Marked for Marcelo Tabárez
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market5 May 2031
“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.
Squad5 May 2031
A season's verdict on Tiziano Villa: the best of his age
Union Brescia have a 19-year-old the division has just voted its finest young footballer. The club's next problem is that everybody else now knows it too.
Match5 May 2031
81 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Squad5 May 2031
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Union Brescia had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
The dugout5 May 2031
Marcelo Tabárez: 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.” Union Brescia have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad5 May 2031
Defences have started doubling up on Emirhan İlkhan
12 goals and a season average of 7.37 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Squad5 May 2031
Words at Union Brescia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Davide Di Molfetta 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.
Market5 May 2031
A season away well spent by Tiziano Villa
33 games, 4 goals, and a squad option that has arrived without a fee attached. The interesting question at Union Brescia now is not whether he plays but who he displaces.
Match3 May 2031
0‑2 to Pro Patria, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad24 Mar 2031
Damián Pizarro 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.
Market24 Mar 2031
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Squad24 Mar 2031
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Davide Di Molfetta was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout24 Mar 2031
“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.
Boardroom24 Mar 2031
Wages swallow 85% of the Union Brescia 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 dugout24 Mar 2031
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.
The dugout24 Mar 2031
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Alessandro Zanellati trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market24 Mar 2031
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Afonso Freitas has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Union Brescia.
The dugout24 Mar 2031
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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market11 Nov 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 Union Brescia can pretend not to have heard.
Squad11 Nov 2030
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Union Brescia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad11 Nov 2030
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Union Brescia know it.
The dugout11 Nov 2030
No hiding place for Saer Diop
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Saer Diop, and the manager let it.
Squad11 Nov 2030
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Marcelo Tabárez and Union Brescia agree another 1 years.
The dugout11 Nov 2030
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 Emirhan İlkhan is on it.
The dugout11 Nov 2030
The manager has not finished forgetting Román Fernández's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Squad11 Nov 2030
Words at Union Brescia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jerry Voutilainen 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.
Market11 Nov 2030
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad14 Oct 2030
4 goals in one game. The first was taken well, the second was taken greedily, and by the third the crowd were simply waiting for him to get the ball.
Match12 Oct 2030
4‑1, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Match12 Oct 2030
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Union Brescia have 5 straight wins of it.
The dugout14 Oct 2030
“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.
Match12 Oct 2030
11 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Squad14 Oct 2030
Damián Pizarro 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 ratings14 Oct 2030
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 9.85, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad14 Oct 2030
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Davide Di Molfetta was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Player ratings14 Oct 2030
A performance of 8.32 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.