Tasos Douvikas was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
He is 22 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Willem Geubbels has his answer from Fiorentina; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
8 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Fiorentina they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
Boardroom22 Oct 2029
Nobody left the Fiorentina dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
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.
He has had enough of the noise. Whether Fiorentina can be a quieter place for him, or whether the only cure is a move somewhere the phone-ins are gentler, is a question for the next few months.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Fiorentina this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Fiorentina know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
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 Gino Infantino is on it.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against AS Roma in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
His past walked in ahead of him. Players who have been where he has been get a hearing in a dressing room before they have earned one, and he has it for as long as his form does.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Fiorentina has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Fiorentina have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Amir Richardson scored, was marked 7.58, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 15 combined actions and a mark of 6.90, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Diego Porcel 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 training ground goes quiet for a fortnight. 5 men have gone off to be somebody else’s players, and the manager is left with the ones nobody has called.
“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 Fiorentina, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
David De Gea 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.
0‑1 to Empoli, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout1 Oct 2029
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Mariano Mancini left the room before anybody could ask which.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Gino Infantino is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
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 be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.
In brief
Player ratingsLuís Henrique beats them one at a time
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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Fiorentina they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Fiorentina can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
The new man at Fiorentina has worked with Kian Fitz-Jim before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
Dimitris Nikolaou 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Fiorentina have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Fiorentina asked and Lazio said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Fiorentina this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The new man at Fiorentina has worked with Kian Fitz-Jim before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Fiorentina, and 3 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
6 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Fiorentina, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Fiorentina people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“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 Fiorentina hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Tasos Douvikas 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 new man at Fiorentina has worked with Kian Fitz-Jim before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Fiorentina are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Fiorentina, and both men came out saying it was fine.
In brief
The dugoutGino Infantino has become a man the manager trusts
The clubs have shaken hands with Napoli; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
“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 Fiorentina, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fiorentina offered $16.3M; AS Roma said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Recruitment departments spend most of their lives being politely ignored. Not this time: 58 per cent confidence on the report, a signature on the contract, and Daniel Dappa through the door at Fiorentina.
Boardroom3 Sep 2029
Fiorentina close the window on a squad of their own making
29 in and 27 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.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Daniel Dappa is living that version at Fiorentina, and it tends to show in the first month.
David De Gea 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 clubs have shaken hands with Hapoel Beer Sheva; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
The offer went to AS Roma 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.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Mallorca is saying, and nobody at Fiorentina is enjoying the guessing.
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.
Marin Pongračić 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.
Fiorentina 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Valerio Fiorini is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Fiorentina can pretend not to have heard.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Fiorentina have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Marin Pongračić 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 new man at Fiorentina has worked with Kian Fitz-Jim before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Fiorentina can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
13 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.
“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 Fiorentina, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
David De Gea 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 new man at Fiorentina has worked with Kian Fitz-Jim before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Fiorentina know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The offer went to Spezia 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.
“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 Fiorentina, and it is not being withdrawn.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Fiorentina heard it as anything else.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Fiorentina 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. AC Milan have kept their man, and Fiorentina go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The new man at Fiorentina has worked with Kian Fitz-Jim before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Kian Fitz-Jim has, at Fiorentina, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Fiorentina can pretend not to have heard.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Fiorentina can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Juventus have kept their man, and Fiorentina go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The new man at Fiorentina has worked with Kian Fitz-Jim before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Fiorentina people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Fiorentina asked and Inter said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
63 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad23 Jul 2029
13 new faces, and Fiorentina 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Fiorentina know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Giovanni Fabbian was one of the reasons people came, and $28.2M does not replace that by itself.
David De Gea 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. Inter have kept their man, and Fiorentina go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Riccardo Sottil trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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 Daniel Mosquera is on it.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Fiorentina have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Las Palmas have kept their man, and Fiorentina go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
AC Milan paid $45.5M and Fiorentina took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Fiorentina can pretend not to have heard.
Marco Brescianini has gone, the accounts have $45.5M in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Fiorentina this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Marcello Rinaldi and Fiorentina agree another 3 years.
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.
“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 Fiorentina, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Fiorentina people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Fiorentina asked and Pescara 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 chase for Tommaso Di Marco ended with $4.0M changing hands and Torino out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Diego Porcel is living that version at Fiorentina, and it tends to show in the first month.
