Marked for Mpendulo Dlamini
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Boardroom8 Dec 2031
Interim Coach has until the next board meeting
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Picerno can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Squad8 Dec 2031
A season average of 7.70 with 20 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Player ratings8 Dec 2031
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 9.07, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
The dugout8 Dec 2031
Paulinho: 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.” Picerno have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market8 Dec 2031
“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 The request is on a desk at Picerno, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad8 Dec 2031
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Picerno this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom8 Dec 2031
The owner puts $1.1M into Picerno
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead of it.
Match6 Dec 2031
It finished 2‑1, and it was Giuseppe Coppola’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Picerno.
Squad8 Dec 2031
Somila Ntsundwana 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match22 Nov 2031
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Giuseppe Coppola will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Picerno escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
Player ratings24 Nov 2031
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 9.26, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad24 Nov 2031
Defences have started doubling up on Giuseppe Coppola
17 goals and a season average of 7.62 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Market24 Nov 2031
Paulinho puts it in writing
“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 Picerno, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings24 Nov 2031
Successful dribbles: 22. 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.
Squad24 Nov 2031
A falling-out at Picerno
Pawan Parmigiani and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad24 Nov 2031
Words at Picerno training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nikolas Koutsakos 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.
Squad24 Nov 2031
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Picerno can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Match22 Nov 2031
It needed Giuseppe Coppola to find the net to bring anything home at all: 2‑2 against Potenza, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad29 Sep 2031
19 days out for Gregorio Tedesco after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Picerno will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Match24 Sep 2031
The small margins put Picerno out
Out, 2‑3 to Crotone, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Market29 Sep 2031
Alberto Pala 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 Picerno can pretend not to have heard.
The dugout29 Sep 2031
news_b_frozen_out_of_the_side
Player ratings29 Sep 2031
Two of the goals had his name somewhere on them, which is the afternoon a manager wants from anybody asked to both create and finish. 7.86, and 2 involvements.
Squad29 Sep 2031
Laerte Tognetti 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.
Player ratings29 Sep 2031
Marked 7.33 on 13 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
Squad29 Sep 2031
Nikolas Koutsakos 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces28 Jul 2031
Supporters organise against the Picerno board
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Market28 Jul 2031
“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 Picerno, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad28 Jul 2031
Aymen Assab is a better footballer than he was
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.
Squad28 Jul 2031
A falling-out at Picerno
Samuel Pugliese and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad28 Jul 2031
At 27 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 Jul 2031
Stefano Sabelli 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 targets28 Jul 2031
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Atalanta have kept their man, and Picerno go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Market28 Jul 2031
He is 20, and the scouting reports agree on the only line that matters: the ceiling. Signings like this are lottery tickets written by professionals.
The dugout28 Jul 2031
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Picerno, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market17 Jun 2030
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. SuperSport United have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Squad17 Jun 2030
A knee injury of the worst kind for Phila Dlamini
38 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. SuperSport United lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The dugout17 Jun 2030
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” SuperSport United may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market17 Jun 2030
Only the photograph left for Ronwen Modiba
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ronwen Modiba will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around SuperSport United the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Boardroom17 Jun 2030
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Mpendulo Dlamini has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Transfer targets17 Jun 2030
$330.0K on the table at Bidvest Wits. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Squad17 Jun 2030
Mohau Nkota 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 targets17 Jun 2030
$36.0K on the table at Kaizer Chiefs. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Squad17 Jun 2030
Ahmed Family arrives at the club he grew up with
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Ahmed Family has, at SuperSport United, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad10 Jun 2030
45 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. SuperSport United lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market10 Jun 2030
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around SuperSport United people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Market10 Jun 2030
The interest is real enough to have reached print. SuperSport United have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Market10 Jun 2030
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what SuperSport United can pretend not to have heard.
Market10 Jun 2030
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around SuperSport United they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Transfer targets10 Jun 2030
Everything agreed with Orlando Pirates, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Transfer targets10 Jun 2030
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Wolverhampton is saying, and nobody at SuperSport United is enjoying the guessing.
Boardroom10 Jun 2030
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Youssef Abdelhafiz has agreed terms with Bidvest Wits for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Squad10 Jun 2030
Mohau Nkota 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.