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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pianese can pretend not to have heard.
344 appearances across 12 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Pianese may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Boardroom1 Sep 2036
Pianese close the window on a squad of their own making
19 in and 10 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Bautista Picco 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Francesco Proietto was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Atalanta is saying, and nobody at Pianese is enjoying the guessing.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pianese 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Nicolò Barone 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. Mario Monteleone 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Michele Grassi is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Squad25 Aug 2036
Words at Pianese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Valeh Məmmədov 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 Pianese, 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 Pianese 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Pianese, another week without a signature from Pawan Parmigiani.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Francesco Proietto signs something — a contract at Pianese or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Kamil Klich has written the date down.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Pianese, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The mood at Pianese has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
10 days with the chair empty, a list of names that grows and shrinks by the day, and not one signature on anything. Every week that passes takes the best candidates off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Valeh Məmmədov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Pianese, another week without a signature from Francesco Bonardi.
The end came on a Tuesday, as these things usually do: a short meeting, a shorter statement, and Interim Coach clearing his office by noon. Football’s cruellest ritual, performed to schedule.
Not an interim appointment — an institution with an empty coaching office. Somebody unfamiliar will run the sessions this week, and the question of how a club gets into this state is one the board will be asked and will not answer.
“I am not thinking past Saturday, and I would advise nobody else to.” The caretaker’s first rule is to pretend the job is small; Interim Coach recited it perfectly.
491 appearances across 9 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
Bautista Picco 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Valeh Məmmədov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The bill for the sacking has arrived. Interim Coach leaves with $41.3K for the time left on his deal, and that money buys the club nothing it can put on the pitch.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Simone Palumbo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Pianese will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Patrik Gunnarsson trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Pianese know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
1 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Pianese could ask drops and the wages Goni Naor can ask rise.
What was a back-page link has become a chant, and the chant is not friendly. Pianese would rather it were settled quietly, and it has stopped being quiet.
“Ambitious players need ambitious projects. Draw your own conclusions.” Destiny Efosa Egharevba’s representative said it with a smile, and made sure everyone wrote it down.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pianese 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 Pianese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Valeh Məmmədov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Francesco Proietto signs something — a contract at Pianese or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Francesco Bonardi has written the date down.
83 graduates, from a department now rated 3 out of 20. Nothing about the academy appears in a result, and nothing about the club’s future exists without it.
The mood at Pianese has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Fabrizio Bonaventura 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Lorenzo Pugliese 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. Ignazio Tarantino 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Salvatore Giuliani is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
“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.
Squad14 Jul 2036
Words at Pianese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Valeh Məmmədov 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.
“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 Pianese know it.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager has not finished forgetting Goni Naor's mistake
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Pianese can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
“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 Pianese, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
Squad7 Jul 2036
Words at Pianese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Simone Palumbo 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pianese can pretend not to have heard.
Bautista Picco 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Fiorentina have kept their man, and Pianese go back to a list with one name crossed off 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Pianese know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
2 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Pianese could ask drops and the wages Goni Naor can ask rise.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pianese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Valeh Məmmədov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Pianese will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
The dugoutSergio Buttà asks for a word with the manager
516Edition
The Pianese Gazette
16 Jun 2036
From our football correspondentUneasy
The terraces16 Jun 2036
The mood at Pianese has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
The offer from Lumezzane for Mattia Damioli was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Pianese will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Simone Palumbo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
8 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Valeh Məmmədov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Davide Cristiano is living that version at Pianese, and it tends to show in the first month.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pianese can pretend not to have heard.
Add another name to the list: Lumezzane have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Mattia Damioli. The answer from Pianese has not changed — yet.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pianese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Valeh Məmmədov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 5 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Mattia Damioli, and the manager let it.
Squad26 May 2036
Words at Pianese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Simone Palumbo is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Alessandro Rovetini.
The dugout26 May 2036
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 Interim Coach left the room before anybody could ask which.
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.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Pianese will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 22 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Day 11 of the vacancy. Candidates have been priced, sounded out and quietly ruled out — and the caretaker’s win ratio is becoming an argument all by itself.
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.
Squad12 May 2036
Words at Pianese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Valeh Məmmədov is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Pawan Parmigiani.
Four paragraphs on the club website, none of them about football. The board thanked him, wished him well, and had the search under way before the page went up.
There is nobody left to promote and nobody left to run a session. The board have brought in a name the supporters do not know, and the question of how a club gets here will outlast whoever answers it.
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.
“Somebody picks the team on Saturday. This week it is me, and that is as far as I have thought.” No promises were made in either direction, which is how these usually begin.
