“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 The request is on a desk at Pergolettese, and it is not being withdrawn.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.42 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Pergolettese is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pergolettese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Niccolò Corti. 3‑1 against Pro Patria, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Pergolettese can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
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.
“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 The request is on a desk at Pergolettese, and it is not being withdrawn.
Samuele Careccia 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.
Squad4 Mar 2030
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ettore Quirini is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Mattia Rossetti had done his part in building a 2-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and Renate were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Pergolettese is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pergolettese 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.
8.73. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Pergolettese, and it is not being withdrawn.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Samuele Careccia 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.
Squad18 Feb 2030
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ettore Quirini 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.
8.47. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pergolettese 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. 8.26 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Pergolettese hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Samuele Careccia 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.
Squad11 Feb 2030
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ettore Quirini 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 Mehdi Boussaïd signs something — a contract at Pergolettese or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
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.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 17 actions, 7.12, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pergolettese 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.
Boardroom4 Feb 2030
115% of the income goes out in wages at Pergolettese
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Samuele Careccia 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 name of Pawan Parmigiani has come up in conversations Pergolettese were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad28 Jan 2030
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alberto Pala 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 Ettore Quirini signs something — a contract at Pergolettese or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pergolettese can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Pergolettese 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 Pergolettese 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.
An error at the back is a moment; an error in goal is a goal. Michele Tommasi knows it, the crowd knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.92 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Samuele Careccia 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.
Squad14 Jan 2030
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ettore Quirini is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Niccolò Corti. 2‑0 against Cittadella, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 13 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Mehdi Boussaïd signs something — a contract at Pergolettese or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Pergolettese can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Samuele Careccia provided it, and the 8.93 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
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 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. Pergolettese will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Pergolettese is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pergolettese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Samuele Careccia. 3‑1 against Ospitaletto, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad7 Jan 2030
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Livio Milts is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Pergolettese, and it is not being withdrawn.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.87 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Pergolettese is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Samuele Careccia 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.
Squad31 Dec 2029
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ettore Quirini 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 one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Pergolettese hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pergolettese 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.
Nobody at Pergolettese will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
It finished 1-6. A cup exit is a disappointment; this was a public dismantling, and the difference between the two is the number of people who will still be talking about it in August.
Samuele Careccia 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. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Pergolettese and Napoli in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Squad17 Dec 2029
Livio Milts falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Pergolettese 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 Pergolettese 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.
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Livio Milts in the middle of it, and Alcione Milano unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
Player ratings10 Dec 2029
Ettore Quirini was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.40. 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.
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.25, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Boardroom10 Dec 2029
115% of the income goes out in wages at Pergolettese
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Cristiano Graziani has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
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.
The terraces3 Dec 2029
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 7 of the 31 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
“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 Pergolettese, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Pergolettese is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Samuele Careccia 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.
Squad3 Dec 2029
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ettore Quirini is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pergolettese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Squad26 Nov 2029
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Livio Milts is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Nobody at Pergolettese 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 18 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Samuele Careccia 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.
Lumezzane made Pergolettese work for it, but the scoreboard read 3‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad19 Nov 2029
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ettore Quirini is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Mehdi Boussaïd signs something — a contract at Pergolettese or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 25 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Pergolettese 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 Pergolettese 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.
8 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Pergolettese will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Jesse Saputo obliged against AC Milan. 1‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Pergolettese.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Cristiano Graziani has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.16 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
There were 7 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
The terraces5 Nov 2029
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 9 of the 31 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Pergolettese they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Pergolettese hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 41 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pergolettese 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.
16 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pergolettese lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Pergolettese will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Samuele Careccia 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.
Squad22 Oct 2029
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ettore Quirini 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.
23 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pergolettese lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 57 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Samuele Careccia provided it, and the 8.81 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 Pergolettese is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Mohamed Coulibaly has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pergolettese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Three points for Pergolettese, 3‑1 the final word against Renate in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad15 Oct 2029
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Livio Milts 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.
30 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pergolettese lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 64 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
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.
The terraces8 Oct 2029
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 9 of the 31 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Pergolettese they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Samuele Careccia 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 easiest signature of my career.” Giacomo Venturi and Pergolettese agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
37 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pergolettese lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 71 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Two goals and a mark of 8.33 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
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 8.75 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pergolettese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
44 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pergolettese lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 78 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Pergolettese scored in the 99th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.27 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Gonçalo Esteves 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.
