Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 32 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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.
Day 41 of the vacancy. Candidates have been priced, sounded out and quietly ruled out — and the caretaker’s win ratio is becoming an argument all by itself.
Marked 8.97 — 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Avellino will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Avellino hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Avellino will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Livio Milts will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Avellino the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Aug 2028
Marco Sala has improved at 29, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
“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; Avellino are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Avellino will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Armando Izzo 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.
At 26 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
5 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Cristiano Monteleone 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Valentino Bertolini 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Simone Cassano 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Renato Rizzo is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Avellino 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; Avellino are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Four paragraphs on the club website, none of them about football. The board thanked him, wished him well, and had the search under way before the page went up.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 71 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
“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.
Add another name to the list: Malmo FF have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Valerio Crespi. The answer from Avellino has not changed — yet.
Armando Izzo was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad7 Aug 2028
Tommaso Biasci has improved at 33, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Andrea Dorigo is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 78 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Avellino they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 85 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 26 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Gabriel Novaes wants continental football; whether Avellino can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 92 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The offer from Olimpia for Valerio Crespi 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 99 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 Avellino can pretend not to have heard.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 106 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 Avellino, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Avellino is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Jul 2028
Words at Avellino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Stefano Negro 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Gabriele Baldi is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Armando Izzo 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 19 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The fee is $3.8M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. AS Roma drove a hard bargain; time will say who won 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 Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Giugliano paid $76.0K and Avellino took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
The offer from Parma for Valerio Crespi 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Avellino will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Armando Izzo 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
SquadStefano Negro falls out with a teammate over standards
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.
“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 Avellino, and it is not being withdrawn.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Avellino will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Add another name to the list: Parma have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Valerio Crespi. The answer from Avellino has not changed — yet.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Avellino is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Tommaso Biasci was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad5 Jun 2028
Words at Avellino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dimitris Sounas 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Avellino know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Alessandro Berardi will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Avellino the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad22 May 2028
Words at Avellino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Stefano Negro 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.14 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Avellino is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad8 May 2028
Words at Avellino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dimitris Sounas 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.
At 23 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Armando Izzo was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.61, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad1 May 2028
Stefano Negro 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.
42 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.22 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Avellino is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Alessandro Fontanarosa and Avellino agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 Apr 2028
Words at Avellino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dimitris Sounas 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Tommaso Biasci. 1‑0 against Cesena, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Avellino interviewed the field and appointed the corridor: Franco Dalla Valle keeps the job he had been doing in all but title. Sometimes the safest pair of hands is the one already holding the wheel.
7 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Avellino is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
40 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.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Tommaso Biasci 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.
At 23 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.
A performance of 8.80 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad10 Apr 2028
Words at Avellino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Stefano Negro 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 an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.48 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Armando Izzo 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 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.
9 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Alessandro Berardi will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Avellino the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Tommaso Biasci 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.
Squad27 Mar 2028
Words at Avellino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dimitris Sounas 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 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.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.79 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Armando Izzo 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.
Squad20 Mar 2028
Stefano Negro 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 was one mistake and it ended in the net. Defenders are judged on the worst thing they did rather than on the eighty-nine minutes either side of it, which is unfair and is also the job.
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.
Simone Corazza arrives at 37 with nothing left to prove and plenty left to pass on. Legs are a young man's currency; knowing where to stand never ages.
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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad13 Mar 2028
Words at Avellino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dimitris Sounas 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.
12 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.
“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 Avellino, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
In brief
Player ratingsThe chances came and went for Valerio Crespi
Four paragraphs on the club website, none of them about football. The board thanked him, wished him well, and had the search under way before the page went up.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Avellino have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
“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 Avellino, and it is not being withdrawn.
“Somebody has to pick the team on Saturday, and this week that is me.” An interim appointment with no promises attached, which is how most of them start.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.72 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Sebastiano Nava is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.60 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Avellino they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Alessandro Berardi has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Tommaso Biasci 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.
22 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
A 1‑0 win over Sampdoria, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad28 Feb 2028
Words at Avellino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luca Palmiero 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Avellino have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Feb 2028
Words at Avellino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dimitris Sounas 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 error, one goal, and a night in front of the same three seconds. He will see it tonight, tomorrow and probably in February, and everybody who has played knows exactly which frame he keeps stopping on.
Shots: 14. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 28 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 28 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
21 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The name of Gabriel Novaes has come up in conversations Avellino were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
The unbeaten run reaches 6. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad31 Jan 2028
Words at Avellino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dimitris Sounas is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Player ratings31 Jan 2028
Valerio Crespi was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.23. 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 words a physio says slowly. 15 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.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.65 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Raffaele D'Auria has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Armando Izzo 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 name of Francesco Maisto has come up in conversations Avellino were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Player ratings24 Jan 2028
Gabriel Novaes was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.16. 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 words a physio says slowly. 22 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.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Cristian Pignatelli has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
At 23 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 12 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
30 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Avellino lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
32 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Avellino have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Avellino can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Armando Izzo 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.
