The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Reggiana people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Reggiana they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Matteo Rover 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.
Squad11 Aug 2031
Viggo Jeppsson has improved at 25, which nobody expected
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. 4 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
“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 Reggiana know it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Joe Lacey was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The manager has a list and the board has a condition attached to it. That is not a crisis — half of football works this way — but it decides which of the two of them gets his way in August.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Reggiana can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
The whole football department in one room on a weekday morning. Nothing was announced afterwards, which is what a board announces when it has run out of patience.
At 23 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Matteo Rover and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad4 Aug 2031
Natan Girma 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Matheo Elviersson Sica is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Natan Girma was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
At 34 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Reggiana asked and Benevento said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Matteo Rover signs something — a contract at Reggiana or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Reggiana, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The mood at Reggiana has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ambrose Sifuna will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Reggiana the goodbyes have quietly begun.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
The deal that would have taken Mirko Albertazzi to Union Brescia has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Reggiana with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Armando Cassano 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.
Squad21 Jul 2031
Words at Reggiana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Matteo Rover 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.
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.
6 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
The offer from Cittadella for Armando Cassano 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Reggiana they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Martín Suárez and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The accounts make uncomfortable reading. Wages first and ambition second is the order of business at Reggiana now.
Squad14 Jul 2031
Words at Reggiana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Matteo Rover 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.
Squad14 Jul 2031
Viggo Jeppsson has improved at 25, which nobody expected
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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Gennaro Trevisan has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
17 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Reggiana lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Position 18 and 28 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
The whole football department in one room on a weekday morning. Nothing was announced afterwards, which is what a board announces when it has run out of patience.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Reggiana they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
At 23 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
The mood at Reggiana has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Reggiana have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Reggiana is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Everything agreed with Fiorentina, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Reggiana had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at AC Milan, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Austria Wien have kept their man, and Reggiana go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Reggiana can pretend not to have heard.
Matteo Rover and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Nino Cappon has just signed for Reggiana, and for once the answer mattered.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Cremonese have kept their man, and Reggiana go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Viggo Jeppsson was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Reggiana have made the call to Fiorentina. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Reggiana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Reggiana and Monza, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Viggo Jeppsson has just signed for Reggiana, and for once the answer mattered.
Player ratings5 May 2031
Matteo Rover was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.24. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
In brief
BoardroomWages swallow 127% of the Reggiana income
9 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Reggiana had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Empoli, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Matteo Rover 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. Kevin Andersson-Lönnergård is living that version at Reggiana, and it tends to show in the first month.
Reggiana asked and Juventus said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Reggiana is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Reggiana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Konan N'Dri was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Reggiana asked and Cesena said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 7 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
Natan Girma 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.
13 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Reggiana and Monza in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Malmo FF is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Malmo FF this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad19 Nov 2029
Joe Willock 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 training ground goes quiet for a fortnight. 8 men have gone off to be somebody else’s players, and the manager is left with the ones nobody has called.
Nobody at Malmo FF will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Rody de Boer has his answer from Malmo FF; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
In brief
The dugoutDominik Fitz asks for a word with the manager