Marin Pongračić 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 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.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Andrés Cuenca is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
“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 Fiorentina, and it is not being withdrawn.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Leganés have kept their man, and Fiorentina go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Transfer targets25 Jun 2029
$3.0M settles it between the clubs for Diego Porcel
AS Roma have accepted the money. What Fiorentina do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Alexey Batrakov was one of the reasons people came, and $67.7M does not replace that by itself.
Add another name to the list: AC Milan have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Pietro Comuzzo. The answer from Fiorentina has not changed — yet.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Fiorentina this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Fiorentina can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
In brief
Squad13 new faces, and Fiorentina are still learning each other
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Matteo Dagasso
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Fiorentina have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Andrés Cuenca has just signed for Fiorentina, and for once the answer mattered.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Simon Sohm was one of the reasons people came, and $21.2M does not replace that by itself.
Nobody at the club will say out loud who this signing is for, which is how you know exactly who it is for. Noel Törnqvist has been brought in to take a shirt somebody is still wearing.
Fiorentina 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.
Napoli have accepted the money. What Fiorentina do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
The offer from AC Milan for Moise Kean 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Fiorentina can pretend not to have heard.
The most awkward business a club does is signing tomorrow's answer while today's is still in the building. Nikola Štulić comes from Virtus Entella for exactly that purpose, and the handover will not be discussed publicly by anybody.
$5.5M was the most the club would pay and Inter 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.
Fiorentina have gone to AS Roma 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Nikola Štulić is living that version at Fiorentina, and it tends to show in the first month.
21 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Fiorentina lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Done, and with games to spare. Next season has floodlit nights against clubs from other countries in it, and the accounts have a line they did not have last year.
“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 Fiorentina, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer went to Virtus Entella 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.
Fiorentina and Union Brescia have settled on $2.3M. 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.
Fiorentina have gone to Mantova 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Fiorentina have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The name of Moise Kean has come up in conversations Fiorentina were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Fiorentina heard it as anything else.
28 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Fiorentina lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Qualification is secured, and next season the big floodlit nights are continental ones. For the players it is a stage; for the accounts it is a lifeline; for the supporters it is passports.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Fiorentina can pretend not to have heard.
Position 6 on 62 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.
David De Gea 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.
26 appearances and 5 goals away from here, and a player the manager did not have in August. Loans are sent out hoping for exactly this and most of them do not deliver it.
37 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Fiorentina lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Alexey Batrakov scored in the 87th minute, Udinese had already begun thinking about the journey home, and Fiorentina took the lot.
19 goals in 35 games at Padova — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Fiorentina updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
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.
45 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Fiorentina lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“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 Fiorentina hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
17 goals in 34 games at Padova — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Fiorentina updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Riccardo Sottil 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.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Tijjani Noslin will call it something else in private.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager’s verdict
The dugoutKian Fitz-Jim has become a man the manager trusts
The words a physio says slowly. 52 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 an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.05 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Fiorentina heard it as anything else.
David De Gea 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.
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.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Marin Pongračić has his answer from Fiorentina; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
The words a physio says slowly. 61 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 an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.84 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Samuel Giovane scored, was marked 7.83, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑1, Mariano Mancini could afford to be generous.
Nobody at Fiorentina 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.
68 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Fiorentina lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Fiorentina can pretend not to have heard.
Two goals and a mark of 8.29 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Fiorentina 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.
Marked 8.03 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Fiorentina can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 10 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Marin Pongračić 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 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.
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
The dugout16 Apr 2029
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Mariano Mancini was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Fiorentina dressing room was either.
Nobody at Fiorentina 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 Fiorentina 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Fiorentina have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
David De Gea 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.
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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑5, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Matteo Dagasso and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Marin Pongračić trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Fiorentina know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Fiorentina would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Inter in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
“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 Fiorentina, and it is not being withdrawn.
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 7.94 for the rest of it.
Riccardo Sottil was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
He 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Giovanni Fabbian. 1‑0 against Lazio, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
5 call-ups is a compliment to the squad and a headache for the man running it. He will get them back in a fortnight, tired, in various states of repair.
Squad26 Mar 2029
Words at Fiorentina training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Salim Diakité is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Majkol Luka and Fiorentina agree another 4 years.
The dugout26 Mar 2029
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Mariano Mancini, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
15 goals in 27 games at Padova — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Fiorentina updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Salim Diakité was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
7 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.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Luca Marianucci will call it something else in private.
