From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market31 Aug 2026
Picerno say no — this time
The offer from Stade Nyonnais for Giuseppe Coppola 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.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Picerno 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.
Match29 Aug 2026
Cosenza left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
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 Edoardo Greco to a room that had heard them before.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
A loan move for Matteo Cotali is in the works
Picerno have made the call to Modena. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Benfica have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
Nobody at Picerno is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
Squad31 Aug 2026
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Picerno would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
Squad31 Aug 2026
“Nobody outside is coming to save us.” It was short, it was not comfortable, and by all accounts the Picerno squad were quieter afterwards than they had been all season.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
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.
Boardroom24 Aug 2026
Picerno say no to the training-ground money
The plan went upstairs and came back down. Nothing about that will make a headline anywhere else, and everybody who works at the training ground will remember it for years.
Squad24 Aug 2026
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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Angers SCO have kept their man, and Picerno go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Norman Díaz 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and Picerno know which stage they are at.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Emmanuele Esposito and Picerno agree another 1 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad10 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Picerno this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Empoli have kept their man, and Picerno go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Paolo Rossi 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Alfonso Conti is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Flavio De Angelis 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Marcello Paganelli is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Squad10 Aug 2026
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Picerno know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
Squad10 Aug 2026
The medical room confirms 15 days on the sidelines for Andrea Esposito, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad3 Aug 2026
381 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Dario Del Fabro commits to Picerno for another 3 years.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Reggiana have kept their man, and Picerno go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Market3 Aug 2026
Still no offer on the table, and Dario Del Fabro’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
Market3 Aug 2026
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Picerno, another week without a signature from Elia Summa.
The dugout3 Aug 2026
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Emmanuele Esposito trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.