1 for Matías Dalale, marked 7.95, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pianese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Position 20 and 17 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Pianese will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Bautista Picco 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 6.60 on 10 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
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.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Pianese pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
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.
“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.
Squad21 Apr 2036
Words at Pianese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Valeh Məmmədov 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.
Jonathan Mairiga 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.
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
The dugout21 Apr 2036
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 0‑1 Interim Coach left the room before anybody could ask which.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Pianese will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
A 1‑0 win over Virtus Entella, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
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.
Both clubs in the mire, one fixture between them, and a ground that will be louder and more frightened than at any point in the season. Pianese know what is at stake and so does everybody in the away end.
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.
5 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.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Pianese can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Pianese will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad7 Apr 2036
Words at Pianese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Valeh Məmmədov is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Pawan Parmigiani.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Pianese 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 Pianese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Everybody at Pianese saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 37 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
Squad31 Mar 2036
Words at Pianese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Simone Palumbo 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. Pianese told Valeh Məmmədov something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Pianese will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
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.
Bautista Picco 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.
Como left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad24 Mar 2036
Words at Pianese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Simone Palumbo is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Francesco Bonardi.
The dugout24 Mar 2036
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 0‑2 Interim Coach left the room before anybody could ask which.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Simone Palumbo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
16 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pianese lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
0‑3 to Lecce, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Pianese will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
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.
Matías Dalale 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 club looked outside for a month, found nothing it preferred, and handed the job to the man who had been doing it anyway. He knows the building; now he has to prove he knows the rest.
23 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Pianese lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Pianese will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 4 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Arezzo left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad3 Mar 2036
Words at Pianese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Simone Palumbo 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 bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
30 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pianese lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Pianese will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Pianese can tell you which week it ends in.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Pianese will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Cremonese have kept their man, and Pianese go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Pianese, another week without a signature from Alessandro Rovetini.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Interim Coach after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
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.
In brief
SquadSimone Palumbo falls out with a teammate over standards
Squad6 new faces, and Pianese are still learning each other
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Pianese will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
8 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Matías Dalale 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.
Day 10 of the vacancy. Candidates have been priced, sounded out and quietly ruled out — and the caretaker’s win ratio is becoming an argument all by itself.
Pianese asked and Fiorentina said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and Pianese know which stage they are at.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Pianese will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
The end came on a Tuesday, as these things usually do: a short meeting, a shorter statement, and Interim Coach clearing his office by noon. Football’s cruellest ritual, performed to schedule.
18 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pianese 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. 120 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Not an interim appointment — an institution with an empty coaching office. Somebody unfamiliar will run the sessions this week, and the question of how a club gets into this state is one the board will be asked and will not answer.
“I am not thinking past Saturday, and I would advise nobody else to.” The caretaker’s first rule is to pretend the job is small; Interim Coach recited it perfectly.
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 7.55 for the rest of it.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
The words a physio says slowly. 25 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pianese can pretend not to have heard.
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.
6 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Pianese can tell you which week it ends in.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Juve Stabia have kept their man, and Pianese go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Goni Naor 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.
32 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pianese lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pianese can pretend not to have heard.
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.
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Pianese can tell you which week it ends in.
Matías Dalale 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.
Cosenza left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout21 Jan 2036
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 0‑1 Interim Coach left the room before anybody could ask which.
Squad21 Jan 2036
Words at Pianese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Simone Palumbo 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pianese can pretend not to have heard.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Antti Ranta will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Pianese the goodbyes have quietly begun.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Atalanta keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Pianese can tell you which week it ends in.
Pianese asked and Fiorentina 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 Pianese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Interim Coach has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pianese can pretend not to have heard.
Everything agreed with Audace Cerignola, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pianese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Everybody at Pianese saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 35 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
The mood at Pianese has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
“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 Pianese, and it is not being withdrawn.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 37 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Pianese is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
100 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Interim Coach after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Squad31 Dec 2035
Words at Pianese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Simone Palumbo 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.
Matías Dalale 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.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 10 combined actions and a mark of 7.04, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Pianese are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Simone Palumbo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Interim Coach could afford to be generous.
“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 Pianese, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Pianese 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pianese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Pianese can tell you which week it ends in.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Pianese, another week without a signature from Francesco Bonardi.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
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
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Sam Davis
20 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Pianese lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Position 19 and 8 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Pianese is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Pianese have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Goni Naor 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Pianese, another week without a signature from Mattia Damioli.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
In brief
SquadSimone Palumbo falls out with a teammate over standards
27 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pianese lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
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.
“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 Pianese, and it is not being withdrawn.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Pianese have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
34 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Pianese lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Nicolò Montanari did not need any: 7.61, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
“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 Pianese, and it is not being withdrawn.
