The offer from Vicenza for Nicola Profeta 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.
Cosenza 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.
“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.
Boardroom1 Sep 2036
Lecce close the window on a squad of their own making
22 in and 12 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 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.
Lecce 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.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Louis Birkhahn. 2‑0 against Monza, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Juventus have kept their man, and Lecce go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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. Simone Alberti is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Mauro Lombardi 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. Alfonso Greco 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. Matteo Montanari 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 deal with Pisa 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.
Jerónimo Gutiérrez was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
“I have 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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Éwil Murillo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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.
In brief
The dugoutLukas Talen has become a man the manager trusts
$880.0K settles it between the clubs for Sonosi Daldum
Como 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.
“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 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 manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Vladimir Krejci has his answer from Lecce; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
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.
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.
“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.
Máximo Oses 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.
Lecce 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Angelo Antonio Di Palma 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 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.
2 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Lecce could ask drops and the wages Sidy Ndongo can ask rise.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Lecce have done the hard part with Como, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Máximo Oses 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.
Lecce 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Éwil Murillo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Louis Birkhahn trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
“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 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.
Squad21 Jul 2036
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.
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 4, 73 points, and a run-in that decides whether next season has Thursday nights in it. Nobody is calling it a race yet, which is what people say during one.
“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.
Lecce and Cesena have settled on $250.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
Jerónimo Gutiérrez 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 Angelo Antonio Di Palma was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Lecce have done the hard part with Cosenza, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Lecce, another week without a signature from Jerónimo Gutiérrez.
Signed today, seen by nobody for years, and one of them may one day be the reason the club exists. That is the whole of the argument for an academy, and it is a good one.
“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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Wellington Phoenix waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Lecce is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The clubs have shaken hands with Como; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Juventus 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. Jerónimo Gutiérrez is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“I have 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.
The clubs have shaken hands with Inter; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Jerónimo Gutiérrez 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.
Lecce asked and Atalanta said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Perugia will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Michelangelo Conti has pre-agreed a move to Lecce, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Angelo Antonio Di Palma 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.
“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.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Cosenza have kept their man, and Lecce go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Vincenzo Troise is living that version at Lecce, and it tends to show in the first month.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Lecce has been clear about where Louis Birkhahn stands, which is more than many ever get.
0‑3 to Pisa, 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Jerónimo Gutiérrez is living that version at Lecce, and it tends to show in the first month.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Lecce have done the hard part with Cosenza, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
The offer went to Como 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.
Máximo Oses 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.
“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.
Position 3, 73 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
The offer went to Cremonese this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Crotone spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
Two sides from the top of the table, one afternoon, and a month of talk decided in ninety minutes. Lecce will not use the word title this week and will not stop thinking it.
Marked 8.31 — 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.
7.48, 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.
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.
Braian Tolaba scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑2 to Virtus Entella, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Squad26 May 2036
Éwil Murillo 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 dugout26 May 2036
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Pierre Charpentier to a room that had heard them before.
3 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.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Joaquín Lavega. 2‑0 against Catanzaro, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 8.36 — 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.
“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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Danilo Bellucci 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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Virtus Entella in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
“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.
Two goals and a mark of 9.28 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Thulani Dala. 4‑3 against Como, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Lecce and Como in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Danilo Bellucci was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Louis Birkhahn.
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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 20 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Joaquín Lavega. 3‑1 against Empoli, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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. 12 actions, 7.90, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
Player ratings5 May 2036
Gerardo Serra was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.63. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Sidy Ndongo, and the manager let it.
Squad5 May 2036
Éwil Murillo 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Lecce will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Cesare Lanza will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lecce the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Danilo Bellucci is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Lecce know it.
The dugout28 Apr 2036
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 Pierre Charpentier left the room before anybody could ask which.
8 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
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 Lukas Talen is on it.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 34 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Thulani Dala has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑0, Pierre Charpentier could afford to be generous.
“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.
“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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Éwil Murillo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Filip Persson has his answer from Lecce; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
The first defeat in 5 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Lecco; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Danilo Bellucci 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 Hugo Bueno something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Four weeks in which nobody in the division did his job better. The award goes on a shelf and the player goes back into the side, which is the order Lecce prefer.
“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.
In brief
SquadA place in the month's best eleven for Hugo Bueno
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.
Something was said to Thulani Dala and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Lecco in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
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.
5 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Lecce could ask drops and the wages Thulani Dala can ask rise.
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.
5 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.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Louis Birkhahn will call it something else in private.
5 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 22 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Francesco Tarantino has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Gianmarco Costa has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Claudio Bianco has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Luciano Cipriani 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.
52 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Player ratings10 Mar 2036
A brace, and Gerardo Serra takes the afternoon — 9.18
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Gerardo Serra provided it, and the 9.18 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Lecce will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
3 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Danilo Bellucci was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Lecce will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“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.
