Marked for Kevin Freiberger
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad2 Nov 2026
Bartosz Salamon damages knee ligaments — 95 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 95 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.
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
Mattia Finotto, 33, rolls back the years — 8.02
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.02 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Marco Bleve 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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Marco Imperiale 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.
Match31 Oct 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Mattia Finotto. 1‑0 against Südtirol, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
24 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Marco Bleve in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Carrarese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words at Carrarese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marco Imperiale 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
“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.
Match10 Oct 2026
It finished 1‑0, and it was Fabio Abiuso’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Carrarese.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
17 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.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.87 on the card, and the Carrarese support went home talking about one name.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Kevin Freiberger dropped after a run of poor form
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.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 11. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market5 Oct 2026
“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 Carrarese, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Marco Bleve 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Marco Imperiale 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.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
Wages eat 136% of everything Carrarese earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Match3 Oct 2026
0‑1 to Modena, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market7 Sep 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.
Market7 Sep 2026
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Vicenza moved on, Stefano Mazzini reports back to Carrarese, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Marco Bleve 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.
Market7 Sep 2026
The phone has started ringing about Niccolò Belloni again, and this time the name on the line is Pisa. Carrarese are listening politely and promising nothing.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Marco Imperiale 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.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 18. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad17 Aug 2026
Marco Imperiale 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Simone Zanon 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Carrarese would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Squad17 Aug 2026
A wage question at Carrarese
Julián Illanes has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.