What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Ascoli can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Ascoli have done the hard part with Bologna, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Ascoli are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad6 Aug 2029
Words at Ascoli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Augusto Bando 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.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Dalil Adel Hassen Khodja is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Ascoli have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“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 Ascoli know it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Augusto Bando was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Jacopo Di Pierdomenico 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Augusto Bando trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Ascoli will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
The deal with Lecce is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Ascoli can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Squad23 Jul 2029
Words at Ascoli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Augusto Bando 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.
Ascoli asked and Como 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 easiest signature of my career.” Jacopo Di Pierdomenico and Ascoli agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Jacopo Di Pierdomenico 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.
“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.
Squad16 Jul 2029
Augusto Bando 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.
Ascoli asked and Palermo said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
8 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Ascoli have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The offer from Trento for Augusto Bando 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.
“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 Ascoli, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Bologna is saying, and nobody at Ascoli is enjoying the guessing.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Augusto Bando was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Ascoli asked and Como said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ascoli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Fotios Tsimikas has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ascoli can pretend not to have heard.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Augusto Bando was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Ascoli asked and Lecce said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ascoli can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Lecce keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Augusto Bando was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Ascoli asked and Lazio said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Jacopo Di Pierdomenico 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.
The chase for Francesco Bonardi ended with $240.0K changing hands and Cosenza out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Squad18 Jun 2029
Augusto Bando 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. AC Milan have kept their man, and Ascoli go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ascoli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
8 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 ambition story running the other way, and the one nobody tells: a footballer asking for a smaller stage, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is very rarely reported as anything else.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Benevento waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Ascoli is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 39 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
The clubs have shaken hands with Lecco; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
The deal with Lecce is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
4 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Luca Lo Scalzo has left for Pisa in a $370.0K deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
Squad11 Jun 2029
Augusto Bando 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.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
“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 Ascoli, and it is not being withdrawn.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Ascoli have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“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 Ascoli know it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Augusto Bando was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Tommaso Milanese has his answer from Ascoli; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Ascoli will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Ascoli are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Augusto Bando was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Fotios Tsimikas after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Ascoli will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad21 May 2029
Warren Bondo 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Ascoli can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
“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.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Cremonese? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Ascoli, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Ascoli will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 14 combined actions and a mark of 7.14, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Squad14 May 2029
Augusto Bando 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Ascoli can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
The dugout14 May 2029
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Fotios Tsimikas, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Something was said to Nicolás Salinas and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 45 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Danilo Luís is living that version at Ascoli, and it tends to show in the first month.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Warren Bondo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Christian Sanjiau and Ascoli agree another 4 years.
The dugout7 May 2029
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Fotios Tsimikas to a room that had heard them before.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 52 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ascoli can pretend not to have heard.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Augusto Bando was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
The dugout30 Apr 2029
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑3 Fotios Tsimikas left the room before anybody could ask which.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Ascoli will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Francesco Forte’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Ascoli needing him to play as if none of it matters.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Ascoli will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 8 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Augusto Bando was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He is 21 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Felice D'Amico. 1‑0 against Parma, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Jacopo Di Pierdomenico 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.
In brief
The dugoutThe view from the dugout
The dugoutAugusto Bando knocks on the manager’s door
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 66 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“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 Ascoli, and it is not being withdrawn.
7 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Squad16 Apr 2029
Augusto Bando 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.
Jacopo Di Pierdomenico 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 73 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
6 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Warren Bondo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Ascoli can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Raffaele Maria Di Costanzo 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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Ascoli told Francesco Forte something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 80 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“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 Ascoli, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad2 Apr 2029
Warren Bondo 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Ascoli can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Ascoli, another week without a signature from Don Bolsius.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Ascoli told Felice D'Amico something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Gabriele Candido 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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Sampdoria in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Ascoli will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 5 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Marked 6.76 on 14 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Ascoli are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Augusto Bando was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Ascoli will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“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 Ascoli, and it is not being withdrawn.
4 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.
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Ascoli can tell you which week it ends in.
Squad19 Mar 2029
Warren Bondo 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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Ascoli are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Ascoli will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Warren Bondo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Ascoli can tell you which week it ends in.
