4 matches without defeat, and then Giugliano. Nobody at the ground pretended it would go on forever; nobody expected it to stop here either.
The dugout13 Sep 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad16 Aug 2027
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Catania will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Roberto Insigne 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.
Transfer targets16 Aug 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Modena have kept their man, and Catania go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The dugout16 Aug 2027
The manager makes an example of Andrea Dini
“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.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Too much change too quickly at Catania
7 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.
Loan watch16 Aug 2027
“I watch every Catania game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Latina runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The dugout16 Aug 2027
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 Alessandro Quaini is on it.
The dugout16 Aug 2027
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Questions about Simone Leonardi on the training pitch
The standards have slipped, and in a building where everybody watches everybody it has not gone unremarked. This is how a player loses a place before he loses one.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Transfer targets16 Aug 2027
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Torino is saying, and nobody at Latina is enjoying the guessing.
Transfer targets16 Aug 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Torino have kept their man, and Latina go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Tempers go at Latina
Gabriele Di Giovannantonio 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.
The dugout16 Aug 2027
Luigi Carillo gets picked when it counts
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 Luigi Carillo is on it.
Squad16 Aug 2027
A season on the outside for Klāvs Bethers
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Latina has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
Market16 Aug 2027
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Latina know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The terraces16 Aug 2027
What was a back-page link has become a chant, and the chant is not friendly. Latina would rather it were settled quietly, and it has stopped being quiet.
The dugout16 Aug 2027
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Market16 Aug 2027
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Christian Sussi may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom2 Aug 2027
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Transfer targets2 Aug 2027
$1.9M on the table at Frosinone. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Transfer targets2 Aug 2027
The deal with Fiorentina 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 targets2 Aug 2027
Latina asked and Cittadella said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad2 Aug 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Antonello Vona commits to Latina for another 3 years.
Market2 Aug 2027
No place for Eduard Duţu in the plan
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Eduard Duţu has his answer from Latina; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Sonny D'Angelo 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 dugout2 Aug 2027
The manager's exit leaves Jaime Báez exposed
Every squad has men who were signed by a particular manager and men who were merely inherited. Jaime Báez is in the first group, and the man who wanted him here is no longer in the building.
The dugout2 Aug 2027
Federico Pace knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Federico Pace trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad5 Jul 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 109 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match5 Jul 2027
Catania up to position 2
57 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Market5 Jul 2027
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Salernitana waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Catania is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Market5 Jul 2027
“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 Catania, and it is not being withdrawn.
Transfer targets5 Jul 2027
Sambenedettese wanted more than $19.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Squad5 Jul 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Fabio Ponsi and Catania agree another 4 years.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Roberto Insigne 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.
Market5 Jul 2027
28 games, 9 goals, and a squad option that has arrived without a fee attached. The interesting question at Catania now is not whether he plays but who he displaces.
Transfer targets5 Jul 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Udinese have kept their man, and Catania go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad28 Jun 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 116 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market28 Jun 2027
“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 Catania, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market28 Jun 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Catania is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Transfer targets28 Jun 2027
Catania have gone to Sambenedettese 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.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 35 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Catania is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
Squad28 Jun 2027
A row about effort at Catania
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Fabrizio Caligara was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets28 Jun 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.
Loan watch28 Jun 2027
The goals keep arriving from Filippo D'Andrea’s exile
12 goals in 29 games at Pineto — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Catania updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
The dugout28 Jun 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Andrea Corbari, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom28 Jun 2027
Pressure builds in the Latina boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Market28 Jun 2027
Eduard Duţu 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 Latina can pretend not to have heard.
Transfer targets28 Jun 2027
Everything agreed with Casarano, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Transfer targets28 Jun 2027
Latina asked and Catania said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad28 Jun 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 Latina this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout28 Jun 2027
The manager makes an example of Filippo Marenco
“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.
The dugout28 Jun 2027
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 Maurizio Scravaglieri is on it.
The dugout28 Jun 2027
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Rodrigo De Ciancio has written the date down.
