A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Joaquin Dalmasso: 2 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Mateo Tanlongo 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.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Lecco will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Joaquin Dalmasso will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lecco 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 Lecco this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
23 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Mateo Tanlongo 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. Guillaume Furrer 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 phone has started ringing about Joaquin Dalmasso again, and this time the name on the line is Vicenza. Lecco are listening politely and promising nothing.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Lecco, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
5.72, 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lecco 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Mateo Tanlongo 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.
20 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Lecco 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 Lecco this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
1 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Angelo Morelli has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lecco this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Add another name to the list: Cosenza have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Joaquin Dalmasso. The answer from Lecco has not changed — yet.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Valerio Fumagalli has his answer from Lecco; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lecco this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Lecco has been clear about where Marwane Kritta stands, which is more than many ever get.
24 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
Edoardo Duca 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.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Matteo Battistini has his answer from Lecco; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
49 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.