Raffaele Maria Di Costanzo 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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 9 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Squad5 Mar 2029
Augusto Bando 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ascoli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Ascoli, another week without a signature from Don Bolsius.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Jacopo Di Pierdomenico has come out of that comparison in the side, and Ascoli have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Ascoli told Manuel Alagna something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Ascoli, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The dugout5 Mar 2029
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Fotios Tsimikas was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Ascoli dressing room was either.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Ascoli have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad26 Feb 2029
Words at Ascoli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Warren Bondo 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.
Jacopo Di Pierdomenico 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Ascoli can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Warren Bondo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Ascoli asked and Mantova said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
8.19. 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.
Defensive actions: 17. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
The dugout19 Feb 2029
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.” Fotios Tsimikas kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Reggiana moved on, Francesco Forte reports back to Ascoli, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
“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 Ascoli, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad12 Feb 2029
Augusto Bando 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Catanzaro have kept their man, and Ascoli go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Gabriele Candido 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.
The dugout12 Feb 2029
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Fotios Tsimikas, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
In brief
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Nicolás Salinas
Ascoli close the window on a squad of their own making
2 in and 1 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Reggiana will make the call about Francesco Forte this week. Ascoli have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
Squad5 Feb 2029
Warren Bondo 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.
Ascoli asked and Pisa said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Filippo Lorenzini 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 system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
43 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Ascoli lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Ascoli is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Ascoli have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The fee is $850.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Renate drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Everything agreed with Frosinone, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Squad29 Jan 2029
Warren Bondo 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.
“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 Ascoli know it.
Ascoli asked and Parma said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
6 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.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Francesco Forte has agreed terms with Modena for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Ascoli asked and Trento said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Ascoli can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
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.
Half the programme played, position 13, 21 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
The offer from Reggiana for Francesco Forte 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.
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad15 Jan 2029
Words at Ascoli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Warren Bondo 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Ascoli can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ascoli can pretend not to have heard.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Ascoli have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The offer from Genoa for Augusto Bando 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.
The phone has started ringing about Francesco Forte again, and this time the name on the line is Reggiana. Ascoli are listening politely and promising nothing.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Lecce keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Felice D'Amico and Ascoli agree another 4 years.
Squad8 Jan 2029
Words at Ascoli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Warren Bondo 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.
“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.
Squad1 Jan 2029
Words at Ascoli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abdoul Guiebré 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.
Matías Sánchez 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.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 11 actions, 6.89, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Ascoli are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Something was said to Francesco Forte and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Warren Bondo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ascoli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A 1‑1 draw with Empoli leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
The dugout25 Dec 2028
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Fotios Tsimikas chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
Words at Ascoli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Warren Bondo 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.
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.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
The 86th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and Tommaso Milanese decided nobody was going anywhere. Padova had no time left to answer.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
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.
Filippo Lorenzini 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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Francesco Forte’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Ascoli needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Ascoli have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad4 Dec 2028
Warren Bondo 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ascoli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout4 Dec 2028
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 Fotios Tsimikas left the room before anybody could ask which.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Tommaso Milanese signs something — a contract at Ascoli or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Up for the corner, and Warren Bondo delivers — 7.80
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Warren Bondo scored, was marked 7.80, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Squad27 Nov 2028
Words at Ascoli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Warren Bondo 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Ascoli can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
He is 22 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Jacopo Di Pierdomenico 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.
Every club in football 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 somebody has tried it.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Ascoli are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Don Bolsius trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Abdoul Guiebré’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Ascoli needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Ascoli. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
4 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.
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Ascoli can tell you which week it ends in.
Squad13 Nov 2028
Words at Ascoli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Warren Bondo 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.
“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 Ascoli know it.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Ascoli has been clear about where Francesco Forte stands, which is more than many ever get.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Jacopo Di Pierdomenico and Ascoli agree another 5 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Raffaele Maria Di Costanzo 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.
0‑2 against Atalanta, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Squad6 Nov 2028
Words at Ascoli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Warren Bondo 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.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout6 Nov 2028
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Fotios Tsimikas to a room that had heard them before.
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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 9 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Ascoli have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
Matías Sánchez 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.
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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Fotios Tsimikas after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Warren Bondo 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Tommaso Milanese. 2‑0 against Benevento, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Filippo Lorenzini 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Fotios Tsimikas on a 2‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Tommaso Milanese’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Ascoli needing him to play as if none of it matters.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Ascoli, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Words at Ascoli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Warren Bondo 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.
Raffaele Maria Di Costanzo 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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Benevento in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Ascoli. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Ascoli that is a harder question to answer.