The dugout19 Mar 2029
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Mariano Mancini kept it short after the 2‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Fiorentina told Matteo Politano something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Fiorentina have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“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 Fiorentina hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Santiago Espíndola 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 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.
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 Kian Fitz-Jim is on it.
In brief
SquadWords at Fiorentina training over how hard people work
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Fiorentina heard it as anything else.
Alexey Batrakov 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.
13 goals in 25 games at Padova — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Fiorentina updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Robin Gosens, and the manager let it.
Squad5 Mar 2029
Words at Fiorentina training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Salim Diakité 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 needed Tijjani Noslin to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Hellas Verona, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Going 2 down does something to a side, and what it usually does is finish them. Not here. Fiorentina rebuilt the afternoon goal by goal, and Sassuolo had no answer to any 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 Fiorentina this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 8.05 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Santiago Espíndola wants continental football; whether Fiorentina can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad26 Feb 2029
Salim Diakité falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The ambition story running backwards, and the one nobody tells: a footballer who wants a smaller ground, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is rarely reported as anything else.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Fiorentina can pretend not to have heard.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Daniel Mosquera wants continental football; whether Fiorentina can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Fiorentina can pretend not to have heard.
Fiorentina offered $3.1M; AS Roma said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.96 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Palermo have kept their man, and Fiorentina go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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.
Empoli made Fiorentina work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings12 Feb 2029
Alexey Batrakov was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.06. 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.
“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 Fiorentina, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fiorentina and AS Roma have settled on $3.1M. 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.
The deal that would have taken Pietro Comuzzo to Inter has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Fiorentina with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
The chase for Samuel Giovane ended with $2.3M changing hands and Catanzaro out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Boardroom5 Feb 2029
Deadline passes with 6 signed and 7 gone
That is the business done at Fiorentina until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Fiorentina will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Juventus paid $26.2M and Fiorentina took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Fiorentina can pretend not to have heard.
The offer went to Juventus 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 Foggia 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 deal with Catanzaro 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.
Álex Valle has gone, the accounts have $26.2M in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 23 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Fiorentina people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Fiorentina and Danubio have settled on $4.7M. 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.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Sandro Kulenović had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Fiorentina have gone to AS Roma with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The fee is $2.0M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Palermo drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Inter is saying, and nobody at Fiorentina is enjoying the guessing.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 32 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Monopoli waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Fiorentina is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Every dressing room knows how to read a signing like this one. Willem Geubbels is not here to sit and wait indefinitely, and the man whose place he has been bought to take knows it better than anyone.
Fiorentina have gone to Juventus with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The offer from Cambridge United for Marin Pongračić 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.
Fiorentina offered $3.1M; AS Roma said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Willem Geubbels is living that version at Fiorentina, and it tends to show in the first month.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Fiorentina this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Fiorentina will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Fiorentina is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Fiorentina have gone to AS Roma 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.
$2.0M on the table at Palermo. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
The offer from WSG Tirol for Sandro Kulenović 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.
“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 Fiorentina hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $2.2M — a club that wants Salim Diakité enough to be asked twice.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Fiorentina have done the hard part with Genoa, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Fiorentina will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Fiorentina, and it is not being withdrawn.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Fiorentina heard it as anything else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Fiorentina 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.
A 2‑0 win over Pisa, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings1 Jan 2029
Alexey Batrakov was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.44. 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.
Marked 8.03 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
The ambition story running backwards, and the one nobody tells: a footballer who wants a smaller ground, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is rarely reported as anything else.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Fiorentina will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
Roberto Piccoli 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 dugout25 Dec 2028
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Mariano Mancini left the room before anybody could ask which.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Fiorentina will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
David De Gea 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.
Successful dribbles: 22. 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.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Fiorentina can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 75 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Fiorentina can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Fiorentina is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Fiorentina this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A point taken on 88 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Fiorentina told Tijjani Noslin 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. Fiorentina will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“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 Fiorentina hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Marin Pongračić 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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Mariano Mancini after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Fiorentina, and both men came out saying it was fine.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Fiorentina will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about 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.
Every touch weighed, every quote parsed, every mistake replayed. Some players grow into that; some are quietly finished by it; nobody knows which until afterwards.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Majkol Luka was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Fiorentina will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
David De Gea 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 Majkol Luka was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Moise Kean signs something — a contract at Fiorentina or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Lazio next, and one man in the Fiorentina dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Mateo Pellegrino may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Fiorentina they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Fiorentina can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
8 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
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.
