Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Lecce can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
16 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.
Marked 7.22 on 11 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
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.
“I watch every Lecce game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Talavera runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 10 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Lecce is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Alan Lescano 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lecce this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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 am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Lecce, and 5 appearances in 17 say he has earned the hearing.
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 has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Lameck Banda signs something — a contract at Lecce or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Lecce. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Gaby Jean has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
In brief
The dugoutSaba Sazonov knocks on the manager's door
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Lecce 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 Lecce heard it as anything else.
Marked 8.32 — 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 watch every Lecce game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Forli runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The dugout4 Oct 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 2‑3 Michele Mariani left the room before anybody could ask which.
Alan Lescano 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.
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Lecce can tell you which week it ends in.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Lecce can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
“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 Lecce, and 1 appearances in 15 say he has earned the hearing.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Lecce has been clear about where Iván More stands, which is more than many ever get.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Lecce will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
Lecce interviewed the field and appointed the corridor: Michele Mariani keeps the job he had been doing in all but title. Sometimes the safest pair of hands is the one already holding the wheel.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Lecce is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. AS Roma have kept their man, and Lecce go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lecce this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Lecce heard it as anything else.
Lecce asked and Fiorentina said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Cittadella waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Lecce is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
Lecce close the window on a squad of their own making
12 in and 34 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 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 Lecce hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Alan Lescano wants continental football; whether Lecce can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
36 days since the seat came open, a list of names doing the rounds, and nobody has signed anything. Every week this drags on the shortlist gets shorter.
“I 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 Lecce know it.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Santiago Pierotti is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Lecce people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Lecce can pretend not to have heard.
Alan Lescano 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.
9 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Teun Koopmeiners 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.
5 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Lecce asked and Fiorentina said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Add another name to the list: Cittadella have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Saba Sazonov. The answer from Lecce has not changed — yet.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Mauro Farina has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Mario Zorzi has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Benevento waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Lecce is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lecce this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Lecce asked and Fiorentina 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 am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Lecce, and 0 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Lecce can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
8 days with the chair empty, a list of names that grows and shrinks by the day, and not one signature on anything. Every week that passes takes the best candidates off it.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Besart Abdurahimi and Lecce agree another 1 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad9 Aug 2027
19 new faces, and Lecce 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.
A new manager did not pick last season’s side and does not care what it looked like. Teun Koopmeiners has taken that personally, in the best sense, and Lecce are seeing a version of him the last regime had stopped seeing.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Ylber Ramadani had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
“Somebody has to pick the team on Saturday, and this week that is me.” An interim appointment with no promises attached, which is how most of them start.
“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 Lecce, and it is not being withdrawn.
Add another name to the list: Parma have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Marco Bleve. The answer from Lecce has not changed — yet.
Lecce asked and Genoa said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The bill for the sacking has arrived. Edoardo Armani leaves with $30.1K for the time left on his deal, and that money buys the club nothing it can put on the pitch.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Giugliano waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Lecce 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 Lecce can pretend not to have heard.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Jasper Samooja had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
The new man at Lecce has worked with Teun Koopmeiners before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
Lecce asked and Fiorentina 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 am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Lecce, and 0 appearances in 6 say he has earned the hearing.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Tiago Gabriel trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Lecce they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Add another name to the list: Cittadella have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Ylber Ramadani. The answer from Lecce has not changed — yet.
The new man at Lecce has worked with Teun Koopmeiners 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 Lecce, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
Jasper Samooja 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 Tiago Gabriel trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Lecce people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The phone has started ringing about Tiago Gabriel again, and this time the name on the line is Union Brescia. Lecce are listening politely and promising nothing.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Lecce can pretend not to have heard.
The new man at Lecce has worked with Teun Koopmeiners before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
Lecce asked and AC Milan said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
20 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Lecce 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 Lecce heard it as anything else.
Teun Koopmeiners 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 Lecce has worked with Teun Koopmeiners before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Fiorentina have kept their man, and Lecce go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
In brief
SquadMedon Berisha falls out with a teammate over standards
Ravenna have accepted the money. What Lecce do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Lecce have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Lecce can pretend not to have heard.
At 22 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Lecce is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Iván Azón 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 last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Lecce have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Lecce can pretend not to have heard.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Santiago Pierotti wants continental football; whether Lecce can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
At 18 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lecce this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Altamura waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Lecce 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 Lecce can pretend not to have heard.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
“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 Lecce hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Lecce have done the hard part with Carrarese, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at CSKA Sofia is saying, and nobody at Lecce is enjoying the guessing.
