Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alfonso Pedraza 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.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
A place in the month's best eleven for Edoardo Motta
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Edoardo Motta has come out of that comparison in the side, and Lazio have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
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.
A window away with the national side, and a shirt at Lazio that briefly doubles as an advertisement. A call-up flatters the player and the club that built him in the same breath.
A season-long look at somebody else’s player: Milton Pereyra arrives from Napoli with something to prove and a return ticket in the drawer. Good loans make everybody richer; this one starts Saturday.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Nicolò Rovella signs something — a contract at Lazio or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nicolò Rovella 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Iván López is living that version at Lazio, and it tends to show in the first month.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alfonso Pedraza 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.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Lazio that is a harder question to answer.
The offer from AC Milan for Mattia Zaccagni 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.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Mattia Zaccagni 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.