8.49. 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 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.
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 3‑0 against Carrarese, and it could have been more.
Player ratings27 Dec 2027
A brace, and Lorenco Šimić takes the afternoon — 9.00
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Lorenco Šimić provided it, and the 9.00 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.59 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino 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 Cosimo Patierno, and the manager let it.
Squad27 Dec 2027
Words at Avellino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lorenco Šimić 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
0‑1 to Catanzaro, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad20 Dec 2027
Lorenco Šimić 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 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.
In brief
Player ratingsThe chances came and went for Valerio Crespi
Position 18 and 13 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.02 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
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 7.84 for the rest of it.
Armando Izzo 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.
“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.
Squad6 Dec 2027
Lorenco Šimić 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 afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 11 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.” Avellino have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 22 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Juve Stabia made Avellino work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings29 Nov 2027
Valerio Crespi was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.32. 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Avellino have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 28 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
27 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Valerio Crespi 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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.91 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Avellino and Monza, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
A performance of 8.64 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad15 Nov 2027
Words at Avellino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luca Palmiero 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.
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.
Armando Izzo 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 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.
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 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 36 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.19 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Armando Izzo 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.
“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.
Squad25 Oct 2027
Luca Palmiero 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.
Nobody's fault and entirely his: a goal that goes into the book with his name against it and nothing about it intended. Avellino deserved better, and so did he.
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.
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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Armando Izzo 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.
Marked 8.45 — 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.
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.
Shots: 9. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Avellino have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Tommaso Biasci 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 keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Avellino, another week without a signature from Valerio Crespi.
Armando Izzo 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Tommaso Biasci has improved at 32, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
18 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Avellino lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad13 Sep 2027
Mandela Keita has improved at 25, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
11 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
25 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Avellino lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino 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: Dimitris Sounas. 2‑1 against Südtirol, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Nobody's fault and entirely his: a goal that goes into the book with his name against it and nothing about it intended. Avellino deserved better, and so did he.
34 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Avellino lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.66 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Armando Izzo 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.
At 25 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
The words a physio says slowly. 42 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Avellino can pretend not to have heard.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad23 Aug 2027
Tommaso Biasci has improved at 32, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Boardroom23 Aug 2027
5 academy players handed senior numbers at Avellino
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 15 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Valerio Crespi is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 26 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Words at Avellino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dimitris Sounas 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Avellino know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Avellino 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 Avellino can pretend not to have heard.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Armando Izzo 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 words a physio says slowly. 15 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Avellino can pretend not to have heard.
23 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Avellino lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Avellino have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
The words a physio says slowly. 31 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 board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Gianluca Longo has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
“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 Avellino, and it is not being withdrawn.
Armando Izzo 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.
34 games, 4 goals, and a squad option that has arrived without a fee attached. The interesting question at Avellino now is not whether he plays but who he displaces.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Lorenco Šimić 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.
5 arrivals, an average age nobody would call a squad, and a set of parents being shown around a building their sons will spend more time in than at home. The scouting has already happened; today is only the paperwork.
39 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Avellino lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Luca D'Andrea is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Tommaso Biasci 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.
At 26 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Tommaso Biasci signs something — a contract at Avellino or anywhere else — this column belongs to 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 Avellino can pretend not to have heard.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Raffaele Romano is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Armando Izzo 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.
Torres paid $84.0K and Avellino took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Avellino have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Avellino will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
The fee is $480.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Benevento drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Gabriele Baldi is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Cagliari paid $140.0K and Avellino took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
“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 Avellino, and 10 appearances in 41 say he has earned the hearing.
What was a back-page story is now a matter for the terraces, and the terraces do not do nuance. Avellino would like it dealt with before it becomes the only question anybody asks.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Gianluca Longo 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 Avellino can pretend not to have heard.
The chase for Gabriele Baldi ended with $870.0K changing hands and AlbinoLeffe out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Armando Izzo was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Lorenco Šimić 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.
13 goals in 33 games at Union Brescia — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Avellino updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Virtus Verona will make the call about Domenico Pio Donato this week. Avellino have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Gennaro Tutino is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Armando Izzo loses the manager who believed in him
A change in the dugout is not one story, it is twenty-five of them. This is Armando Izzo's: he was somebody's player, and now he has to be somebody else's, starting from nothing.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody at Avellino 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 Dimitris Sounas trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Tommaso Biasci signs something — a contract at Avellino or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“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 Avellino, and it is not being withdrawn.