Squad24 Sep 2029
Livio Milts 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.
51 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pergolettese lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 85 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Pergolettese is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Pergolettese hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pergolettese 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.
58 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pergolettese lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 92 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.81 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Pergolettese they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Gonçalo Teixeira has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Samuele Careccia 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 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.
65 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pergolettese lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 99 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Cristiano Graziani has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Match1 Sep 2029
Niccolò Corti wins it after the whistle should have gone
92 minutes played. Niccolò Corti found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Cittadella went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
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.
Player ratings3 Sep 2029
A brace, and Niccolò Corti takes the afternoon — 8.39
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Niccolò Corti provided it, and the 8.39 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pergolettese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Sep 2029
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Livio Milts 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.
72 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pergolettese lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Pergolettese is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Samuele Careccia 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 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Squad27 Aug 2029
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ettore Quirini 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.
79 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pergolettese lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 115 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Pergolettese they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
86 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pergolettese lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 122 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Gonçalo Esteves was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad13 Aug 2029
Livio Milts 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.
Boardroom13 Aug 2029
86% of the income goes out in wages at Pergolettese
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Pergolettese know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
93 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pergolettese lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Pergolettese can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Luca Sermenghi is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pergolettese 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.
102 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pergolettese lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Pergolettese have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Pergolettese is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Mohamed Coulibaly is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
109 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pergolettese lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Boardroom23 Jul 2029
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Pergolettese
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Pergolettese they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Pergolettese have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Pergolettese have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Gonçalo Teixeira is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Samuele Careccia 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.
At 25 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Pergolettese know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pergolettese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
In brief
SquadEttore Quirini falls out with a teammate over standards
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Pergolettese can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Pergolettese is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Samuele Careccia 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.
Squad2 Jul 2029
Livio Milts 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.
4 arrivals, an average age nobody would call a squad, and a set of parents being shown around a building their sons will spend more time in than at home. The scouting has already happened; today is only the paperwork.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Pergolettese is running low.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pergolettese 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.
Gonçalo Esteves 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.
Squad18 Jun 2029
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ettore Quirini is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Boardroom18 Jun 2029
110% of the income goes out in wages at Pergolettese
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Pergolettese heard it as anything else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pergolettese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad11 Jun 2029
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Livio Milts 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.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Pergolettese can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Pergolettese is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Gabriel Cousin has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Samuele Careccia 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.
Squad4 Jun 2029
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ettore Quirini 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.
A change in the dugout is not one story, it is twenty-five of them. This is Ettore Quirini's: he was somebody's player, and now he has to be somebody else's, starting from nothing.
Samuele Careccia 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.
Squad28 May 2029
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ettore Quirini is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
In brief
SquadJesse Saputo has become a man the manager trusts
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pergolettese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 May 2029
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Livio Milts is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Pergolettese told Kiyan Coke-Miles-Smith something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Niccolò Corti signs something — a contract at Pergolettese or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Two goals and a mark of 8.49 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Luigi Gabriel Barba provided it, and the 7.41 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings14 May 2029
Jesse Saputo, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.67
A mark of 7.67 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Samuele Careccia 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 8 goals between Pergolettese and Ospitaletto, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Squad14 May 2029
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ettore Quirini is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Pergolettese told Mattia Rossetti something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
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.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pergolettese 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 Pergolettese 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Tomás Silva has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
In brief
Player ratingsThe afternoon belonged to Tomás Silva
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.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.08 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Gonçalo Esteves 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.
Squad30 Apr 2029
Livio Milts falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The 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.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pergolettese 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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
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.
Samuele Careccia 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.
Squad16 Apr 2029
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ettore Quirini is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
It needed Samuele Careccia to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Alcione Milano, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Samuele Careccia signs something — a contract at Pergolettese or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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.
9 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pergolettese 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 Pergolettese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Successful dribbles: 20. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad9 Apr 2029
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Livio Milts 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. Pergolettese know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
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.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Pergolettese can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
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.
Samuele Careccia 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.
Squad2 Apr 2029
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ettore Quirini 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.
A change in the dugout is not one story, it is twenty-five of them. This is Ettore Quirini's: he was somebody's player, and now he has to be somebody else's, starting from nothing.