“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 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Cesare Lanza will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lecce the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“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.
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.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Andrea Traniello. 2‑0 against Cosenza, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
8.07. 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Leonardo Gastaldello and Lecce agree another 4 years.
“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.
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 dugout25 Feb 2036
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.” Pierre Charpentier kept it short after the 2‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
In brief
The dugoutThulani Dala asks for a word with the manager
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.
“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.
Lecce 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Claudio Pasquali and Lecce agree another 3 years.
The dugout18 Feb 2036
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Pierre Charpentier to a room that had heard them before.
In brief
SquadDanilo Bellucci falls out with a teammate over standards
The dugoutThulani Dala knocks on the manager’s door
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 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.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Cesare Lanza 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.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Lecce will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
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.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 1 arrived, 4 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
The offer from Wellington Phoenix for Dylan Peraić-Cullen 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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rodrigo Ramos 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.
Lecce 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Rodrigo Ramos will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lecce the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Rodrigo Ramos was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Lecce asked and AS Roma said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Bilal Mousa 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.
Half the programme played, position 3, 43 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
Lecce had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Basel, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
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, terms agreed, medical booked. Brando Dolfi will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lecce the goodbyes have quietly begun.
A 1‑0 win over Crotone, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings21 Jan 2036
Gerardo Serra was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.01. 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 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.38 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“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.
Andrea Traniello 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 Rodrigo Ramos was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Marked 8.14 — 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.
In brief
Player ratingsNinety minutes of Joaquín Lavega at his very best
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Lecce will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
“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.
Lecce 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Lecce, another week without a signature from Thulani Dala.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager’s verdict
Transfer targetsA loan move for Mário Sauer is in the works
“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.
Player ratings31 Dec 2035
A brace, and Thulani Dala takes the afternoon — 9.18
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Thulani Dala provided it, and the 9.18 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Rodrigo Ramos will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lecce the goodbyes have quietly begun.
14 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.
“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.
Rodrigo Ramos 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.
7 goals in one match, Thulani Dala on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Lecce and Como.
Marked 8.97 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
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.
Gerardo Serra was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rodrigo Ramos 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 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.
Successful dribbles: 14. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The dugout24 Dec 2035
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Pierre Charpentier was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Lecce dressing room was either.
2 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Lecce could ask drops and the wages Rodrigo Ramos can ask rise.
The first defeat in 21 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Bari; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
Torino go through and Lecce go home, 1‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
1 kept out from twelve yards, and a stadium that will describe each of them for twenty years. A goalkeeper needs one night like this in a career, and this was it.
Andrea Traniello 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 had been thinking. Rodrigo Ramos 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.
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Lecce have 7 straight wins of it.
Player ratings10 Dec 2035
Thulani Dala, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.55
A mark of 8.55 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
13 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
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.
Rodrigo Ramos 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.
“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 goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Thulani Dala scored in the 88th minute, Palermo had already begun thinking about the journey home, and Lecce took the lot.
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.
“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.
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.
4 straight away victories. Sides that win away are usually sides that can defend and can counter, and the table has begun to reflect what those journeys have earned.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rodrigo Ramos is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Thulani Dala 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.
12 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Brando Dolfi will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lecce the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Andrea Traniello was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rodrigo Ramos 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.
17 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Lecce lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Lecce will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
6 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Lecco 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.
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.
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.
24 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Lecce lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Lecce will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rodrigo Ramos 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: Nicola Profeta. 1‑0 against Torres, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 8.16 — 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.
31 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Lecce lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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.
“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.
11 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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rodrigo Ramos 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Lecce will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“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.
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.
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.
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.
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad22 Oct 2035
Rodrigo Ramos falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lecce this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 15 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Lecce will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Aymane Aouainate will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lecce the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Andrea Traniello and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad15 Oct 2035
Rodrigo Ramos falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“It 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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Hagen Schneider, and the manager let it.
The dugout15 Oct 2035
The manager has not finished forgetting Pedro Rosas'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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 122 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 Lecce can pretend not to have heard.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Rodrigo Ramos will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lecce the goodbyes have quietly begun.
1 for Nicola Profeta, marked 7.85, 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.
Rodrigo Ramos 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.
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.
5 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 129 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 Lecce can pretend not to have heard.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Brando Dolfi will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lecce the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lecce this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
9 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Marked 8.08 — 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.
Player ratings1 Oct 2035
Nicola Profeta was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.09. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
The words a physio says slowly. 14 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 136 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rodrigo Ramos 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: Gerardo Serra. 2‑1 against Parma, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
8 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
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.
21 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Lecce lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings17 Sep 2035
A brace, and Gerardo Serra takes the afternoon — 8.59
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Gerardo Serra provided it, and the 8.59 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Lecce 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.
