A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Perugia will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Three points for Perugia, 1‑0 the final word against Vis Pesaro in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Words at Perugia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andrea Cisco is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
7.96, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Perugia had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
The dugout22 Feb 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Gerardo Martinelli kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 93 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 Perugia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Gerardo Martinelli after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Dimitar Papazov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 100 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The deal with Cremonese is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Lech keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Andrea Cisco 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.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Matteo Polizzi is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Perugia will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Perugia may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Deadline passes with 0 signed and 0 gone
That is the business done at Perugia until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Three points for Perugia, 2‑1 the final word against Latina in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Andrea Cisco 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 8.05 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Perugia are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Hellas Verona have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Catanzaro have kept their man, and Perugia go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Perugia has been clear about where Luca Bacchin stands, which is more than many ever get.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
In brief
SquadWords at Perugia training over how hard people work
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Francesco Lisi
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Perugia will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
There were 85 minutes on the clock and Pianese had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and Perugia did not stop to explain themselves.
Everything agreed with Hellas Verona, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Perugia had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Málaga, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Hellas Verona have kept their man, and Perugia go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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.
16 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Perugia lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Perugia will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Cagliari is saying, and nobody at Perugia is enjoying the guessing.
At 18 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
5 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Campobasso were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Three points for Perugia, 1‑0 the final word against Campobasso in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Andrea Cisco 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.
23 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Perugia lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Perugia will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
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. Perugia will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
The words a physio says slowly. 30 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Perugia 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 19 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.
Paolo Bartolomei was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Position 4, 26 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
In brief
Boardroom96% of the income goes out in wages at Perugia
The words a physio says slowly. 38 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 whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Giuseppe Carriero scored, was marked 7.87, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Andrea Cisco 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 is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Perugia told Alessio Nepi something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
46 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Perugia lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
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. 10 actions, 6.75, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Words at Perugia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dimitar Papazov 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 no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Reggiana defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 53 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 decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Christian Langella and Perugia agree another 3 years.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Perugia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
1‑2 to Spezia, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words at Perugia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andrea Cisco 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.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑2 Gerardo Martinelli left the room before anybody could ask which.
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.
Reggiana next, and one man in the Perugia dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
60 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Perugia lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
It finished 1‑0, and it was Alessio Nepi’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Perugia.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Andrea Cisco falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Perugia know it.
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 dugout30 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Gerardo Martinelli, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
67 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Perugia lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Two goals and a mark of 8.71 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Perugia will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Mattia Giambarveri and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Gerardo Martinelli, on a 2‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Nobody at Perugia is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
The words a physio says slowly. 74 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.
Giuseppe Carriero was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
“Nobody 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at Perugia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Francesco Lisi 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Andrea Cisco trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Elvis Kabashi’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Perugia needing him to play as if none of it matters.
81 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Perugia lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 9 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Position 3, 19 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
0-3, and long before the end the away end had switched from encouragement to something considerably more pointed. Nobody rings a phone-in about losing narrowly.
Paolo Bartolomei and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The words a physio says slowly. 88 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 award is a small thing with a heavy meaning: for four weeks nobody in this division did his job better. Perugia have the trophy on a shelf and the player in the side.
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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Gerardo Martinelli after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Perugia than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
96 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Perugia lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Francesco Lisi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Gerardo Martinelli, on a 3‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Nobody at Perugia is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
105 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Perugia lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Two goals and a mark of 9.00 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Giuseppe Carriero 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Matteo Polizzi is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
7 goals in one match, Valerio Verre on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Perugia and Sambenedettese.
He is 21 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Match17 Oct 2026
Another one collected away from home
3 on the bounce on the road for Perugia. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
Luca Calapai damages knee ligaments — 112 days out
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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
10 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words at Perugia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dimitar Papazov 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 Perugia 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.
119 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Perugia lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Successful dribbles: 22. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 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.
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 have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Perugia can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Gerardo Martinelli chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
In brief
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Francesco Lisi
Luca Calapai damages knee ligaments — 126 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 126 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.
Giuseppe Carriero and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
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.
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.
134 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Perugia lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Dimitar Papazov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
142 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Perugia lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“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 Perugia, and it is not being withdrawn.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.99 for the rest of it.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Dinamo Zagreb have kept their man, and Perugia go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Three points for Perugia, 1‑0 the final word against Campobasso in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Perugia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Francesco Lisi 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 dugout14 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Gerardo Martinelli, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Giuseppe Carriero trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
Luca Calapai damages knee ligaments — 149 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 149 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 deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 5 arrived, 5 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Perugia had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Rapid Bucharest, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Elvis Kabashi has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
10 new faces, and Perugia are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Guillaume Renault may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
Perugia have made the call to Rapid Bucharest. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑0, Gerardo Martinelli could afford to be generous.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Dimitar Papazov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Perugia, and it is not being withdrawn.
Everything agreed with Sparta Prague, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Senior shirt numbers handed to boys the coaches have known since they were twelve. Most will not make it and all of them have already done the hard part.
Perugia asked and Cremonese said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Pietro Ceccarelli has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Simone Russo has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Fabrizio Casadei 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.
Perugia have made the call to IFK Goteborg. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
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.
In brief
BoardroomPerugia turn down the training-ground plan
Perugia asked and Cremonese said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Perugia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Sparta Prague have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Perugia asked and Dinamo Zagreb said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Perugia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
48 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
Squad10 Aug 2026
10 new faces, and Perugia are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Elvis Kabashi was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 14 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Still no offer on the table, and Luca Gemello’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
Perugia have made the call to Southampton. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.