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.
7 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pergolettese 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 8.16 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
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.
Gonçalo Esteves 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.
Squad19 Mar 2029
Livio Milts falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Samuele Careccia signs something — a contract at Pergolettese or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Marked 5.56. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
76 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pergolettese lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
12 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pergolettese 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.
83 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pergolettese lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Cristiano Graziani has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Niccolò Corti and Pergolettese agree another 4 years.
Gonçalo Esteves 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.
Squad5 Mar 2029
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ettore Quirini 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.
90 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pergolettese 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. 8.06 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
11 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pergolettese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad26 Feb 2029
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Zaid Jaouhari 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.
Boardroom26 Feb 2029
97% of the income goes out in wages at Pergolettese
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
The words a physio says slowly. 98 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.
Samuele Careccia 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.
Squad19 Feb 2029
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ettore Quirini 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 crowd waited for a goal that never came. Renate defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Samuele Careccia signs something — a contract at Pergolettese or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Marked 5.70. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Pergolettese, another week without a signature from Filippo Doldi.
The words a physio says slowly. 105 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 a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mattia Rossetti provided it, and the 8.21 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. 8.28 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
10 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pergolettese 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 Pergolettese and Virtus Verona in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
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 needed Mattia Rossetti to find the net to bring anything home at all: 3‑3 against Virtus Verona, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
In brief
Player ratingsThe cruellest goal, and it is Luciano Ballan's
The words a physio says slowly. 112 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. Cristiano Graziani has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
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.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.08 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Samuele Careccia 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 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Squad5 Feb 2029
Zaid Jaouhari falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The words a physio says slowly. 121 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. 6 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 Pergolettese 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.
0‑1 to Dolomiti Bellunesi, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Boardroom29 Jan 2029
95% of the income goes out in wages at Pergolettese
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
129 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pergolettese lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Gonçalo Esteves 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.
Squad22 Jan 2029
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ettore Quirini 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 has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Samuele Careccia signs something — a contract at Pergolettese or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Pergolettese, another week without a signature from Gonçalo Teixeira.
Two goals and a mark of 8.27 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
5 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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.80 at 33, 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 Pergolettese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Novara made Pergolettese work for it, but the scoreboard read 3‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad15 Jan 2029
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Zaid Jaouhari 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.
Match13 Jan 2029
Another one collected away from home
3 on the bounce on the road for Pergolettese. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. Novara tried to reorganise, Pergolettese did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.48 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Samuele Careccia 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.
Squad8 Jan 2029
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ettore Quirini 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 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.35 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.91 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pergolettese 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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.00 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Samuele Careccia 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.
Squad25 Dec 2028
Zaid Jaouhari falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Marked 8.51 — 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 one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Samuele Careccia signs something — a contract at Pergolettese or anywhere else — this column belongs to 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 Pergolettese 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.
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.
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.
Gonçalo Esteves 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.
Squad11 Dec 2028
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ettore Quirini 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.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Pergolettese can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pergolettese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad4 Dec 2028
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Zaid Jaouhari is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Boardroom4 Dec 2028
93% of the income goes out in wages at Pergolettese
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Luca Roversi is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
In brief
The terracesEverybody has an opinion about Niccolò Corti
Gonçalo Esteves 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.
Squad27 Nov 2028
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ettore Quirini 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 has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Samuele Careccia signs something — a contract at Pergolettese or anywhere else — this column belongs to 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 Pergolettese 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.
Union Brescia made Pergolettese work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings20 Nov 2028
Niccolò Corti was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.14. 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 — 13 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Pergolettese know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
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.
Samuele Careccia 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. Leonardo Andreoni is living that version at Pergolettese, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad13 Nov 2028
Zaid Jaouhari falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Marked 5.70. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Cristiano Graziani has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
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.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pergolettese 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 8.08. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Pergolettese.
Boardroom6 Nov 2028
91% of the income goes out in wages at Pergolettese
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Samuele Careccia 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.
18 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad30 Oct 2028
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ettore Quirini 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 has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Samuele Careccia signs something — a contract at Pergolettese or anywhere else — this column belongs to 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 Pergolettese 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.
8.06. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
It needed Daniele Ferrandino to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Pro Patria, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The words a physio says slowly. 18 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.
Gonçalo Esteves 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.