The goal that put Catanzaro ahead was still being replayed on the concourse when Pianese equalised, 4 minutes later. Leads are only worth what you do with them.
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. 41 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pianese can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Pianese they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Matías Dalale was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Simone Palumbo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The team at the top of the table next, and the honest measure of where this side actually is. Anybody can beat the club below them; the question is what happens against Catanzaro.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Pianese has been clear about where Casper Poulsen stands, which is more than many ever get.
Catanzaro next, and one man in the Pianese dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Nicolò Montanari is on it.
48 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pianese 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 Pianese is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
“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; Pianese are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Simone Palumbo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Interim Coach could afford to be generous.
The words a physio says slowly. 55 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pianese can pretend not to have heard.
8 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Empoli were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
“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 Pianese know 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.
The terraces5 Nov 2035
Pianese's travelling support get something back at Empoli
They paid twice — for the ticket and for the journey — and got a 3-1 win for it. Away support is the truest kind precisely because nothing about it is convenient.
62 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pianese lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
8 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 5 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Interim Coach after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Squad29 Oct 2035
Words at Pianese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Simone Palumbo 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.
69 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pianese lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 Pianese, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Pianese they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Pianese can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Pianese can tell you which week it ends in.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pianese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The words a physio says slowly. 76 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Pianese is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Antti Ranta 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 Pianese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
Everybody at Pianese saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 35 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
83 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Pianese lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pianese can pretend not to have heard.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Pianese can tell you which week it ends in.
At 36, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
10 combined actions and 6.91. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
The words a physio says slowly. 90 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
0‑4 to Lecco, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Matías Dalale 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.
97 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Pianese lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Nicolò Montanari did not need any: 7.68, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Pianese have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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 dugout24 Sep 2035
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Interim Coach was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Pianese dressing room was either.
In brief
The dugoutLuke Supyk asks for a word with the manager
104 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pianese 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 Pianese is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pianese can pretend not to have heard.
Pianese asked and Juve Stabia said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Georgiy Belov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Goalkeepers do not get to make mistakes; they get to make goals. He made one, he knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
The dugout17 Sep 2035
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑3 defeat, delivered by Interim Coach to a room that had heard them before.
111 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pianese lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 Pianese, and it is not being withdrawn.
Bautista Picco 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.
“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.
Squad10 Sep 2035
Words at Pianese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Georgiy Belov 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.
“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; Pianese are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Pianese, another week without a signature from Luke Supyk.
The dugout10 Sep 2035
Matías Dalale is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
118 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Pianese lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
313 appearances across 11 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Pianese may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Boardroom3 Sep 2035
Pianese close the window on a squad of their own making
22 in and 26 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Nicolò Montanari reports back to Pianese with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
The deal with Modena 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Francesco Proietto and Pianese agree another 2 years.
125 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Pianese lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Matías Dalale 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.
Boardroom27 Aug 2035
6 academy players handed senior numbers at Pianese
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Pianese asked and Pescara said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Alfonso Lombardo has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Jacopo Casella 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. Sergio Cassano 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. Mario Pugliese is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Squad27 Aug 2035
Georgiy Belov 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.
132 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Pianese lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Pianese have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Pianese they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“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 Pianese, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
“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; Pianese are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Pescara have kept their man, and Pianese go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
In brief
SquadWords at Pianese training over how hard people work
Transfer targetsA loan move for Amaury Delas is in the works
The words a physio says slowly. 139 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Pianese 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 Pianese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad13 Aug 2035
Luke Supyk 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.
Pianese asked and Pisa said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Pianese can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
146 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pianese lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pianese can pretend not to have heard.
343 appearances across 9 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pianese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad6 Aug 2035
Luke Supyk 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.
Pianese 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 words a physio says slowly. 153 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Pianese, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Nicolò Montanari will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Pianese the goodbyes have quietly begun.
The deal with Juve Stabia 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.
Matías Dalale 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.
Pianese asked and Pescara said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad30 Jul 2035
Georgiy Belov 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.
160 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Pianese lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pianese can pretend not to have heard.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Pianese have done the hard part with Frosinone, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Luke Supyk was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Pianese asked and Pescara said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 35 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Pianese is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Monza waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Pianese is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Pianese is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“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 Pianese, and it is not being withdrawn.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Luke Supyk was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Pianese asked and Pisa said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Every club 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 it has been tried.
Matías Dalale 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. AS Roma have kept their man, and Pianese go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
At 36, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
Squad9 Jul 2035
Mikah Hoop 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.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Pianese are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
The deal with Lazio 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.
