There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Cagliari scored in the 90th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
1 for Yerry Mina, marked 7.73, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Elia Caprile 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 28 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Elia Caprile 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.
21 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
A 1‑0 win over Hellas Verona, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
In brief
Player ratingsNinety minutes of Mattia Felici at his very best
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 7.98 for the rest of it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cagliari this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Michel Ndary Adopo wants continental football; whether Cagliari can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
“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.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Words at Cagliari training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Adam Obert 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.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Leonardo Pavoletti obliged against Bari. 2‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Cagliari.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Leonardo Pavoletti provided it, and the 8.40 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Yerry Mina 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 14 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 14 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
33 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cagliari this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
26 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
24 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Elia Caprile 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.
22 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Leonardo Pavoletti obliged against Potenza. 1‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Cagliari.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cagliari this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Words at Cagliari training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gabriele Zappa 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 26 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Yerry Mina 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.
“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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Joseph Liteta 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.
15 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
The 87th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and Gennaro Borrelli decided nobody was going anywhere. Udinese had no time left to answer.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cagliari this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Michel Ndary Adopo wants continental football; whether Cagliari can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.08, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at Cagliari training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Adam Obert 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.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cagliari this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 18 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
The words a physio says slowly. 25 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cagliari this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
33 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Cagliari lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Yerry Mina 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.
22 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Ibrahim Sulemana has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Adam Obert 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 one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cagliari this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 Cagliari that is a harder question to answer.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Cagliari know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.