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $14.6M for Alan Lescano, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
Lecce and Argentinos Juniors have settled on $14.6M. 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 board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Edoardo Armani has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Lecce have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The name of Lassana Coulibaly has come up in conversations Lecce were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Olaf Gorter has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. AC Milan have kept their man, and Lecce go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. William Rashidi has agreed terms with Torres for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lecce this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad31 May 2027
Gaby Jean 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.
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.
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.
Position 17 on 34 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 15 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lecce this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
0‑3 to Monza, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Lecce will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
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.
4 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Lecce will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about 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 Lecce can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Lecce is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Successful dribbles: 17. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
“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 Lecce know it.
In brief
The dugoutKialonda Gaspar is still being punished for one mistake
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 8 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Lecce can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
17 appearances at Stoke City and the goals have stopped going in. Lecce lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Francesco Camarda has come out of that comparison in the side, and Lecce have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Lecce can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Lecce is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Lassana Coulibaly will call it something else in private.
Loan watch26 Apr 2027
Marco Bleve’s loan is measured in nothing happening
10 clean sheets from 15 appearances at Stoke City. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns him.
Pasquale Esposito was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
“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 Lecce, and it is not being withdrawn.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Willem Geubbels provided it, and the 8.56 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
1 for Teun Koopmeiners, marked 7.37, 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.
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Lecce and AS Roma in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Jasper Samooja and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Lecce, and 5 appearances in 36 say he has earned the hearing.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 3‑4, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Jamil Siebert
Loan watchMarco Bleve’s loan is measured in nothing happening
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Lecce can pretend not to have heard.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.97 for the rest of it.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Lecce they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Edoardo Armani after 1‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
In brief
Loan watchMarco Bleve’s loan is measured in nothing happening
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Tiago Gabriel is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Teun Koopmeiners 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. 11 actions, 6.74, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
The dugout5 Apr 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑2 Edoardo Armani left the room before anybody could ask which.
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 Wladimiro Falcone is on it.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Lecce they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Francesco Camarda is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Lecce told Lameck Banda something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Lassana Coulibaly 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 Corrie Ndaba is on it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Lecce know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Wladimiro Falcone’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Lecce needing him to play as if none of it matters.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Omri Gandelman has written the date down.
4 goals in 25 games at Südtirol — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Lecce updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each 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 Lecce 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 Lecce can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
“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 Lecce, and 5 appearances in 32 say he has earned the hearing.
The dugout22 Mar 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Edoardo Armani kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Lecce have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Lecce is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“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 Lecce know it.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Edoardo Armani after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
“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 Lecce, and it is not being withdrawn.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Lecce are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
He has had enough of the noise. Whether Lecce 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.
There was one mistake and it ended in the net. Defenders are judged on the worst thing they did rather than on the eighty-nine minutes either side of it, which is unfair and is also the job.
“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 Lecce, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Lecce they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“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 Lecce know it.
At 18 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lecce this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 dugout22 Feb 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Edoardo Armani kept it short after the 2‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
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 clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Lecce is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“I watch every Lecce game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Giana Erminio runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The ambition story running the other way, and the one nobody tells: a footballer asking for a smaller stage, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is very rarely reported as anything else.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Edoardo Armani kept it short after the 2‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Lecce people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Fiorentina have kept their man, and Lecce go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Corrie Ndaba 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 dugout8 Feb 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Edoardo Armani left the room before anybody could ask which.
Nobody at Lecce 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Lecce, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Lecce have lost him in all but the paperwork.
1 for Lassana Coulibaly, marked 7.84, 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.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Deadline passes with 0 signed and 4 gone
That is the business done at Lecce 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.
The offer from Guidonia Montecelio for Jasper Samooja 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 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Lecce they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Successful dribbles: 20. 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.
Inter go through and Lecce go home, 0‑4 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Cittadella waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Lecce is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The offer from Parma for Tiago Gabriel 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 terraces25 Jan 2027
A cup hiding at Inter leaves Lecce explaining themselves
0-4, and long before the end the away end had switched from encouragement to something considerably more pointed. Nobody rings a phone-in about losing narrowly.