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.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Filippo Ercolani 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.
Rodrigo Ramos 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Lukas Talen has just signed for Lecce, and for once the answer mattered.
28 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Lecce lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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 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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rodrigo Ramos 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 words a physio says slowly. 35 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Lecce 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.” Lecce have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Boardroom3 Sep 2035
Deadline passes with 19 signed and 21 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 deal with Lazio 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.
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.
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.
Four paragraphs on the club website, none of them about football. The board thanked him, wished him well, and had the search under way before the page went up.
42 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Lecce lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Not an interim appointment — an institution with an empty coaching office. Somebody unfamiliar will run the sessions this week, and the question of how a club gets into this state is one the board will be asked and will not answer.
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.
“Somebody picks the team on Saturday. This week it is me, and that is as far as I have thought.” No promises were made in either direction, which is how these usually begin.
Lecce 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.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Lecce have done the hard part with AS Roma, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
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.
“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 words a physio says slowly. 23 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.
Lecce 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.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Pescara is saying, and nobody at Lecce is enjoying the guessing.
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.
Squad20 Aug 2035
Rodrigo Ramos 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 Lecce can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Andrea Traniello trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
30 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Lecce lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Rodrigo Ramos 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 had been thinking. Pedro Rosas 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 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.
37 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Lecce lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Atalanta have kept their man, and Lecce go back to a list with one name crossed off 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 Lecce, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Tilen Gašper Štiftar will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lecce the goodbyes have quietly begun.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Lecce have done the hard part with Cremonese, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Lecce, another week without a signature from Rodrigo Ramos.
Lecce and Atalanta have settled on $7.3M. 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.
“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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rodrigo Ramos 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.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
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.
Baptiste Kilala 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 had been thinking. Rodrigo Ramos 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.
7 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.
2 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Lecce could ask drops and the wages Baptiste Kilala can ask rise.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Nicola Profeta signs something — a contract at Lecce or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
In brief
The dugoutBilal Mousa asks for a word with the manager
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.
The offer from Salernitana for Luca Cura 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.
Rodrigo Ramos 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 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 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.
Everybody at Lecce saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 34 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
Lecce 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Tilen Gašper Štiftar will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lecce the goodbyes have quietly begun.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Lecce have done the hard part with Udinese, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lecce this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad9 Jul 2035
Rodrigo Ramos 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 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Baptiste Kilala will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lecce the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
Lecce and Alcione Milano have settled on $82.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Baptiste Kilala has agreed terms with Frosinone 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Roberto Vera is living that version at Lecce, and it tends to show in the first month.
Supporters turn on the $370.0K sale of Hudson Sands
He is going to Udinese, the club has $370.0K 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.
“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.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Tilen Gašper Štiftar has agreed terms with Spezia for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
“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.
Rodrigo Ramos was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nicola Profeta was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Lecce can pretend not to have heard.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Rodrigo Ramos was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Rafa Llorente 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.
Position 7 on 59 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Salernitana 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.
The deal with Spezia is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
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 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 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.
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.
Transfer targetsA loan move for Lorenzo Cordaro is in the works
461Edition
The Lecce Sentinel
28 May 2035
From our football correspondentSteady
Player ratings28 May 2035
Thulani Dala, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.73
A mark of 7.73 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
“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.
“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.
Baptiste Kilala 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 had been thinking. Rodrigo Ramos is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Thulani Dala 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Thulani Dala. 1‑0 against Renate, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Andrea Traniello had done his part in building a 3-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and Pianese were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Andrea Traniello provided it, and the 8.30 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Nicola Profeta wants continental football; whether Lecce can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Rodrigo Ramos 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.
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.
100 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
“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.
1 for Nicola Profeta, marked 7.83, 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.
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 7.26 on 13 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
Loan watch14 May 2035
Cesare Lanza’s loan is measured in nothing happening
15 clean sheets from 29 appearances at Union Brescia. 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.
Andrea Traniello 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 keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Lecce, another week without a signature from Baptiste Kilala.
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 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.
“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.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Hudson Sands 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rodrigo Ramos 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 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.
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.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Luca Cura 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.
Rodrigo Ramos was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Lecce can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Marked 8.07 — 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 board was up, the win was priced in, and then Empoli scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad30 Apr 2035
Hudson Sands 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.
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.
Rodrigo Ramos 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 Nicola Profeta was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Tomás Jerez, and the manager let it.
The dugout23 Apr 2035
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 Interim Coach left the room before anybody could ask which.
Nobody at Lecce 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Sebastian Szczytniewski will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lecce the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“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 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.