Squad16 Oct 2028
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ettore Quirini 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 easiest signature of my career.” Matthew Hayden and Pergolettese agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
26 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pergolettese lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Mehdi Boussaïd and Pergolettese agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about 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 Pergolettese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 27 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
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.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Pergolettese can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Pergolettese have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Mehdi Boussaïd and Pergolettese agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about 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 Pergolettese 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 Samuele Careccia signs something — a contract at Pergolettese or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
42 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pergolettese lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
1 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
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.
AlbinoLeffe made Pergolettese work for it, but the scoreboard read 3‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings25 Sep 2028
Mattia Rossetti was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.54. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
The words a physio says slowly. 50 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.
Samuele Careccia 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.
Squad18 Sep 2028
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ettore Quirini is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pergolettese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Samuele Careccia 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 easiest signature of my career.” Gianmarco Mainardi and Pergolettese agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
In brief
SquadJesse Saputo has become a man the manager trusts
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pergolettese 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 easiest signature of my career.” Giacomo Venturi and Pergolettese agree another 1 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Mattia Rossetti has his answer from Pergolettese; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
BoardroomThe Pergolettese production line keeps running
109Edition
The Pergolettese Sentinel
28 Aug 2028
From our football correspondentCrisis
The terraces28 Aug 2028
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 8 of the 30 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
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.
Gonçalo Esteves 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.
Squad28 Aug 2028
Niccolò Corti has improved at 27, 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.
Squad28 Aug 2028
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ettore Quirini 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Tomás Silva is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad21 Aug 2028
Ettore Quirini has improved at 25, 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. 5 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pergolettese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
5 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Diego Neri is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Giuseppe Serra is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Tommaso De Simone is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Ruggero Cassano has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Davide Baroncioni is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pergolettese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Aug 2028
Zaid Jaouhari has improved at 26, 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. 4 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
In brief
SquadWords at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Pergolettese can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pergolettese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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. 4 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 Pergolettese will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Boardroom31 Jul 2028
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Pergolettese
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Pergolettese will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Niccolò Corti 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. 29 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Zaid Jaouhari and Pergolettese agree another 4 years.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 36 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Luigi Gabriel Barba has just signed for Pergolettese, and for once the answer mattered.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 43 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Boardroom3 Jul 2028
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Pergolettese
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Gonçalo Esteves 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.
Squad3 Jul 2028
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ettore Quirini 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 easiest signature of my career.” Giacomo Venturi and Pergolettese agree another 1 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
4 arrivals, an average age nobody would call a squad, and a set of parents being shown around a building their sons will spend more time in than at home. The scouting has already happened; today is only the paperwork.
In brief
Boardroom$324.2K taken back off the Pergolettese table
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Pergolettese 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 Pergolettese 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 Pergolettese will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Luca Sermenghi is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
20 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pergolettese lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Pergolettese is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pergolettese 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.
Lecco will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Matteo Polonioli has pre-agreed a move to Pergolettese, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
27 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pergolettese lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Samuele Careccia 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.
Squad5 Jun 2028
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ettore Quirini 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.
34 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pergolettese lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Pergolettese have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Niccolò Corti 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.
43 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pergolettese lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Gonçalo Esteves 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.
Squad22 May 2028
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ettore Quirini 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.
50 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pergolettese lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Malthe Wangsøe will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Pergolettese 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 Pergolettese 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.
57 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pergolettese lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings8 May 2028
Vincenzo Damiano, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.67
A mark of 8.67 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Gonçalo Esteves 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.
Squad8 May 2028
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Samuele Careccia is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
The words a physio says slowly. 65 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. 16 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
10 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.
5 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pergolettese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Gianmarco Mainardi has just signed for Pergolettese, and for once the answer mattered.
He is 19, and nobody at Pergolettese signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
Ahmad Blal is 19, and Pergolettese 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.
73 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pergolettese lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 23 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Pergolettese can tell you which week it ends in.
Ferdinando Del Sole 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.
Squad24 Apr 2028
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ettore Quirini 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 has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Mehdi Boussaïd signs something — a contract at Pergolettese or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
80 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pergolettese lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 32 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
8 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Pergolettese has to find a result from somewhere.
The terraces17 Apr 2028
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 7 of the 30 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Pergolettese 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 Pergolettese 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 chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.