20 graduates, from a department now rated 9 out of 20. Nothing about the academy appears in a result, and nothing about the club’s future exists without it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Abdoul Guiebré was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
The dugout9 Oct 2028
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑3 Fotios Tsimikas left the room before anybody could ask which.
Words at Ascoli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Warren Bondo 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.
Matías Sánchez 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Fotios Tsimikas after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
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.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Augusto Bando is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Ascoli, and both men came out saying it was fine.
In brief
Looking aheadAscoli take on the side everybody is chasing
“I have supported clubs like this one. I know what a bad Saturday feels like here.” The new man starts with nothing behind him and everything in front of him.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Jacopo Di Pierdomenico did not need any: 7.91, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Abdoul Guiebré was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
At 21 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.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 11 combined actions and a mark of 7.05, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
The first defeat in 4 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Pisa; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
Two goals and a mark of 8.34 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Bruno Scorza is living that version at Ascoli, and it tends to show in the first month.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Ascoli will quote 15 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Ascoli and Mantova, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Ascoli can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
In brief
SquadWords at Ascoli training over how hard people work
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Francesco Forte reports back to Ascoli with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Abdoul Guiebré 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 Sep 2028
Warren Bondo 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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Ascoli are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Leyton Orient have kept their man, and Ascoli go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Every long career reaches the week the player starts thinking about the last one. He would like it to be at the club that first put him on a pitch, and Ascoli now know that too.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 17 arrived, 11 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad4 Sep 2028
Warren Bondo 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.
6 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Renate were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
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.
8 days since the seat came open, a list of names doing the rounds, and nobody has signed anything. Every week this drags on the shortlist gets shorter.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Reggiana have kept their man, and Ascoli go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ascoli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Don Bolsius. 2‑0 against Renate, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Salernitana will make the call about Francesco Forte this week. Ascoli have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
“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 Ascoli, and it is not being withdrawn.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Gabriele Gori reports back to Ascoli with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
“Somebody picks the team on Saturday. This week it is me, and that is as far as I have thought.” No promises were made in either direction, which is how these usually begin.
Senior shirt numbers handed to boys the coaches have known since they were twelve. Most will not make it and all of them have already done the hard part.
Squad21 Aug 2028
Warren Bondo 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Juve Stabia have kept their man, and Ascoli go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Mattia Catalano has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Ascoli people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“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 Ascoli, and it is not being withdrawn.
Everything agreed with Leyton Orient, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Warren Bondo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Riccardo Bruno has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
The clubs have shaken hands with AlbinoLeffe; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Ascoli have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad7 Aug 2028
Words at Ascoli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abdoul Guiebré 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Fiorentina have kept their man, and Ascoli go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Ascoli can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
The words a physio says slowly. 20 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.
The offer from Catanzaro for Gabriele Gori 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.
Virtus Entella paid $450.0K and Ascoli took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Ascoli asked and Lazio said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“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 Ascoli know it.
Squad31 Jul 2028
Words at Ascoli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Franco Castorani 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.
Gabriele Candido 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.
27 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ascoli lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Ascoli have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Ascoli had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Torino, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Squad24 Jul 2028
Words at Ascoli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abdoul Guiebré 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.
Ascoli asked and Catanzaro said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Filippo Lorenzini 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.
In brief
Transfer targetsA loan move for Giacomo Parigi is in the works
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Giorgio Galli
35 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Ascoli lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
“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 Ascoli, and it is not being withdrawn.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Ascoli are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Abdoul Guiebré was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Juve Stabia have kept their man, and Ascoli go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
43 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ascoli lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 Ascoli, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer from Südtirol for Francesco Forte 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.
Everyone has stopped pretending: AlbinoLeffe will make the call about Gabriele Gori this week. Ascoli have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Ascoli can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Augusto Bando was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Fiorentina have kept their man, and Ascoli go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The words a physio says slowly. 51 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.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Ascoli can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ascoli can pretend not to have heard.
The deal with AC Milan is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ascoli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
$6.3M is a serious amount of money and it does not play centre-forward. Everybody in the dressing room knows who used to be looked at when it went wrong.
58 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ascoli lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 Ascoli, and it is not being withdrawn.
He is going to Atalanta, the club has $6.3M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Bologna keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Abdoul Guiebré was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Torres have kept their man, and Ascoli go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Cristian Ibáñez 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.
