The words a physio says slowly. 108 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.
Position 20 on 26 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
Cosenza had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Bologna, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
The chase for Domenico Lamberti ended with $150.0K changing hands and Cavese out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
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.
115 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Cosenza lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Cosenza can pretend not to have heard.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mateo Montenegro was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Cosenza asked and Hellas Verona said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Lorenzo Meazzi and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The words a physio says slowly. 122 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Cosenza can give him that is a question about the club, not 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 Cosenza this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
200 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
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.
130 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Cosenza lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Position 20 and 23 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
6 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Avellino were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Everybody at Cosenza saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 34 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cosenza this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Cosenza can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Steve Solvet will call it something else in private.
The club looked outside for a month, found nothing it preferred, and handed the job to the man who had been doing it anyway. He knows the building; now he has to prove he knows the rest.
Matteo Darmian 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 Baldovino Cimino was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
“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 Cosenza, and 4 appearances in 14 say he has earned the hearing.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Cosenza have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
Matteo Darmian 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.
Squad1 May 2028
Words at Cosenza training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mateo Montenegro 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 system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 9 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cosenza this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Pescara in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Aldo Florenzi signs something — a contract at Cosenza or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Cosenza can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Mateo Montenegro 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 Giorgio Tumbarello was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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 Cosenza, and 1 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
Something was said to Michele Emmausso and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
In brief
The dugoutMatteo Rizzo knocks on the manager’s door
Day 9 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.
“I did not go to Al-Shabab to sit and watch. I want to come back to Cosenza and fight for my place.” 4 appearances in 10 matches say the rest.
The dugout10 Apr 2028
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Gregorio Andreoli to a room that had heard them before.
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.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
“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. 7.82 at 38, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Cosenza have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The name of Alessio Raballo has come up in conversations Cosenza were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cosenza this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The bill for the sacking has arrived. Nicolò Barbieri leaves with $99.6K for the time left on his deal, and that money buys the club nothing it can put on the pitch.
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.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
6 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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Virtus Entella in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Aldo Florenzi signs something — a contract at Cosenza or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
In brief
The dugoutAndrea Cogoni knocks on the manager’s door
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cosenza this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
4 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Baldovino Cimino 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. Cosenza told Daniele Ghilardi something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
In brief
The dugoutThe view from the dugout
The dugoutThe manager has not finished forgetting Matteo Rizzo's mistake
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Cosenza people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Matías Pérez Acuña 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 Baldovino Cimino was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Cosenza can tell you which week it ends in.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Manuel Ricciardi, and the manager let it.
The dugout13 Mar 2028
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Nicolò Barbieri to a room that had heard them before.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Cosenza have lost him in all but the paperwork.
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.
Matías Pérez Acuña 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.
Successful dribbles: 16. 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.
Mateo Montenegro 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 Baldovino Cimino was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 0‑2, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
Squad28 Feb 2028
5 new faces, and Cosenza 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.
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.
In brief
The dugoutMatteo Rizzo asks for a word with the manager
12 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Parma were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Mateo Montenegro 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 Baldovino Cimino was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Felipe Esquivel. 2‑1 against Parma, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 12 combined actions and a mark of 7.05, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
At 19 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. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Mateo Montenegro wants continental football; whether Cosenza can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Cosenza can tell you which week it ends in.
Cosenza asked and Bologna 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 phone has started ringing about Borys Skraburski again, and this time the name on the line is Dinamo Makhachkala. Cosenza are listening politely and promising nothing.
11 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
The terraces7 Feb 2028
The mood at Cosenza has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 5 arrived, 3 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Matteo Darmian 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.
10 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Baldovino Cimino was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Cosenza have lost him in all but the paperwork.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Cosenza can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: AS Roma keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
The offer from Marek for Alessio Raballo 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.
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Cosenza have done the hard part with AS Roma, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Matías Pérez Acuña and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The phone has started ringing about Mattia Zaramella again, and this time the name on the line is Spartak 1918. Cosenza are listening politely and promising nothing.
