Marked for Bartosz Mrozek
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad29 Mar 2027
Lazar Jovanović is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Words at Udinese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Unai Gómez 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.
Squad29 Mar 2027
27 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad29 Mar 2027
“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 Udinese know it.
Loan watch29 Mar 2027
The goals keep arriving from Simone Pafundi’s exile
9 goals in 28 games at Catanzaro — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Udinese updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
Nicolò Bertola knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Udinese, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
Maurits Kjærgaard has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Udinese 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 dugout29 Mar 2027
The manager makes an example of Bartosz Mrozek
“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.
Market29 Mar 2027
Oumar Solet linked with a move away
The name of Oumar Solet keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Udinese say nothing, which says plenty.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match4 Nov 2026
Udinese through in the cup
A 3‑0 win over Alcione Milano, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.85 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Market9 Nov 2026
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Udinese can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Nicolò Zaniolo 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.
Squad9 Nov 2026
39 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Nicolò Bertola, and the manager let it.
The terraces9 Nov 2026
At 20 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.45, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad9 Nov 2026
200 games in these colours. Service of that kind gets rarer every season, and the crowd knows it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad26 Oct 2026
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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at Udinese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Unai Gómez 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.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
19 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.
Squad26 Oct 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 Udinese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Udinese told Jurgen Ekkelenkamp something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Hassane Kamara
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
14 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.
The dugout26 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match29 Aug 2026
The 85th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and Jurgen Ekkelenkamp decided nobody was going anywhere. AS Roma had no time left to answer.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Udinese 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
A row about effort at Udinese
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Unai Gómez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match29 Aug 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Jurgen Ekkelenkamp. 2‑1 against AS Roma, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The terraces31 Aug 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Francesco D'Alessio 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words exchanged at Udinese
Alessandro Zanoli 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 dugout31 Aug 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Tommaso De Luca kept it short after the 2‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Vakoun Issouf Bayo
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
Squad31 Aug 2026
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Udinese are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.