1 for Teun Koopmeiners, marked 7.05, 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Lecce is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
0‑3 to Inter, 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.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Lecce have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Teun Koopmeiners is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. CSKA Sofia have kept their man, and Lecce go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Benevento waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Lecce is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Spezia had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
“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 Lecce, 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.” Lecce have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The phone has started ringing about Medon Berisha again, and this time the name on the line is Avellino. Lecce are listening politely and promising nothing.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Teun Koopmeiners was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Teun Koopmeiners was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lecce this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Successful dribbles: 15. 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 dugout28 Dec 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Ylber Ramadani's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Something was said to Corrie Ndaba and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Ylber Ramadani provided it, and the 8.30 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Corrie Ndaba 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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Lecce, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Teun Koopmeiners is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
At 18 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.
Successful dribbles: 19. 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Teun Koopmeiners 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 will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Edoardo Armani to a room that had heard them before.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Tiago Gabriel is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Nikola Štulić scored in the 88th minute, Como had already begun thinking about the journey home, and Lecce took the lot.
Two goals and a mark of 8.47 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
50 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
Lameck Banda is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
There was one mistake and it ended in the net. Defenders are judged on the worst thing they did rather than on the eighty-nine minutes either side of it, which is unfair and is also the job.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Edoardo Armani kept it short after the 2‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
In brief
SquadCorrie Ndaba falls out with a teammate over standards
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Teun Koopmeiners 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.
Bertram Skovgaard and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Every 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 Joël Monteiro is on it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Willem Geubbels signs something — a contract at Lecce or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“I watch every Lecce game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Giana Erminio runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
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 Wladimiro Falcone is on it.
Genoa next, and one man in the Lecce dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Léo Fajardo did not need any: 7.80, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lecce this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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.
At 19 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Medon Berisha wants continental football; whether Lecce can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
“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 Lecce hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
He 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 6.69, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑3 defeat, delivered by Edoardo Armani to a room that had heard them before.
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Lecce will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Teun Koopmeiners 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. Lecce told Teun Koopmeiners something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Kialonda Gaspar's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
“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.
1 error, one goal, and a night in front of the same three seconds. He will see it tonight, tomorrow and probably in February, and everybody who has played knows exactly which frame he keeps stopping on.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against AC Milan in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
7.89, 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.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Teun Koopmeiners scored, was marked 7.71, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Tiago Gabriel is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Lecce will quote 14 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 2‑3 defeat, delivered by Edoardo Armani to a room that had heard them before.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Corrie Ndaba was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
In brief
Looking aheadLecce take on the side everybody is chasing
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Teun Koopmeiners was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I watch every Lecce game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Giana Erminio runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Medon Berisha trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Antonino Gallo signs something — a contract at Lecce or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Torino next, and one man in the Lecce dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Lecce. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
In brief
The terracesThe Tiago Gabriel rumours reach the terraces
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Teun Koopmeiners is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
At 18 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.
8 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Wladimiro Falcone is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Edoardo Armani on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Francesco Camarda is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Corrie Ndaba was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Ali Dembélé’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Lecce needing him to play as if none of it matters.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Shots: 6. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
At 21 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Teun Koopmeiners was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Lameck Banda was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Edoardo Armani on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
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.
Three points for Lecce, 1‑0 the final word against Cagliari in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Riccardo Sottil was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.15. 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.
“I watch every Lecce game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Giana Erminio runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Edoardo Armani kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
14 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
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.
7 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Lecce, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Lecce close the window on a squad of their own making
7 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 Oumar Ngom to Yverdon has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Lecce with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Lecce will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
Squad7 Sep 2026
8 new faces, and Lecce 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Corrie Ndaba is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Teun Koopmeiners has moved up it.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Cagliari in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Lecce have lost him in all but the paperwork.
7.94, 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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Teun Koopmeiners was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
7 goals in one match, Nikola Štulić on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Lecce and Inter.
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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Paolo Villa has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
The offer from Winterthur for Joël Monteiro 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.
Lecce offered $300.0K; Como 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.
Saba Sazonov and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Corrie Ndaba falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Lecce will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Lecce people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The offer from Montpellier HSC for Lassana Coulibaly 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 $322.6K — a club that wants Edoardo Goldaniga enough to be asked twice.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Lecce heard it as anything else.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lecce this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
Squad6 new faces, and Lecce are still learning each other
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Lecce heard it as anything else.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Santiago Pierotti wants continental football; whether Lecce 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 Kialonda Gaspar was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.