Two of the goals had his name somewhere on them, which is the afternoon a manager wants from anybody asked to both create and finish. 7.57, and 2 involvements.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Rodrigo Ramos was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Andrea Traniello. 3‑1 against Torino, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
15 shut-outs in 29 games. A goalkeeper’s loan is judged on the afternoons when nothing happened at all, and Cesare Lanza has been having a lot of them.
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.
“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.
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.
Every long career reaches the week the last one is thought about. He would like it to be where he started, and Lecce know now that the thought has arrived.
200 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Hudson Sands was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
In brief
The dugoutThe team sheet said everything about Tomás Jerez
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Thulani Dala will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lecce the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Rodrigo Ramos 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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Lecce has been clear about where Andrea Traniello stands, which is more than many ever get.
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Squad2 Apr 2035
5 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.
“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.
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.
Baptiste Kilala was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rodrigo Ramos is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Successful dribbles: 14. 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 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.
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 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.
27 appearances at Union Brescia and the goals have stopped going in. Lecce lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Hudson Sands was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
“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.
“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.
1 for Rodrigo Ramos, marked 7.65, 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.
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 Lecce 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Rodrigo Ramos. 1‑0 against Virtus Entella, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Samuele Petti will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lecce the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rodrigo Ramos 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.
Sebastian Szczytniewski 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.
25 appearances at Union Brescia and the goals have stopped going in. Lecce lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
0‑3 to Cesena, 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.
Lecce asked and Juventus said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The clubs have 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.
Rodrigo Ramos 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 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 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.
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 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicola Profeta 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.
Cavese will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Biagio Macrì has pre-agreed a move to Lecce, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
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.
Lecce offered $3.5M; Udinese 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.
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 Lecce 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 Nicola Profeta was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
13 shut-outs in 22 games. A goalkeeper’s loan is judged on the afternoons when nothing happened at all, and Cesare Lanza has been having a lot of them.
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.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Lecce have done the hard part with Juventus, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
The deal that would have taken Tomás Jerez to Vis Pesaro 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.
Lecce have gone to Udinese 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.
“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.
Boardroom5 Feb 2035
Deadline passes with 0 signed and 1 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Samuele Petti will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lecce the goodbyes have quietly begun.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Stefano Cassano 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.
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 6.77, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
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.
Lecce 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.
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.
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.
Sebastian Szczytniewski 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.
11 shut-outs in 20 games. A goalkeeper’s loan is judged on the afternoons when nothing happened at all, and Cesare Lanza has been having a lot of them.
Squad29 Jan 2035
7 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.
“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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicola Profeta 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 Lecce this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Position 6, 30 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
Lecce and Lazio have settled on $7.7M. 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.
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.
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.
“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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Udinese have kept their man, and Lecce go back to a list with one name crossed off 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.
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 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.
Lecce have gone to Bari 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 deal with Como 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.
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: Dolomiti Bellunesi have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Luca Cura. The answer from Lecce has not changed — yet.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nicola Profeta 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 Lecce, 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 Lecce 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 Nicola Profeta was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
8 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Interim Coach on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Thulani Dala will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lecce the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Baptiste Kilala was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Lecce can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Interim Coach after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Squad25 Dec 2034
Håkon Austad 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 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.
“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 terraces18 Dec 2034
A cup hiding at Napoli leaves Lecce explaining themselves
0-3, 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.
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 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.
Baptiste Kilala 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 had been thinking. Nicola Profeta 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.
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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Gergő Májik has just signed for Lecce, and for once the answer mattered.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nicola Profeta was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Lecce can tell you which week it ends in.
“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.
“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.
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.
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.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Lecce are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
The dugout4 Dec 2034
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Interim Coach was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Lecce dressing room was either.
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.
“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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Rafa Llorente has just signed for Lecce, and for once the answer mattered.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nicola Profeta was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Sebastian Szczytniewski 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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nicola Profeta 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.
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.
Somebody watched every match in the division at the weekend and decided he was the best thing in any of them. A small honour, and most careers end without one.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Torino in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Emiljano Mihana will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lecce the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Nicola Profeta 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 Marco Arsena was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout13 Nov 2034
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.” Interim Coach kept it short after the 3‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Didier Poirier
Two goals and a mark of 9.00 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Hudson Sands: 1 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lecce 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.
He is 20 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 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.
Baptiste Kilala 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.
Vladimir Krejci is 20, and Lecce have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
The dugout30 Oct 2034
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.” Interim Coach kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
“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.
7.92, 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.
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.
“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.
Sebastian Szczytniewski 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 Francisco Rivas was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout23 Oct 2034
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.” Interim Coach kept it short after the 2‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
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.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Samuele Petti 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.
“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.
Squad16 Oct 2034
Marco Mancebo 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.
Luca Cura 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 squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Andrea Traniello’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.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 11 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Successful dribbles: 25. 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 rules permit it and it stings anyway. Emiljano Mihana has agreed terms with Renate for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Marco Mancebo 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.