The words a physio says slowly. 87 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
8 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.40 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Jacob Ondrejka 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 words a physio says slowly. 94 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Parma 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 Parma 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.” Parma 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 Parma this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The words a physio says slowly. 101 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
6 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
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.
Jacob Ondrejka 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 clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Parma is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The words a physio says slowly. 108 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.66 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Parma this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Oliver Provstgaard 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 morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Ignazio Dalla 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Claudio Pavone is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The words a physio says slowly. 115 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Jacob Ondrejka 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.
In brief
SquadWords at Parma training over how hard people work
19 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Parma lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Parma 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 Parma this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Oliver Provstgaard signs something — a contract at Parma or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
26 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Parma lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Jacob Ondrejka 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Abdou-Salam Konaté will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Parma the goodbyes have quietly begun.
33 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Parma lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Parma this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
SquadNicolás Vidal has improved at 32, which nobody expected
40 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Parma lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
47 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Parma 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 Parma 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 Parma this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Jeroen De Roon is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
11 days with the chair empty, a list of names that grows and shrinks by the day, and not one signature on anything. Every week that passes takes the best candidates off it.
In brief
SquadWords at Parma training over how hard people work
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 54 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.
The coaching staff has emptied out entirely and there was nobody internal to promote, so the club has appointed a name almost none of its supporters will recognise. Clubs recover from this; none of them enjoy explaining it.
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
“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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Artem Goryainov is living that version at Parma, and it tends to show in the first month.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Parma this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The words a physio says slowly. 61 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Jacob Ondrejka 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 words a physio says slowly. 68 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Parma this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Oliver Provstgaard 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. 75 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Parma they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Maurizio Demme is living that version at Parma, and it tends to show in the first month.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Parma can pretend not to have heard.
Jacob Ondrejka 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. Maurizio Demme 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. 82 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.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Interim Coach has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
181 appearances across 10 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Parma this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Oliver Provstgaard 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.
Juve Stabia will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Shota Chikhradze has pre-agreed a move to Parma, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Parma know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The words a physio says slowly. 89 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Parma have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Parma 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 Parma, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Parma they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The words a physio says slowly. 96 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 103 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Parma is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The words a physio says slowly. 110 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.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.75 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Parma 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 Parma, 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 Parma this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Oliver Provstgaard 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.
8 goals in one match, Oliver Provstgaard on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Parma and Juventus.
In brief
Player ratingsJegors Olijars was on a different afternoon to everybody else
Jacob Ondrejka 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Pasquale Compagnone will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Parma the goodbyes have quietly begun.
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
11 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Luka Bilandžić will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Parma 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 Parma this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Oliver Provstgaard 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.
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 Oliver Provstgaard.
15 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Parma is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.89 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Parma have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Jacob Ondrejka 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.
9 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.
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 9.28 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Parma 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 Parma this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
16 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.
Parma interviewed the field and appointed the corridor: Interim Coach keeps the job he had been doing in all but title. Sometimes the safest pair of hands is the one already holding the wheel.
18 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Parma lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 10.00 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
462 appearances across 13 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Pasquale Compagnone will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Parma the goodbyes have quietly begun.
8 goals in one match, Antoine Joujou on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Parma and Sassuolo.
25 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Parma lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma 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. Luka Bilandžić will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Parma 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 Parma this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
32 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Parma lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Parma is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 10.00 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
39 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Parma lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Parma 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 Parma 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 Parma this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
14 days with the chair empty, a list of names that grows and shrinks by the day, and not one signature on anything. Every week that passes takes the best candidates off it.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
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.
46 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Parma 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Two goals and a mark of 9.14 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 9.04 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“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.
53 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Parma lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma 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 Parma 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.” Parma have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Parma they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
60 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Parma lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Parma they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Jacob Ondrejka was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Iván Rojas is living that version at Parma, and it tends to show in the first month.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Jacob Ondrejka signs something — a contract at Parma or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
9 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
67 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Parma lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Parma this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Nikita Karmaev has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Parma have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Parma know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
74 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Parma lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Interim Coach has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Jacob Ondrejka provided it, and the 10.00 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.98 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
45 appearances across 10 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Parma is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
81 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Parma lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Two goals and a mark of 9.24 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The offer from Hellas Verona for Jegors Olijars 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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.56 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
88 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Parma lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.90 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“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 Parma, and it is not being withdrawn.