100 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Cosenza can pretend not to have heard.
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 7.74 for the rest of it.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: AS Roma keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cosenza this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Cosenza asked and Spezia said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“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.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Words at Cosenza training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Matteo Zazza 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 nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Cosenza can pretend not to have heard.
6 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cosenza this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Manuel Ricciardi has his answer from Cosenza; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 5 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
The dugout27 Dec 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑3 defeat, delivered by Nicolò Barbieri to a room that had heard them before.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mattia Zaramella was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Cosenza have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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 Cosenza this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Cosenza can tell you which week it ends in.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Nicolò Barbieri after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Baldovino Cimino’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Cosenza needing him to play as if none of it matters.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Cosenza can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
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 music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
The dugout13 Dec 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑3 defeat, delivered by Nicolò Barbieri to a room that had heard them before.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mattia Zaramella was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Cosenza have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Matías Pérez Acuña 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 did not go to Cagliari to sit and watch. I want to come back to Cosenza and fight for my place.” 6 appearances in 13 matches say the rest.
The dugout6 Dec 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Nicolò Barbieri to a room that had heard them before.
Squad6 Dec 2027
Words at Cosenza training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mattia Zaramella is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Christos Kourfalidis is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
Matías Pérez Acuña 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.
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.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Nobody at Cosenza will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
The accounts are being read more closely than the results. Wages before ambition is the order of business now, and the manager has been told so.
The dugout29 Nov 2027
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.” Nicolò Barbieri chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Cosenza will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Valentín Moreno scored, was marked 7.98, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Valentín Moreno wants continental football; whether Cosenza can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Mateo Montenegro and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“Nobody 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.
Squad22 Nov 2027
Words at Cosenza training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mattia Zaramella 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.
5 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Something was said to Matteo Arena and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Mateo Montenegro 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.
Pescara will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Lorenzo Meazzi has pre-agreed a move to Cosenza, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
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 will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Cosenza, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Cosenza will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
0‑5 against Virtus Entella, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Matteo Rizzo: 1 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cosenza this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
He is 19 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
0‑4 to Cagliari, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Matteo Darmian was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Cosenza can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
“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.
Squad1 Nov 2027
Words at Cosenza training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mattia Zaramella 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 manager kept them in and said what needed saying. A response is expected on Saturday, and if it does not come the questions move upstairs.
The dugout1 Nov 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑4 Nicolò Barbieri left the room before anybody could ask which.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cosenza this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Involvement in 2 goals, from a player who spent the ninety minutes doing the thing a manager actually wants: being where the ball was going to end up. 7.98 beside his name.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
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.
Squad25 Oct 2027
5 new faces, and Cosenza 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.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
4 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cosenza 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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager’s verdict
The terracesEverybody has an opinion about Matteo Rizzo
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Cosenza can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Matías Pérez Acuña 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 Mattia Zaramella was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
Empoli next, and one man in the Cosenza dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Cosenza have no good answer.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Michele Emmausso signs something — a contract at Cosenza or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 9 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Matías Pérez Acuña and Cosenza agree another 2 years.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Words at Cosenza training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mattia Zaramella 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 is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Valentín Moreno wants continental football; whether Cosenza can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Cosenza know it.
Mateo Montenegro and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Cosenza told Baldovino Cimino something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
15 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
The dugout27 Sep 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 Nicolò Barbieri left the room before anybody could ask which.
Mateo Montenegro 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 Mattia Zaramella was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Parma in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Cosenza has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
1‑6 to Arezzo, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
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 7.54 for the rest of it.
The first defeat in 10 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Arezzo; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
Matteo Darmian 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Cosenza and Arezzo, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Baldovino Cimino was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Cosenza will try again when the window opens; Forli may not be selling by then.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 27 arrived, 9 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
The offer from Beroe for Borys Skraburski 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.