Market28 Jun 2027
Latina have let the market know Luigi Carillo can be had. No price in the advert, but everyone in the trade knows roughly what it says.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad21 Jun 2027
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Catania will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Market21 Jun 2027
“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 Catania, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market21 Jun 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad21 Jun 2027
A falling-out at Catania
Fabrizio Caligara and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets21 Jun 2027
Door shut on Viery
Catania asked and Fiorentina 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 targets21 Jun 2027
Genoa 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.
The dugout21 Jun 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.
The dugout21 Jun 2027
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.
Loan watch21 Jun 2027
27 appearances at Campobasso and the goals keep coming. Catania are watching this more closely than the borrowing club would like.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Transfer targets14 Jun 2027
Everything agreed with Catania, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Transfer targets14 Jun 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Dinamo Zagreb have kept their man, and Latina go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Transfer targets14 Jun 2027
A loan enquiry to EA Guingamp: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Boardroom14 Jun 2027
Wages swallow 87% of the Latina 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.
The dugout14 Jun 2027
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Squad14 Jun 2027
“I did not sign to watch. Nobody does.” The oldest complaint in the game, and Latina will have to answer it with minutes or with a move.
The dugout14 Jun 2027
The manager makes an example of Christian Sussi
“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.
The dugout14 Jun 2027
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Giulio Parodi has written the date down.
The dugout14 Jun 2027
“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
Upbeat
Squad7 Jun 2027
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Catania will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match7 Jun 2027
Catania are in among the leaders
Position 2 and 57 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Market7 Jun 2027
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Latina waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Catania is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Market7 Jun 2027
“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 Catania, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Edoardo Mannino is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Words at Catania training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Fabrizio Caligara 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.
Transfer targets7 Jun 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Udinese have kept their man, and Catania go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Words exchanged at Catania
Eddy Cabianca 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 dugout7 Jun 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad26 Apr 2027
Fabrizio Caligara 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 dugout26 Apr 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.
The dugout26 Apr 2027
Alessandro Quaini has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Catania 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.
Loan watch26 Apr 2027
28 starts and a season average of 6.64. The loan is doing exactly what it was arranged to do.
The dugout26 Apr 2027
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Catania. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Loan watch26 Apr 2027
27 appearances away from home and 4 goals to show for them. Every one of them makes next summer's conversation a little more expensive.
Squad26 Apr 2027
6.62 across ninety minutes and a place in the division's team of the week. He was the best player on that pitch and everybody there knew it.
The dugout26 Apr 2027
Public backing, and the sort that costs a manager something if it turns out to be wrong. Edoardo Masciangelo has been told in front of everybody that the shirt is his.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Nobody writes a headline about a tutor. Nobody has to be told, either, what happens to a signing who spends two years being the man nobody can talk to at lunch.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad29 Mar 2027
Massimo Coda 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.
The dugout29 Mar 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.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Daniele Donnarumma trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
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 Salvatore Aloi is on it.
Loan watch29 Mar 2027
The goals keep arriving from Simone Leonardi’s exile
4 goals in 25 games at Campobasso — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Catania updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Loan watch29 Mar 2027
25 starts and an average of 6.60. He went there to play and he is playing, which is the only thing a loan was ever for.
Squad29 Mar 2027
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Catania would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
Looking ahead29 Mar 2027
Next up on the road: Altamura, position 12. The supporters who go will talk about it all week and the ones who do not will check their phones at ten to five.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings15 Mar 2027
Two goals and a mark of 9.05 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Market15 Mar 2027
Catania say no — this time
The offer from Brommapojkarna for Klāvs Bethers 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.
Match13 Mar 2027
The drought breaks for Catania
6 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Salernitana were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Fabrizio Caligara 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.
Match13 Mar 2027
It finished 2‑1, and it was Massimo Coda’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Catania.
The dugout15 Mar 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.
