The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Malek Ishuayed did not need any: 7.68, 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 Bellinzona this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Itaitinga 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 a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 19-year-old it feels ownership of. Malek Ishuayed 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.
The fixture the rest of the division is looking forward to more than either of the sides in it. Both know a win changes the season and a defeat does not end it, which is what makes it hard to play.
The board have answered with money instead of encouragement, which is the only answer a manager ever wants. Spending it well is now entirely his problem.
In brief
BoardroomWages eat 97% of everything Bellinzona earn
Keyan Varela 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Lucien Littbarski was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
9 combined actions and 7.06. 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.
“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; Bellinzona are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad26 Oct 2026
24 new faces, and Bellinzona 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Bellinzona can pretend not to have heard.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Francesco Lentini is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Keyan Varela 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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Bellinzona training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Itaitinga 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 Bellinzona know it.
Position 2, 18 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Bellinzona 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 Itaitinga was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Bellinzona told Felix Tsimba 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.
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.
“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 Bellinzona, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Andrés López 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.
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 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.
Domi Berlanga 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.
6 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Bellinzona training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Itaitinga 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.
Successful dribbles: 17. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
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.
There were 88 minutes on the clock and Étoile Carouge had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and Bellinzona did not stop to explain themselves.
5 away wins in a row. Travelling support is the truest kind, and this season it is being repaid in the only currency that counts.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Itaitinga 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 fixture the rest of the division is looking forward to more than either of the sides in it. Both know a win changes the season and a defeat does not end it, which is what makes it hard to play.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Nico Akanji has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Successful dribbles: 18. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Bellinzona training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lucien Littbarski 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 respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
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 Keyan Varela is on it.
“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.
“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 Bellinzona can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 29 signed and 22 gone
That is the business done at Bellinzona until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Bellinzona this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Itaitinga was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
23 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.
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 Vasilije Janjičić is on it.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Felix Tsimba did not need any: 7.79, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
The deal with Winterthur 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.
Domi Berlanga 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.
$120.0K was the most the club would pay and Zurich 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.
4 away wins in a row. Travelling support is the truest kind, and this season it is being repaid in the only currency that counts.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at Bellinzona training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Itaitinga 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.
A 2‑1 win over Rapperswil-Jona, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
A 1‑0 win over Thun, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Match19 Aug 2026
Andrés López wins it after the whistle should have gone
108 minutes played. Andrés López found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Thun went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Two goals and a mark of 8.89 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $122.4K — a club that wants Neil Volken enough to be asked twice.
Everything agreed with another club, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
One scored and one made, which is a different afternoon from scoring twice and an easier one to overlook. Marked 7.85, and involved in 2 of his side's goals.
Andrés López and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Itaitinga has just signed for Bellinzona, and for once the answer mattered.
The offer went to Luzern this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Bellinzona this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Itaitinga 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 Bellinzona are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
The 89th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and Domi Berlanga decided nobody was going anywhere. Wil had no time left to answer.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Ivann Strohbach is living that version at Bellinzona, and it tends to show in the first month.
Everything agreed with another club, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Domi Berlanga 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Lavdrim Hajrulahu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Bellinzona asked and St. Gallen 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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Simon Steffen has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Edimilson Steffen is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Haris Fassnacht 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 easiest signature of my career.” Alberto Trapero and Bellinzona agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Bellinzona training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alberto Trapero 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 Bellinzona this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Bellinzona have made the call to Servette. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
The dugout3 Aug 2026
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.” Admir Akanji chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.