A performance of 8.02 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
The dugout13 Nov 2028
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.” Mariano Mancini, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Marco Brescianini signs something — a contract at Fiorentina or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Giovanni Fabbian scored, was marked 7.71, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
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.
Roberto Piccoli 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.
Player ratings6 Nov 2028
Cyril Ngonge was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.20. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Fiorentina have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
Something was said to Álex Valle and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Fiorentina, another week without a signature from Tijjani Noslin.
A 1‑1 draw with Hellas Verona leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
The dugout30 Oct 2028
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Mariano Mancini was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Fiorentina dressing room was either.
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 7.80 for the rest of it.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Fiorentina can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 2‑2 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Moise Kean signs something — a contract at Fiorentina or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Fiorentina they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Mateo Pellegrino wants continental football; whether Fiorentina can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
The ambition story running backwards, and the one nobody tells: a footballer who wants a smaller ground, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is rarely reported as anything else.
Squad16 Oct 2028
Majkol Luka falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Nobody at Fiorentina will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Fiorentina know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Fiorentina, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Fiorentina heard it as anything else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Fiorentina this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Alexey Batrakov. 1‑0 against Atalanta, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings9 Oct 2028
Alexey Batrakov was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.04. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
The training ground goes quiet for a fortnight. 4 men have gone off to be somebody else’s players, and the manager is left with the ones nobody has called.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Mariano Mancini on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Squad9 Oct 2028
Words at Fiorentina training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Majkol Luka 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.
Nobody at Fiorentina 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.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Marco Brescianini scored, was marked 7.92, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Fiorentina can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
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.
The dugout25 Sep 2028
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Mariano Mancini kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Majkol Luka was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Fiorentina they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Fiorentina this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑0, Mariano Mancini could afford to be generous.
Fiorentina ran out of time with TSG Hoffenheim. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Fiorentina can pretend not to have heard.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Young Boys moved on, Simon Sohm reports back to Fiorentina, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
“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 Fiorentina hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
$57.0K was the most the club would pay and Torino 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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Fiorentina has been clear about where Riccardo Sottil stands, which is more than many ever get.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Fiorentina have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The deal with TSG Hoffenheim 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.
He arrived for a fee and leaves for a fraction of it. $3.1M of what Fiorentina paid for Valentin Antov is money the club will not see again, and the boardroom will be asked about it for two seasons.
“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 Fiorentina, and it is not being withdrawn.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 20 arrived, 31 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Fiorentina heard it as anything else.
The deal that would have taken Maat Daniel Caprini to Monopoli has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Fiorentina with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Marco Brescianini 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. CSKA Moscow have kept their man, and Fiorentina go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
$14.6M on the table at TSG Hoffenheim. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Fiorentina people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The offer from Napoli for Matías Moreno 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Fiorentina 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 Robin Gosens was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The offer from Südtirol for Amir Richardson 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. Álex Valle will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Fiorentina the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Fiorentina offered $2.5M; Torino said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Alexey Batrakov 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.
$53.0K on the table at Torino. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
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.
Add another name to the list: Napoli have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Matías Moreno. The answer from Fiorentina has not changed — yet.
Squad21 Aug 2028
Robin Gosens falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Umberto Bosco is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
In brief
BoardroomA promise the Fiorentina board did not keep
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Lucas Beltrán was one of the reasons people came, and $52.0M does not replace that by itself.
Fiorentina have gone to Torino 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.
$53.0K was the most the club would pay and Torino 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.
Fiorentina 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.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Fiorentina have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“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 Fiorentina, and it is not being withdrawn.
The name of Lucas Beltrán has come up in conversations Fiorentina 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 Fiorentina this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Fiorentina have gone to Torino 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 is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Fiorentina can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Robin Gosens was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Fiorentina are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Fiorentina can pretend not to have heard.
The phone has started ringing about Amir Richardson again, and this time the name on the line is Südtirol. Fiorentina are listening politely and promising nothing.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Daniel Mosquera is living that version at Fiorentina, and it tends to show in the first month.
“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 Fiorentina know it.
Fiorentina asked and Al-Nassr said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad31 Jul 2028
Words at Fiorentina training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Robin Gosens 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.
In brief
The dugoutSimon Sohm asks for a word with the manager
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Fiorentina can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Fiorentina they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Spezia have kept their man, and Fiorentina go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
David De Gea 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 offer went to Torino 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 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Luca Marianucci was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad24 Jul 2028
12 new faces, and Fiorentina 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.