Matías Dalale 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Luke Supyk was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Pescara have kept their man, and Pianese go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Mattia Damioli has his answer from Pianese; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
“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 Pianese know it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pianese can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Torino keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Pianese offered $19.0K; Ascoli said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Squad25 Jun 2035
Words at Pianese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luke Supyk 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.
5 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Pianese is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Monza waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Pianese is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The deal with Casertana 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.
“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 Pianese know it.
Bautista Picco 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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Simone Palumbo has, at Pianese, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Empoli have kept their man, and Pianese go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
In brief
SquadGeorgiy Belov falls out with a teammate over standards
Boardroom112% of the income goes out in wages at Pianese
The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 40 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Luke Supyk scored in the 85th minute, Catanzaro had already begun thinking about the journey home, and Pianese took the lot.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Atalanta is saying, and nobody at Pianese is enjoying the guessing.
Matías Dalale 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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Matteo Martina has, at Pianese, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Four paragraphs on the club website, none of them about football. The board thanked him, wished him well, and had the search under way before the page went up.
The coaching staff has emptied out entirely and there was nobody internal to promote, so the club has appointed a name almost none of its supporters will recognise. Clubs recover from this; none of them enjoy explaining it.
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
“Somebody picks the team on Saturday. This week it is me, and that is as far as I have thought.” No promises were made in either direction, which is how these usually begin.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pianese can pretend not to have heard.
Matías Dalale 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.
A conversation is coming this week. Pianese will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Squad4 Jun 2035
Words at Pianese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luke Supyk is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
11 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
“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 Pianese, and it is not being withdrawn.
Bautista Picco 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mikah Hoop was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pianese can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Pianese 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 Pianese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Luke Supyk was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Marked 8.06 — 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.
“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 Pianese, 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 Pianese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Luke Supyk was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
50 for the club now, each one filed in somebody’s memory with a date and a scoreline. Numbers like this are what supporters argue about in twenty years.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Pianese, another week without a signature from Luke Supyk.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Interim Coach has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
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 Pianese can pretend not to have heard.
Successful dribbles: 18. 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.
14 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad7 May 2035
Mikah Hoop 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 nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pianese can pretend not to have heard.
Bautista Picco 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Luke Supyk was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Pianese can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
The dugout30 Apr 2035
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Interim Coach to a room that had heard them before.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Lautaro Pereyra will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Pianese the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Bautista Picco 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.
Squad23 Apr 2035
Words at Pianese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luke Supyk 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.
Every club 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 it has been tried.
17 combined actions and 6.77. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
“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; Pianese are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pianese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad16 Apr 2035
Mikah Hoop 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 dugout16 Apr 2035
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Interim Coach to a room that had heard them before.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pianese can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings9 Apr 2035
Up for the corner, and Matías Dalale delivers — 7.56
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Matías Dalale scored, was marked 7.56, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Bautista Picco and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad9 Apr 2035
Words at Pianese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luke Supyk 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 Pianese can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pianese can pretend not to have heard.
Bautista Picco 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.
Squad2 Apr 2035
Words at Pianese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luke Supyk 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Lautaro Pereyra trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Pianese they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pianese can pretend not to have heard.
Bautista Picco 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.
Successful dribbles: 19. 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.
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.
Squad26 Mar 2035
Words at Pianese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mikah Hoop 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 Pianese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad19 Mar 2035
Words at Pianese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luke Supyk 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 door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
The dugout19 Mar 2035
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 1‑4 Interim Coach left the room before anybody could ask which.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
In brief
The dugoutGeorgiy Belov is still being punished for one mistake
0‑7 to Juve Stabia, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
“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 Pianese, and it is not being withdrawn.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Pianese and Juve Stabia, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Beaten 7 times, with 3 saves for company. Goalkeepers carry these scorelines on their record whoever actually caused them, which is the quiet injustice of the job.
Squad12 Mar 2035
Luke Supyk 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 board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Interim Coach has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Lautaro Pereyra 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.
Bautista Picco 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Pianese can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Matteo Colombo. 1‑0 against Monza, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Pianese they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“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 Pianese, and it is not being withdrawn.
Bautista Picco 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 Feb 2035
Words at Pianese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luke Supyk 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.
“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; Pianese are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pianese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Luke Supyk was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Destiny Efosa Egharevba provided it, and the 8.62 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“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 Pianese, and it is not being withdrawn.
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. 15 actions, 7.44, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Pianese and Pisa in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 36 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Pianese is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
“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 Pianese know it.