Matteo Darmian 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 offer went to Forli 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.
The accounts make uncomfortable reading. Wages first and ambition second is the order of business at Cosenza now.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Words at Cosenza training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Baldovino Cimino 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Lumezzane waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Cosenza is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Cosenza have done the hard part with Potenza, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Cosenza 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 Cosenza 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 Mattia Zaramella was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Cosenza can pretend not to have heard.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Cosenza have done the hard part with Genoa, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cosenza this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Senior shirt numbers handed to boys the coaches have known since they were twelve. Most will not make it and all of them have already done the hard part.
Cosenza asked and Torino said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mattia Zaramella was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Davide Brambilla is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Orazio Di Stefano 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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Mateo Montenegro wants continental football; whether Cosenza can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not 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 Cosenza this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Cosenza have gone to Gubbio with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Fiorentina have kept their man, and Cosenza go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Words at Cosenza training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mattia Zaramella 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 year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Cosenza would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Nobody at Cosenza 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.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Baldovino Cimino has written the date down.
“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 Cosenza hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Cosenza they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Cosenza have gone to Potenza with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cosenza this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Cosenza asked and Genoa said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mattia Zaramella was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Cosenza have made the call to Fiorentina. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
The fee is $840.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Torino drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Boards get told what they have done wrong for years and hear nothing on the days they get it right. This is one of those days: Zannetos Savva from Torino for $840.0K, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and Cosenza know which stage they are at.
Squad26 Jul 2027
11 new faces, and Cosenza 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 did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Cosenza will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
$12.2M is a serious amount of money and it does not play centre-forward. Everybody in the dressing room knows who used to be looked at when it went wrong.
Cosenza asked and Juventus said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
He is going to Udinese, the club has $12.2M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
Cosenza and Vis Pesaro have settled on $340.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Cosenza have done the hard part with Torino, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
The offer from Carrarese for Alessandro Arioli 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.
Nicolò Contiliano 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.
$110.0K was the most the club would pay and Cremonese 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.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Juventus is saying, and nobody at Cosenza is enjoying the guessing.
The bid was some way short and Cosenza did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Transfer targets12 Jul 2027
$160.0K settles it between the clubs for Nicolò Rota
Atalanta have accepted the money. What Cosenza do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
The deal with Atalanta is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
The phone has started ringing about Alessandro Arioli again, and this time the name on the line is Carrarese. Cosenza are listening politely and promising nothing.
Mathematically certain, and nobody in this town is going to bed early. Whatever else happened this season, it finishes a division above where it started.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Alessandro Arioli will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Cosenza the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Cosenza have gone to AC Milan with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Sofiane Achour and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Alessio Raballo is 20, and Cosenza have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Perugia waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Cosenza is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The offer went to Inter 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.
The offer went to Cremonese 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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Cosenza, and both men came out saying it was fine.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Aldo Florenzi signs something — a contract at Cosenza or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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 Filippo Palazzino is on it.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Paolo Dametto has written the date down.
Cosenza asked and Juventus said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The clubs have shaken hands with Genoa; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Mario Perlingieri is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
$110.0K was the most the club would pay and Cremonese 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.
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 Matteo Rizzo is on it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Cosenza know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Cosenza will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
“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 Cosenza, and it is not being withdrawn.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Cosenza have done the hard part with Inter, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
$110.0K on the table at Cremonese. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. AC Milan have kept their man, and Cosenza go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Mariano Coppola is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Valentino Spinelli is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The offer from Cagliari for Simone Mazzocchi 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Alessandro Arioli will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Cosenza the goodbyes have quietly begun.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Cosenza have done the hard part with Frosinone, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Michele Emmausso 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.
Mario Perlingieri and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Nobody at Cosenza 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.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Nobody at Cosenza 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.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Cosenza. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
The least glamorous thing a foreign signing ever does and the one that decides most of them. A player who can hear the shout behind him is a different footballer from one who cannot.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cosenza this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Germán Niz has written the date down.