“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 Fiorentina, and it is not being withdrawn.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Südtirol had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Pisa have kept their man, and Fiorentina go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The offer from OGC Nice for Lucas Beltrán 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.
Marco Brescianini 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 interest is real enough to have reached print. Fiorentina have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad17 Jul 2028
Words at Fiorentina training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Robin Gosens 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.
Fiorentina asked and Como said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Juventus paid $16.4M and Fiorentina took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Fiorentina, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Fiorentina this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Sandro Kulenović has, at Fiorentina, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Robin Gosens was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Torino have accepted the money. What Fiorentina do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Vicenza waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Fiorentina is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Fiorentina can pretend not to have heard.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Fiorentina heard it as anything else.
The offer from Sambenedettese for Antonín Barák was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $9.7M — a club that wants Luca Moro enough to be asked twice.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Álex Valle will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Fiorentina the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Fiorentina can pretend not to have heard.
David De Gea 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 name of Amir Richardson has come up in conversations Fiorentina were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad26 Jun 2028
Words at Fiorentina training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Robin Gosens 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.
11 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.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Fiorentina will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
$12.6M was the most the club would pay and Como 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Vis Pesaro waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Fiorentina is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Atalanta paid $15.1M and Fiorentina took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
The offer from Cremonese for Tijjani Noslin 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.
Recruitment departments spend most of their lives being politely ignored. Not this time: 58 per cent confidence on the report, a signature on the contract, and Alexey Batrakov through the door at Fiorentina.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Kian Fitz-Jim has, at Fiorentina, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Alexey Batrakov was the name on every phone-in, and the club has gone and signed him for $28.9M. For one week the board can do no wrong, which is a week most boards never get.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Fiorentina have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The offer went to Galatasaray 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.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Bari had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
He is going to Corinthians, the club has $32.3M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Ebrima Darboe has just signed for Fiorentina, and for once the answer mattered.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Fiorentina this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The offer from Juventus for Tasos Douvikas 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.
Fiorentina asked and Pescara said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Fiorentina can pretend not to have heard.
The deal with Bari is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Fiorentina heard it as anything else.
The name of Álex Valle has come up in conversations Fiorentina were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
David De Gea 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 never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Álex Valle commits to Fiorentina for another 5 years.
Squad5 Jun 2028
Words at Fiorentina training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Albert Guðmundsson 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.
“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 Fiorentina, and it is not being withdrawn.
0‑3 to Napoli, 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.
Position 9 on 55 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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Cyril Ngonge wants continental football; whether Fiorentina can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Albert Guðmundsson was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
16 appearances and 10 goals away from here, and a player the manager did not have in August. Loans are sent out hoping for exactly this and most of them do not deliver it.
Boardroom29 May 2028
Nobody left the Fiorentina dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
“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 Fiorentina, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
Tijjani Noslin and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Viery has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Marked 7.63. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
The dugout22 May 2028
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.” Mariano Mancini, on a 2‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
“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 Fiorentina, and it is not being withdrawn.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Albert Guðmundsson was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
30 appearances at Reggiana and the goals have stopped going in. Fiorentina lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Fiorentina can pretend not to have heard.
David De Gea was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Fiorentina can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Fiorentina are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
David De Gea 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.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 13 actions, 7.04, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Fiorentina are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
It will be explained as a change for the team and it may even be one. Nobody who has worn one believes that, and neither does the man who has just had it taken away.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Fiorentina 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.
100 for the club now, each one filed in somebody’s memory with a date and a scoreline. Numbers like this are what supporters argue about in twenty years.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Fiorentina, and both men came out saying it was fine.
It needed Moise Kean to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Como, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout24 Apr 2028
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Mariano Mancini chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
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 Mateo Pellegrino is on it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Fiorentina can pretend not to have heard.
Lucas Beltrán 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.
7 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and AC Milan were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Squad17 Apr 2028
Words at Fiorentina training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Albert Guðmundsson 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.
Squad17 Apr 2028
Getting past David De Gea has become the hardest job in the division
14 clean sheets and counting. Forwards used to back themselves here; now they shoot early, shoot wide, and look for somebody to blame.
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 10 combined actions and a mark of 6.88, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
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.