65 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Ascoli lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of 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 Ascoli can pretend not to have heard.
The phone has started ringing about Federico Gattoni again, and this time the name on the line is Atalanta. Ascoli are listening politely and promising nothing.
Ascoli asked and Atalanta said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Matías Sánchez 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.
Nobody at Ascoli 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 words a physio says slowly. 73 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.
“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 Ascoli, and it is not being withdrawn.
The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 31 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
The offer from Carrarese for Gabriele Gori 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.
6 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.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Napoli is saying, and nobody at Ascoli is enjoying the guessing.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 4 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
The words a physio says slowly. 80 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.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Ascoli can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
5 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.
Federico Gattoni 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 chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Venezia have kept their man, and Ascoli go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
87 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ascoli lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
4 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.
Federico Gattoni 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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
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 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ascoli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Ascoli pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Matteo Raffaelli was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout22 May 2028
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Riccardo Bruno was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Ascoli dressing room was either.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
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.
102 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Ascoli lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
8 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Player ratings15 May 2028
Giacomo De Pieri, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.70
A mark of 7.70 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Ascoli are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
It needed Giacomo De Pieri to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Juve Stabia, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
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 Abdoul Guiebré is on it.
109 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ascoli 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ascoli can pretend not to have heard.
Federico Gattoni 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Francesco Galuppini and Ascoli agree another 2 years.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Ascoli are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The words a physio says slowly. 118 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.
“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 Ascoli, and it is not being withdrawn.
Federico Gattoni 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.
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Gabriele Gori in the middle of it, and AlbinoLeffe unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
Matías Sánchez 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Giacomo De Pieri 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.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Ascoli pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
The dugout24 Apr 2028
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.” Riccardo Bruno kept it short after the 3‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Ascoli, and both men came out saying it was fine.
11 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.
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.
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.
Padova next, and one man in the Ascoli dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ascoli can pretend not to have heard.
Position 18 and 23 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.
Federico Gattoni 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.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
6 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
In brief
The dugoutThe team sheet said everything about Felice D'Amico
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ascoli can pretend not to have heard.
Cristian Ibáñez 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ascoli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Ascoli told Giacomo De Pieri something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Daniele Ghilardi’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Ascoli needing him to play as if none of it matters.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and David Spinelli trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at Ascoli the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
8 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.
8 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Ascoli can tell you which week it ends in.
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.
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The dugout20 Mar 2028
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Riccardo Bruno left the room before anybody could ask which.
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.
In brief
MarketRok Bržan returns from a loan that taught him nothing
7 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Federico Gattoni 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Ascoli can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 34 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Ascoli is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
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.
6 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
“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 Ascoli know it.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Ascoli, and 0 appearances in 27 say he has earned the hearing.
Filippo Lorenzini 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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Mirco Moretti has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
In brief
The dugoutGabriele Gori asks for a word with the manager
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Nicolás Salinas
The terracesEverybody has an opinion about Samuele Vitale
5 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Riccardo Bruno after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ascoli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Ascoli, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Ascoli are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
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.
4 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
15 combined actions and 6.82. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 11 combined actions and a mark of 6.79, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
$26.0K was the most the club would pay and Gubbio were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Ascoli can tell you which week it ends in.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ascoli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Matteo Malafronte and Ascoli agree another 5 years.
The dugout14 Feb 2028
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Riccardo Bruno to a room that had heard them before.
5 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Ascoli have done the hard part with Arzignano, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Boardroom7 Feb 2028
Ascoli close the window on a squad of their own making
5 in and 2 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Federico Gattoni 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.
$72.0K was the most the club would pay and Sampdoria were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
11 combined actions and 6.83. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ascoli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
$72.0K on the table at Sampdoria. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Ascoli have gone to Gubbio with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Hellas Verona have kept their man, and Ascoli go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
David Spinelli is 19, and Ascoli have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Riccardo Bruno after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
“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 Ascoli, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at AC Milan is saying, and nobody at Ascoli is enjoying the guessing.
It had gone 6 games. The players did not celebrate like men who had won a match; they celebrated like men who had been let out of something.
Squad24 Jan 2028
Words at Ascoli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abdoul Guiebré 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.
Ascoli asked and Sampdoria said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Position 13, 22 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
$250.0K on the table at Napoli. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Ascoli asked and Pro Vercelli said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad17 Jan 2028
Words at Ascoli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Augusto Bando 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Tommaso Milanese trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ascoli can pretend not to have heard.
