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.
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.
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 Ryan Fredericks something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
6 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alessandro Lambrughi is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
17 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
15 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Gabriele Pessolani did not need any: 8.09, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pergolettese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Gabriele Pessolani 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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Niccolò Corti, and the manager let it.
Squad19 Oct 2026
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.
An error at the back is a moment; an error in goal is a goal. Lorenzo Cordaro knows it, the crowd knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Etienne Catena is 22, 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.
Marked 9.12 — 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.
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Pergolettese have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Lorenzo Cordaro is 22, 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.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
539% 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 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 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.
32 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Successful dribbles: 27. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The terraces28 Sep 2026
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 6 of the 26 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
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.
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.
21 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Xiscu Martínez was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.07. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
A 2‑0 win over Dolomiti Bellunesi, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Etienne Catena is 22, 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Pergolettese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alessandro Lambrughi 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 39 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.39 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pergolettese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 17 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
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.
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 21 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.
“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.
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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Ruggero Silvestri has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Cristiano Pugliese has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Nicolò Vannucci has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
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.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Pergolettese would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
The competition arrived without a word said to him about it. Samuele Careccia keeps the shirt for now, at Pergolettese's convenience rather than his own.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 18 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
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.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Pergolettese will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
Still no offer on the table, and Daniele Ferrandino’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Pergolettese would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
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.