7.63, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
“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 Fiorentina hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Matías Moreno and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
9 goals in 10 games at Frosinone — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Fiorentina updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
“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 Fiorentina, and it is not being withdrawn.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Fiorentina have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Fiorentina heard it as anything else.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Cyril Ngonge wants continental football; whether Fiorentina can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Albert Guðmundsson was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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 Fiorentina, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
Squad27 Mar 2028
Words at Fiorentina training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Albert Guðmundsson is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Fiorentina this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
7 goals in 8 games at Frosinone — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Fiorentina updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Nobody at Fiorentina 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Fiorentina 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 Fiorentina this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad20 Mar 2028
Getting past David De Gea has become the hardest job in the division
14 clean sheets and counting. Forwards used to back themselves here; now they shoot early, shoot wide, and look for somebody to blame.
With 5 players away on international duty the sessions are small and the manager can actually hear himself. It is the one break in the season, and it never quite feels like one.
11 shut-outs in 27 games. A goalkeeper’s loan is judged on the afternoons when nothing happened at all, and Luca Lezzerini has been having a lot of them.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Tijjani Noslin will call it something else in private.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Fiorentina can pretend not to have heard.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Fiorentina have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“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 Fiorentina hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
David De Gea 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.
Squad13 Mar 2028
Words at Fiorentina training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Albert Guðmundsson 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 not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Fiorentina told Tasos Douvikas something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
1 for Matías Moreno, marked 7.24, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Fiorentina heard it as anything else.
Tasos Douvikas 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.
6 goals in one match, Flavio Russo on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Fiorentina and AS Roma.
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 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Fiorentina have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Fiorentina can pretend not to have heard.
Lucas Beltrán 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.
24 appearances at Reggiana and the goals have stopped going in. Fiorentina lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
7.63, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Fiorentina had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
Squad28 Feb 2028
Words at Fiorentina training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sebastian Otoa 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 dugout28 Feb 2028
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Mariano Mancini chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
Two goals and a mark of 8.43 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
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.
Fiorentina asked and Udinese said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Fiorentina can pretend not to have heard.
The deal that would have taken Tommaso Martinelli to Torino has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Fiorentina with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Squad14 Feb 2028
Words at Fiorentina training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Albert Guðmundsson 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.
Minute 90, against Cesena, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 4 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
Matías Moreno 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.
Fiorentina asked and Udinese said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Fiorentina can pretend not to have heard.
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.
Boardroom7 Feb 2028
Fiorentina close the window on a squad of their own making
9 in and 8 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.
The deal that would have taken Beto to Lazio has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Fiorentina with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Flavio Russo has, at Fiorentina, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Fiorentina have gone to Torino with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The 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 clubs have shaken hands with Palermo; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
“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 Fiorentina, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Lazio waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Fiorentina is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Padova have kept their man, and Fiorentina go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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.
15 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Fiorentina lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Fiorentina offered $17.8M; AS Roma said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
“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 Fiorentina, and it is not being withdrawn.
The fee is $1.6M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Venezia drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Kian Fitz-Jim is living that version at Fiorentina, and it tends to show in the first month.
24 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Fiorentina lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Fiorentina can pretend not to have heard.
The offer went to AS Roma 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.
Tasos Douvikas 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.
33 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Fiorentina lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Tommaso Rubino had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Two goals and a mark of 8.49 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The fee is $3.7M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Napoli drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.80 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
The offer from Modena for Roberto Piccoli was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
The offer went to Palermo 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.
Fiorentina have gone to Napoli with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The offer went to Palermo 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.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
The name of Tommaso Rubino has come up in conversations Fiorentina were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Mateo Pellegrino wants continental football; whether Fiorentina can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad3 Jan 2028
Robin Gosens falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Fiorentina can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Matías Moreno and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Tasos Douvikas trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Roberto Piccoli obliged against Reggiana. 2‑1 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Fiorentina.
“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 Fiorentina, and it is not being withdrawn.
6 goals in one match, Moise Kean on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Fiorentina and Bologna.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to David De Gea, and the manager let it.
Squad20 Dec 2027
Robin Gosens falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
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.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Defensive actions: 20, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Squad13 Dec 2027
Words at Fiorentina training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Robin Gosens is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Moise Kean. 1‑0 against Como, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 8.10 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Every 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 David De Gea is on it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Fiorentina can pretend not to have heard.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Giovanni Fabbian scored, was marked 7.46, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
David De Gea and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Mariano Mancini after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.