5 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.
Ascoli asked and Carpi said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Ascoli are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Abdoul Guiebré was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Ascoli has been clear about where Francesco Forte stands, which is more than many ever get.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Ascoli told Matías Sánchez something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
4 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.
“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 Ascoli know it.
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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Ascoli, and 0 appearances in 18 say he has earned the hearing.
Pergolettese have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.15 for the rest of it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ascoli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 8.29 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Every club in football 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 somebody has tried it.
“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.
Squad27 Dec 2027
Augusto Bando 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.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 2‑2, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
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.
Federico Gattoni and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad20 Dec 2027
Words at Ascoli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abdoul Guiebré 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.
“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.
The dugout20 Dec 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Riccardo Bruno to a room that had heard them before.
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.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
1 for Matías Sánchez, marked 7.67, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ascoli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Simone Corazza, and the manager let it.
The dugout13 Dec 2027
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Riccardo Bruno, on a 2‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Nobody at Ascoli 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Samuele Vitale trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Ascoli have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.87 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Enrico Oviszach is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
7.91, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Ascoli had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
Squad6 Dec 2027
Words at Ascoli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Augusto Bando 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.
1‑4 against Parma, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Squad29 Nov 2027
Words at Ascoli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abdoul Guiebré 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.
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.
10 combined actions and 6.89. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Abdoul Guiebré was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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.
The dugout22 Nov 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑3 defeat, delivered by Riccardo Bruno to a room that had heard them before.
Nobody at Ascoli 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.” Matteo Raffaelli has his answer from Ascoli; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Parma next, and one man in the Ascoli dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Tommaso Milanese signs something — a contract at Ascoli or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
In brief
Player ratingsOff the bench and decisive: Simone Corazza
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Ascoli has been clear about where Enrico Oviszach stands, which is more than many ever get.
Squad15 Nov 2027
Augusto Bando 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.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Ascoli, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Reggiana next, and one man in the Ascoli dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Ascoli has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
The 86th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and Gabriele Gori decided nobody was going anywhere. Sampdoria had no time left to answer.
Two goals and a mark of 8.74 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Ascoli can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Squad8 Nov 2027
Words at Ascoli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abdoul Guiebré 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Jacopo Di Pierdomenico 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.
Federico Gattoni 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.
“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 Ascoli know it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Abdoul Guiebré was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I watch every Ascoli game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Padova runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
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 dugout1 Nov 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Riccardo Bruno to a room that had heard them before.
In brief
The dugoutSamuele Vitale asks for a word with the manager
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Tommaso Milanese provided it, and the 8.31 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Ascoli and Catania, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Augusto Bando was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
8.02. 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.
The dugout25 Oct 2027
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Riccardo Bruno, on a 4‑2 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 90th minute. Palermo will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Squad18 Oct 2027
Words at Ascoli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abdoul Guiebré 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.
Matías Sánchez 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.
Marked 7.59. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
The dugout18 Oct 2027
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.” Riccardo Bruno kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Abdoul Guiebré was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody at Ascoli 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Ascoli know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Ascoli, and both men came out saying it was fine.
What was a back-page story is now a matter for the terraces, and the terraces do not do nuance. Ascoli would like it dealt with before it becomes the only question anybody asks.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Augusto Bando 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.
Somebody from Torino has seen every one of Samuele Vitale’s last few games. Nobody travels that far that often out of curiosity, and everybody at Ascoli knows it.
Next up on the road: Palermo, position 6. The supporters who go will talk about it all week and the ones who do not will check their phones at ten to five.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Francesco Galuppini commits to Ascoli for another 2 years.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Augusto Bando 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.
Every club in football 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 somebody has tried it.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Ascoli, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Giorgio Galli obliged against Ospitaletto. 3‑2 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Ascoli.
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 86th, and Ospitaletto spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.00, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings27 Sep 2027
Luca Lo Scalzo, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.28
A mark of 8.28 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
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.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 33 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
4 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.
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 chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Matías Sánchez 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.
Mantova left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout20 Sep 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Riccardo Bruno left the room before anybody could ask which.
“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 Ascoli, and it is not being withdrawn.
Federico Gattoni 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.
0‑1 to Südtirol, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad13 Sep 2027
Augusto Bando 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.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Ascoli are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.