Squad12 Feb 2035
Mikah Hoop 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 needed Destiny Efosa Egharevba to find the net to bring anything home at all: 3‑3 against Pisa, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pianese can pretend not to have heard.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Matteo Colombo provided it, and the 8.37 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 2 arrived, 6 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
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.
The deal that would have taken Nicolò Montanari to Livorno has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Pianese with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Bautista Picco 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.
Renate made Pianese work for it, but the scoreboard read 3‑2 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad5 Feb 2035
Words at Pianese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luke Supyk 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.
Pianese 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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Mattia Damioli
Player ratingsLautaro Pereyra was on a different afternoon to everybody else
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pianese can pretend not to have heard.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Pianese have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Bautista Picco 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.
Squad29 Jan 2035
Luke Supyk 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.
Pianese asked and Empoli said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Everybody at Pianese saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 34 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Destiny Efosa Egharevba scored in the 86th minute, Catanzaro had already begun thinking about the journey home, and Pianese took the lot.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Destiny Efosa Egharevba provided it, and the 8.77 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pianese can pretend not to have heard.
The deal with Lazio 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pianese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Sassuolo have kept their man, and Pianese go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The name of Nicolò Montanari has come up in conversations Pianese were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad22 Jan 2035
Words at Pianese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mikah Hoop 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pianese can pretend not to have heard.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 4 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Bautista Picco and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad15 Jan 2035
Words at Pianese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luke Supyk 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.
Pianese asked and Atalanta said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“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; Pianese are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
5 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager’s verdict
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Dennis Berţa
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Interim Coach has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pianese can pretend not to have heard.
The offer from Vis Pesaro for Nicolò Montanari was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Noel Hermansson has just signed for Pianese, and for once the answer mattered.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Pianese can tell you which week it ends in.
Squad8 Jan 2035
Luke Supyk 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.
Pianese 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pianese 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 Pianese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mikah Hoop was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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 Pianese know it.
Every club 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 it has been tried.
Bautista Picco 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 2034
Luke Supyk 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.
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
The dugout25 Dec 2034
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑4 defeat, delivered by Interim Coach to a room that had heard them before.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Bautista Picco 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.
Squad18 Dec 2034
Luke Supyk 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.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Pianese are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
6 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pianese can pretend not to have heard.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 19 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Squad11 Dec 2034
Mikah Hoop 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.
“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 dugout11 Dec 2034
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.” Interim Coach, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Successful dribbles: 37. 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.
Position 18 and 9 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pianese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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.
Squad4 Dec 2034
Georgiy Belov 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.
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 dugout4 Dec 2034
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 Interim Coach left the room before anybody could ask which.
Two goals and a mark of 8.94 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pianese can pretend not to have heard.
Bautista Picco 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.
5 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Virtus Entella were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Squad27 Nov 2034
Mikah Hoop 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 dugout27 Nov 2034
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.” Interim Coach kept it short after the 3‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
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.
One weekend, judged against everybody else's. Destiny Efosa Egharevba has come out on top of it, and for most footballers a weekly award is the only silverware a career ever produces.
In brief
The dugoutGeorgiy Belov knocks on the manager's door
The dugoutThe plan did not have a place for Valeh Məmmədov
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pianese can pretend not to have heard.
Bautista Picco 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 36, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mikah Hoop was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad20 Nov 2034
6 new faces, and Pianese 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.
Virtus Entella next, and one man in the Pianese dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Pianese, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pianese can pretend not to have heard.
At 37, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Georgiy Belov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Interim Coach after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 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. Grant Amah scored, was marked 7.14, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Yonathan Rojas has just signed for Pianese, and for once the answer mattered.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pianese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Pianese can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Bautista Picco 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.
Squad30 Oct 2034
Mikah Hoop 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.
“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; Pianese are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The dugout30 Oct 2034
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 1‑3 Interim Coach left the room before anybody could ask which.
The dugout30 Oct 2034
The manager has not finished forgetting Bautista Picco's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
“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 Pianese, and it is not being withdrawn.
Bautista Picco 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.
Squad23 Oct 2034
Georgiy Belov 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 Pianese know it.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Juve Stabia? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Mikah Hoop’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Pianese needing him to play as if none of it matters.
“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 Pianese, and it is not being withdrawn.
Bautista Picco and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad16 Oct 2034
Words at Pianese training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mikah Hoop 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.
12 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.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Something was said to Leonardo Franchetti Rosada and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
“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 Pianese, and it is not being withdrawn.
Involvement in 2 goals, from a player who spent the ninety minutes doing the thing a manager actually wants: being where the ball was going to end up. 7.95 beside his name.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pianese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Georgiy Belov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Pianese, another week without a signature from Lautaro Pereyra.