In brief
The dugoutEd McJannet knocks on the manager’s door
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Cosenza is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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 Enrico Giannini is on it.
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at Cosenza the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
64 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Cosenza have had the benefit of it.
17 games, 4 goals, and a squad option that has arrived without a fee attached. The interesting question at Cosenza now is not whether he plays but who he displaces.
At 21 he was better than everybody his age in the division for four weeks running, which is harder than one good afternoon. Cosenza will try not to make too much of it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cosenza this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Michele Emmausso trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Nobody at Cosenza 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.
Nobody at Cosenza 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 Andrea Cogoni trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at Cosenza the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 64 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
A mark of 7.85 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.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Baldovino Cimino 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: Simone Mazzocchi. 2‑0 against Altamura, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 9 combined actions and a mark of 7.03, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
A mark of 8.12 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Alessandro Arioli will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Cosenza the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Mario Perlingieri and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
He is 21 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Paolo Dametto will call it something else in private.
The dugout12 Apr 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Nicolò Barbieri kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
58 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
Mario Perlingieri 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.
14 combined actions and 6.98. 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.
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.
“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 Cosenza know 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 Cosenza this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Cosenza know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Matteo Rizzo has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Cosenza. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Cosenza will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
8.28. 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.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
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.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Cosenza have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Cosenza is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Marked 8.52 — 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.
“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.
The dugout15 Mar 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Nicolò Barbieri kept it short after the 2‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Catania in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Sorrento kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Cosenza will be asked about the last half hour all week.
Germán Niz 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 8.01 — 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.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Cosenza pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Cosenza scored in the 90th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
Baldovino Cimino 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.
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Cosenza pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Nicolò Barbieri could afford to be generous.
Nobody at Cosenza 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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Cosenza has been clear about where Antonio D'Alena stands, which is more than many ever get.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 91. Potenza had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Germán Niz.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
The dugout22 Feb 2027
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.” Nicolò Barbieri chose the glass-half-full version of 2‑2; the supporters left with the other one.
A mark of 8.07 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Alessandro Arioli will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Cosenza the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Mario Perlingieri and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
He is 21 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Casarano spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
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.
Cosenza asked and Bologna 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 award goes to Simone Mazzocchi, and nobody around here is inclined to argue with the choice.
The dugout8 Feb 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Nicolò Barbieri to a room that had heard them before.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Simone Mazzocchi is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
“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.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Cosenza close the window on a squad of their own making
4 in and 0 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Matías Pérez 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 now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Cremonese have kept their man, and Cosenza go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Sassuolo have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
The dugout1 Feb 2027
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Nicolò Barbieri, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Ed McJannet
Cosenza asked and Empoli said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 0‑1, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
The dugout25 Jan 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Matteo Rizzo's mistake
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.
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Crotone kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Cosenza will be asked about the last half hour all week.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Cosenza have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Everything agreed with Virtus Entella, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Germán Niz 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Tiziano Ferrigno is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Valerio Colletti is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Mirko Guerra is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
39 points and nobody above them. The word is not being said around the ground yet, and it is being thought in every seat.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
A brace, and Aldo Florenzi takes the afternoon — 8.44
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Aldo Florenzi provided it, and the 8.44 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“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 Cosenza, and it is not being withdrawn.
The deal with Bologna 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.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
At 22 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Cosenza 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. Cosenza will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Matías Pérez Acuña 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Aldo Florenzi. 2‑1 against Picerno, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Baldovino Cimino was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Two goals and a mark of 8.38 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Marked 8.27 — 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.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words at Cosenza training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Baldovino Cimino 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 7.87 on 9 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Nicolò Barbieri on a 3‑1 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
1‑4 to Bari, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
8.10. 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Nicolò Barbieri after 1‑4, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Nobody at Cosenza 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.