Jacob Ondrejka 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 Parma they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Shots: 11. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
95 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Parma lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Parma is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.11 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Jacob Ondrejka in the middle of it, and Cagliari unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
102 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Parma lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 10 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.20 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Jacob Ondrejka 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 paperwork is done long before the player is. Roberto D'Intino has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Parma have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Pro Patria will make the call about Mariano Marchetti this week. Parma have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
13 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.
109 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Parma lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The offer from Lecce for Jegors Olijars 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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 9.48 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Zion Suzuki 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.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 5 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.17 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Parma this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Parma and Napoli in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma 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. Jegors Olijars will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Parma the goodbyes have quietly begun.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.68 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Zion Suzuki 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. Jacob Ondrejka is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
11 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
20 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Parma lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.47 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
10 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.
27 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Parma lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 9.73 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Jacob Ondrejka 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, Oliver Provstgaard on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Parma and Frosinone.
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.
34 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Parma lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Parma this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Shots: 6. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
41 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Parma lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Parma 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 Parma can pretend not to have heard.
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.
Jacob Ondrejka 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, Luka Bilandžić on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Parma and Atalanta.
In brief
Player ratingsNinety minutes of Luka Bilandžić at his very best
48 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Parma lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Vicenza go through and Parma 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.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Lucas Bonelli: 1 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.69 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
55 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Parma lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Parma have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
The words a physio says slowly. 62 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. 106 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.68 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Jacob Ondrejka 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 words a physio says slowly. 69 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Parma 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 Parma this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The words a physio says slowly. 76 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.
“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 Parma, and it is not being withdrawn.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.84 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Jacob Ondrejka 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.
“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; Parma are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Marked 8.64 — 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Parma know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The words a physio says slowly. 83 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.
437 appearances across 13 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.29 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Parma this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Parma know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
91 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Parma lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.06 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Jacob Ondrejka was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. Palermo tried to reorganise, Parma did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
98 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Parma lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Jegors Olijars will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Parma 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 Parma 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.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 4 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
Marked 8.54 — 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 ratings21 Sep 2037
Jegors Olijars was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.48. 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.
105 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Parma lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.84 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Zion Suzuki 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. Jacob Ondrejka 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Parma know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
112 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Parma lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Parma 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. Joan Raynaud is living that version at Parma, and it tends to show in the first month.
Marked 9.17 — 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.
Daniele Bruno is 20, and Parma 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.
9 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Parma know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
In brief
MarketThe window shut and Pontus Almqvist is still in the building
119 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Parma lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.56 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Zion Suzuki 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. Jacob Ondrejka 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.
Shots: 12. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
In brief
Player ratingsThe one thing Filip Rusnak could not do
126 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Parma 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 Parma they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.01 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
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.
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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
In brief
Boardroom9 academy players handed senior numbers at Parma
Player ratingsFilip Rusnak was on a different afternoon to everybody else
133 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Parma lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Jacob Ondrejka was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Parma 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.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Petar Atanasov has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Parma have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Parma know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Zion Suzuki 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. Jacob Ondrejka 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 never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Zion Suzuki signs something — a contract at Parma or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Jegors Olijars will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Parma 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 Parma this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad27 Jul 2037
Kevin Colli has improved at 34, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Zion Suzuki 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. Jacob Ondrejka 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 offer from Hajduk Split for Jegors Olijars 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Parma 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Parma know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The words a physio says slowly. 19 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The words a physio says slowly. 26 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Parma 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 Parma, 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 Parma this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The words a physio says slowly. 33 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Parma is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Zion Suzuki 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. Jacob Ondrejka 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 Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The words a physio says slowly. 40 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Parma this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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; Parma are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Abdou-Salam Konaté has his answer from Parma; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The words a physio says slowly. 47 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.
“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 Parma, and it is not being withdrawn.
