Marked for Benoît Badiashile
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
The dugout23 Nov 2026
“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.
Loan watch23 Nov 2026
13 appearances away from home and 20 goals to show for them. Every one of them makes next summer's conversation a little more expensive.
Squad23 Nov 2026
A falling-out at Napoli
Vanja Milinković-Savić and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match21 Nov 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: David Neres. 2‑0 against Pisa, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Marked 8.52 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Ninety minutes of Giovane at his very best
Marked 8.53. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Napoli.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Words at Napoli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Benoît Badiashile 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.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Sam Beukema, and the manager let it.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
“That is what I want every week. Not the result, the way they went about it.” The manager, after 2‑0, already talking about the next one.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match31 Oct 2026
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 4‑0 against Como, and it could have been more.
Market2 Nov 2026
“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.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.54 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Kevin De Bruyne, 35, rolls back the years — 8.41
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.41 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
Lennon Miller: 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.” Napoli have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Giovane has a hand in both — 7.80
One scored and one made, which is a different afternoon from scoring twice and an easier one to overlook. Marked 7.80, and involved in 2 of his side's goals.
Player ratings2 Nov 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.
Loan watch2 Nov 2026
10 appearances away from home and 14 goals to show for them. Every one of them makes next summer's conversation a little more expensive.
The terraces2 Nov 2026
One of their own: Giovane
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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market12 Oct 2026
Only the photograph left for Milton Pereyra
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Milton Pereyra will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Napoli the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. David Spinelli is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad12 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 Napoli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match10 Oct 2026
Scott McTominay scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑3 to Lazio, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Ninety minutes of Scott McTominay at his very best
Marked 8.16. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Napoli.
Loan watch12 Oct 2026
7 appearances away from home and 12 goals to show for them. Every one of them makes next summer's conversation a little more expensive.
Squad12 Oct 2026
A row about effort at Napoli
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Benoît Badiashile was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad12 Oct 2026
5 Napoli players away with their countries
The training ground goes quiet for a fortnight. 5 men have gone off to be somebody else’s players, and the manager is left with the ones nobody has called.
In brief
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The dugout
The manager’s verdict
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Loan watch
The goals keep arriving from Lorenzo Sgarbi’s exile
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The dugout
Somebody else is better right now than Antonio Vergara
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad21 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 Napoli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The terraces21 Sep 2026
One of their own: Giovane
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.
Match19 Sep 2026
Hellas Verona made Napoli work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad21 Sep 2026
200 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
A performance of 8.23 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad21 Sep 2026
A row about effort at Napoli
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Benoît Badiashile was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Benoît Badiashile, and the manager let it.
Market21 Sep 2026
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Scott McTominay may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Market31 Aug 2026
“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.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 32. 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.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
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.
Market31 Aug 2026
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Pineto waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Napoli is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Market31 Aug 2026
Napoli say no — this time
The offer from Fiorentina for Matteo Politano 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.
Market31 Aug 2026
The phone has started ringing about Rasmus Højlund again, and this time the name on the line is Espanyol. Napoli are listening politely and promising nothing.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Kevin De Bruyne, 35, rolls back the years — 7.99
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.99 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.99 for the rest of it.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Lennon Miller gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Lennon Miller has just signed for Napoli, and for once the answer mattered.