3 saves does not settle the argument about whose fault it was, and the argument will run all week. Goalkeepers carry these scorelines whoever caused them.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mario Perlingieri provided it, and the 8.79 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Cosenza 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 Cosenza this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Words at Cosenza training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Baldovino Cimino 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 dugout14 Dec 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Nicolò Barbieri, on a 3‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Nobody at Cosenza is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
In brief
The terracesThe stands have heard the Aldo Florenzi talk too
Player ratingsAldo Florenzi beats them one at a time
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 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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Nicolò Barbieri after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
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 Abdoulie Ndow is on it.
Catania next, and the two sides the division is watching meet each other. Whoever wins will be told nothing is decided in the same breath as being congratulated.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Catania in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Cosenza know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cosenza this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Nicolò Barbieri kept it short after the 2‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Nobody at Cosenza will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cosenza 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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Cosenza told Paolo Dametto something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Cosenza will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Mario Perlingieri 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 young player of the month award goes to a 20-year-old at Cosenza who has looked like the finished article for four weekends running. The next four are the ones that decide whether he is.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Aldo Florenzi is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Nicolò Barbieri kept it short after the 2‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
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.
7 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
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.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Nicolò Barbieri could afford to be generous.
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 crueller way to lose a football match. Cosenza scored in the 91th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
6 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Aldo Florenzi. 3‑2 against Foggia, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Match17 Oct 2026
Another one collected away from home
3 on the bounce on the road for Cosenza. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
The words a physio says slowly. 29 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cosenza this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Oct 2026
15 new faces, and Cosenza 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.
36 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Cosenza lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Matías Pérez 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.
Four weeks in which nobody in the division did his job better. The award goes on a shelf and the player goes back into the side, which is the order Cosenza prefer.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cosenza this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Antonio Energe provided it, and the 8.75 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Mario Perlingieri 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.
Cosenza asked and Bologna said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 9 combined actions and a mark of 6.97, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Successful dribbles: 16. 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Nicolò Barbieri on a 2‑1 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
One weekend, judged against everybody else's. Antonio Energe has come out on top of it, and for most footballers a weekly award is the only silverware a career ever produces.
In brief
The dugoutThe plan did not have a place for Paolo Dametto
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Crvena Zvezda have kept their man, and Cosenza go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Monopoli spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
A performance of 8.18 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad14 Sep 2026
15 new faces, and Cosenza 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.
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Cosenza have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Mario Perlingieri’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Cosenza needing him to play as if none of it matters.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
“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 Cosenza, and it is not being withdrawn.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 6 arrived, 2 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Matías Pérez 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.
Cosenza asked and Napoli 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 manager has re-ordered his thinking and Alessandro Dalmazzi has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Cosenza can pretend not to have heard.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Nicolò Barbieri after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Crvena Zvezda have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Chances created: 10. Not on the scoresheet and not remotely anonymous — a passing performance that pulled a defence apart without leaving a mark on the column that gets read.
Every signing waits for it and every press conference asks about it until it comes. It has come, Cosenza have their man off the mark, and the second one is always easier.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $34.1K — a club that wants Davide Guglielmotti enough to be asked twice.
Senior shirt numbers handed to boys the coaches have known since they were twelve. Most will not make it and all of them have already done the hard part.
Cosenza asked and Cremonese said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Germán Niz 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 no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Luigi Landi 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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Manuel Rocca 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Mauro Romano 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 words a physio says slowly. 17 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.
Cosenza asked and Deportivo La Coruña said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Baldovino Cimino 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
14 new faces, and Cosenza 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.
Cosenza have made the call to Schalke 04. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Cosenza has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
26 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Cosenza lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Cosenza have lost him in all but the paperwork.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cosenza this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Cremonese have kept their man, and Cosenza go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Cosenza will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
Still no offer on the table, and Matteo Rizzo’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Spezia have kept their man, and Cosenza go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gianluca Clemente was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Cosenza have made the call to Deportivo La Coruña. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Cosenza, another week without a signature from Gianluca Clemente.