Niccolò Pisilli 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.
Squad24 May 2027
Lorenco Šimić 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.
Jayden Addai, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.67
A mark of 7.67 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A performance of 8.81 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad17 May 2027
Words at Avellino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lorenco Šimić 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.
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
“I watch every Avellino game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Siracusa runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Jayden Addai did not need any: 9.10, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Niccolò Pisilli 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.
Squad10 May 2027
At 21, Jayden Addai is already the best thing here
An average of 7.07 in a first team he is several years too young for. Avellino have something, and by now the whole division has noticed.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Gabriel Novaes wants continental football; whether Avellino can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Luca D'Andrea 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.
20 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Tommaso Biasci 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.
“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.
Squad3 May 2027
Words at Avellino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lorenco Šimić 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.
Marked 8.34 — 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.
The award is a small thing with a heavy meaning: for four weeks nobody in this division did his job better. Avellino have the trophy on a shelf and the player in the side.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Tommaso Biasci signs something — a contract at Avellino or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
In brief
Boardroom$467.6K taken back off the Avellino table
Patrick Enrici had done his part in building a 2-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and Cesena were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
“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 Avellino, and it is not being withdrawn.
Two goals and a mark of 8.42 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Jayden Addai did not need any: 7.70, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Niccolò Pisilli 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.
Marked 9.93 — 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.
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Lorenco Šimić 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.95 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Niccolò Pisilli 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.
8.63. 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.
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.47, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Luca Palmiero 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.
Empoli held the lead for 1 minutes, which is not long enough to enjoy it. Avellino answered before the celebration had properly finished, and the shape of the afternoon changed with it.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Jayden Addai did not need any: 8.37, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Jayden Addai 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.
Marked 8.70 — 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.
28 appearances at Union Brescia and the goals keep coming. Avellino are watching this more closely than the borrowing club would like.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Words at Avellino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lorenco Šimić 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.
Niccolò Pisilli 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Filippo Reale is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
“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.
Player ratings5 Apr 2027
Lorenco Šimić was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.68. 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.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Lorenco Šimić falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Player ratings5 Apr 2027
Gennaro Tutino was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.29. 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.
7 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
“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 Avellino, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Monza left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Words at Avellino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luca Palmiero 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.
Shots: 10. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
Niccolò Pisilli 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 am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Avellino, and 8 appearances in 29 say he has earned the hearing.
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.33 at 36, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Tommaso Biasci was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.36, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Words at Avellino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lorenco Šimić 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 13 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Niccolò Pisilli 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.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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; Avellino are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
0‑1 to Sampdoria, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Words at Avellino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lorenco Šimić 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.
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.
Player ratings22 Feb 2027
Jayden Addai, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.27
A mark of 8.27 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.
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.
Niccolò Pisilli 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.
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.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Lorenco Šimić 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 Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
A season-long look at somebody else’s player: Jayden Addai arrives from Como with something to prove and a return ticket in the drawer. Good loans make everybody richer; this one starts Saturday.
Niccolò Pisilli 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.
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Lorenco Šimić 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 is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.14 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
10 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Words at Avellino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lorenco Šimić is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
Dimitris Sounas was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.24. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
9 goals in 21 games at Union Brescia — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Avellino updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Two goals and a mark of 8.80 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.08 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Avellino have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Audace Cerignola pay $95.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
27 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
27 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
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.
24 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
9 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Words at Avellino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lorenco Šimić 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.
25 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Armando Izzo 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 Jan 2027
Lorenco Šimić falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The 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.
5 goals in 17 games at Catania — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Avellino updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Filippo Reale is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Juan Diego Castillo 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.
Armando Izzo was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
There is a 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.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Lorenco Šimić 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.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.17 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Tommaso Biasci 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.
Three points for Avellino, 2‑0 the final word against Catanzaro in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Words at Avellino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lorenco Šimić 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 24 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
23 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Tommaso Biasci 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Gennaro Tutino. 1‑0 against Empoli, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words at Avellino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lorenco Šimić 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.
Armando Izzo was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
There is a 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.
0‑1 to Juve Stabia, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Lorenco Šimić 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 the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by 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 Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Armando Izzo 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 37 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
“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 Avellino, and it is not being withdrawn.
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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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; Avellino are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Marked 9.02 — 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.
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Pescara kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Avellino will be asked about the last half hour all week.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.15 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Gabriel Novaes wants continental football; whether Avellino can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
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.
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.83, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Mattia Destro 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 not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Avellino told Juan Diego Castillo something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
24 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Tommaso Biasci 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at Avellino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lorenco Šimić 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 18 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Squad26 Oct 2026
5 new faces, and Avellino are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Juan Diego Castillo is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avellino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Lorenco Šimić 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.