Zion Suzuki 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Parma have had the benefit of it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Parma 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 Parma has been clear about where Luka Bilandžić stands, which is more than many ever get.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Jacob Ondrejka was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Razvan Puscas is living that version at Parma, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad25 May 2037
Elia Plicco 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Parma know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma 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. Jegors Olijars will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Parma the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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 Parma this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody at Parma will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Parma know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Jegors Olijars provided it, and the 9.02 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 9.18 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Lorenzo Carfora will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Parma the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.83 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Parma 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 Parma this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A 2‑1 win over Lazio, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings4 May 2037
Filip Rusnak was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.58. 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.52 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Zion Suzuki 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Parma is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.76 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Parma 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
At 2 goals adrift this was a formality, and the formality lasted right up until it did not. Parma found something the first half had given no notice of, and Palermo could not hold what they had.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.15 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Jacob Ondrejka 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Lorenzo Carfora will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Parma the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Marked 9.29 — 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
436 appearances across 12 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Parma have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Antoine Joujou signs something — a contract at Parma or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
In brief
Player ratingsThe chances came and went for Jacob Ondrejka
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.72 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Going 2 down does something to a side, and what it usually does is finish them. Not here. Parma rebuilt the afternoon goal by goal, and Bologna had no answer to any of it.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Jacob Ondrejka provided it, and the 10.00 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Parma 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.” Parma have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.44 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parma will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Jacob Ondrejka provided it, and the 10.00 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.48 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Parma they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Lorenzo Carfora has agreed terms with Perugia for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Zion Suzuki 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. Jacob Ondrejka 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 an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 9.27 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
29 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Parma 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.
Marked 7.77 on 37 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against 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 Parma can pretend not to have heard.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.28 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Jacob Ondrejka 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 Parma they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 9.11 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
29 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it 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 Parma can pretend not to have heard.
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.
27 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Parma 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 Parma this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Oliver Provstgaard provided it, and the 8.56 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 9.16 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Parma have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Zion Suzuki 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. Jacob Ondrejka 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.
6 goals in one match, Oliver Provstgaard on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Parma and AC Milan.
The words a physio says slowly. 20 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.88 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Parma have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Jacob Ondrejka 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.
9 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 27 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 30 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.94 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Parma 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 Parma this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The words a physio says slowly. 34 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 10.00 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Parma have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Parma and Sassuolo in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Marked 8.72 — 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 words a physio says slowly. 41 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.
“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 Parma, and it is not being withdrawn.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.11 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.40 for the rest of it.
Oliver Provstgaard 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 words a physio says slowly. 48 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 9.08 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Zion Suzuki 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. Jacob Ondrejka is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
11 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.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Ospitaletto will make the call about Emanuele Gastaldello this week. Parma have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
The words a physio says slowly. 55 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.98 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The offer from Udinese for Jegors Olijars 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Parma have had the benefit of it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Parma know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The words a physio says slowly. 62 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.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.06 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Jacob Ondrejka 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Parma know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
5 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
In brief
Player ratingsThe chances came and went for Jegors Olijars
The words a physio says slowly. 69 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.
“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 Parma, and it is not being withdrawn.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.03 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
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.
8.50. 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.
Lazio held the lead for 3 minutes, which is not long enough to enjoy it. Parma answered before the celebration had properly finished, and the shape of the afternoon changed with it.
The words a physio says slowly. 76 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.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Zion Suzuki: 2 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Giancarlo Simigliani obliged against Torino. 1‑1 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Parma.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.69 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Zion Suzuki 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. Jacob Ondrejka 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. 83 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 10 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.80 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Parma this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
12 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Parma know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The words a physio says slowly. 90 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 10.00 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 9 goals between Parma and Palermo, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
The words a physio says slowly. 97 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. 14 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.64 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Shots: 13. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
The words a physio says slowly. 104 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 35 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 21 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“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 Parma, and it is not being withdrawn.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.21 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Jacob Ondrejka 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.
22 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 28 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.91 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Parma this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings10 Nov 2036
Jegors Olijars was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.13. 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.
Danil Glinskiy is 34 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 35 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.80 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Parma have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
9.41. 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 20 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 42 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Parma have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.58 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“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 Parma, and it is not being withdrawn.
Oliver Provstgaard 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 49 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 26 combined actions and a mark of 7.44, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
“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 Parma, and it is not being withdrawn.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.79 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Parma have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Jacob Ondrejka was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
6 goals in one match, Jacob Ondrejka on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Parma and Juventus.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Pontus Almqvist 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.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.