The dugout15 Mar 2027
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Domenico Russo, on a 2‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Loan watch15 Mar 2027
The goals keep arriving from Gregorio Luperini’s exile
8 goals in 25 games at Livorno — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Catania updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Looking ahead15 Mar 2027
Catania take on the side everybody is chasing
Cosenza arrive as leaders. A side at the top is beaten roughly once a month, and the club that does it gets a week it remembers for a year.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match20 Feb 2027
No end in sight to Avellino's wait for a win
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Avellino has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad22 Feb 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 Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings22 Feb 2027
Gianluca Gaetano ran the middle of the pitch — 6.77
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 10 combined actions and a mark of 6.77, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
The dugout22 Feb 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.
Player ratings22 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match20 Feb 2027
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
Squad22 Feb 2027
A row about effort at Avellino
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Lorenzo Da Pozzo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout22 Feb 2027
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Teodoro Lombardo after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
The dugout22 Feb 2027
Somebody else is better right now than Tommaso Cancellotti
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
From our football correspondent
Steady
The dugout18 Jan 2027
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Market18 Jan 2027
Académica come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Avellino did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Transfer targets18 Jan 2027
Everything agreed with Catania, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Match16 Jan 2027
The wait goes on for Avellino
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.
Player ratings18 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Transfer targets18 Jan 2027
Avellino asked and Napoli said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Match16 Jan 2027
A point taken on 87 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.
The dugout18 Jan 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Daniel Fila, and the manager let it.
Squad18 Jan 2027
The medical room confirms 14 days on the sidelines for Umberto Volpe, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
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Market18 Jan 2027
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Catania people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Transfer targets18 Jan 2027
$610.0K settles it between the clubs for Leonardo Stanzani
Carpi have accepted the money. What Catania do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Squad18 Jan 2027
6 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
The dugout18 Jan 2027
Michael Liguori: 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.” Catania have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Fabrizio Caligara 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.
Transfer targets18 Jan 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.
The dugout18 Jan 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.
Market18 Jan 2027
Carpi are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Catania will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Player ratings18 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 16. 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.
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Player ratings4 Jan 2027
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 9.38, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Match2 Jan 2027
Nobody wants to play Catania right now
4 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Massimo Coda 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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Catania have had the benefit of it.
Match2 Jan 2027
Crotone made Catania work for it, but the scoreboard read 3‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Transfer targets4 Jan 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Benfica have kept their man, and Catania go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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.
Market4 Jan 2027
The name of Klāvs Bethers has come up in conversations Catania were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Market4 Jan 2027
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Matteo Di Gennaro has his answer from Catania; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
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Squad4 Jan 2027
Tempers go at Latina
Giulio Parodi 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.
The terraces4 Jan 2027
He is 21 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
Spezia made Latina work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Match2 Jan 2027
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Jaime Báez in the middle of it, and Spezia unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
Squad4 Jan 2027
At 37, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.00, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Market4 Jan 2027
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Rodrigo De Ciancio has his answer from Latina; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
The dugout4 Jan 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Rodrigo De Ciancio, and the manager let it.
The dugout4 Jan 2027
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
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Squad28 Dec 2026
Alessandro Raimo damages knee ligaments — 17 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 17 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.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Age has not caught Massimo Coda yet — 8.19
At 38 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.19 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Match26 Dec 2026
Nobody wants to play Catania right now
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words exchanged at Catania
Massimo Coda 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.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Fabrizio Caligara 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.
Match26 Dec 2026
Three points for Catania, 1‑0 the final word against Monopoli in a contest settled by the finer margins.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
“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.
Match28 Dec 2026
Halfway: Catania sit in position 1
34 points at the turn. The first half of a season is a promise; the second is a bill, and the town is about to find out which of the two this one was.
Boardroom28 Dec 2026
Wages eat 94% of everything Catania 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.
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Upbeat
Squad12 Oct 2026
Matteo Di Gennaro damages knee ligaments — 59 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 59 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.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
“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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Somebody watched every match in the division at the weekend and decided he was the best thing in any of them. A small honour, and most careers end without one.
Looking ahead12 Oct 2026
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Potenza in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Loan watch12 Oct 2026
5 appearances at Pineto and the goals keep coming. Catania are watching this more closely than the borrowing club would like.
Squad12 Oct 2026
The language has come, the shrug has gone, and he argues in training like a man who expects to be here next year. None of it shows up on a fee and all of it shows up on the pitch.