Marked for Leon Bätge
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 33. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match19 Sep 2026
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Foggia scored in the 92th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Tempers go at Foggia
Gianmarco Cangiano 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.
Match19 Sep 2026
It finished 1‑0, and it was Gianmarco Cangiano’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Foggia.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.93 on the card, and the Foggia support went home talking about one name.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Leon Bätge 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 31. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad14 Sep 2026
The match ball belongs to Federico Romeo, whose 3 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Squad14 Sep 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Foggia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match12 Sep 2026
Three points for Foggia, 4‑3 the final word against Siracusa in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Match12 Sep 2026
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Foggia and Siracusa, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Leon Bätge gets it from the manager
“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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 27. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Tempers go at Foggia
Gianmarco Cangiano 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Leon Bätge 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
Triumph
Match29 Aug 2026
Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Michael Liguori scored in the 89th minute, Potenza had already begun thinking about the journey home, and Foggia took the lot.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.40 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad31 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Foggia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match29 Aug 2026
A 3‑2 win over Potenza, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at Foggia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Leon Bätge 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.
Squad31 Aug 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.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.07, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad31 Aug 2026
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.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 13. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market17 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad17 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Foggia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad17 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Théo Collin commits to Foggia for another 4 years.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Foggia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Leon Bätge 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
7 new faces, and Foggia are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Market17 Aug 2026
He is 20, and nobody at Foggia signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.