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.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Deadline passes with 0 signed and 0 gone
That is the business done at Pineto until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Gianluca Germinario was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Empoli have kept their man, and Pineto go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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 6.84, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
14 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Pineto lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Filippo D'Andrea was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Pineto asked and Torino 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 Pineto this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The words a physio says slowly. 21 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Pineto have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
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.
Campobasso held the lead for 4 minutes, which is not long enough to enjoy it. Pineto answered before the celebration had properly finished, and the shape of the afternoon changed with it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pineto this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Pineto they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Filippo D'Andrea 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 never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Ank Asmussen commits to Pineto for another 4 years.
The dugout11 Jan 2027
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 0‑3 defeat, delivered by Franco Neri to a room that had heard them before.
The dugout11 Jan 2027
Marco Spina 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.
“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 Pineto, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
Erdis Kraja 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 defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
In brief
Transfer targetsA loan move for Andrea Favilli is in the works
Transfer targetsA loan move for Francesco Folino is in the works
At 21 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
2‑3 to Forli, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words at Pineto training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Filippo D'Andrea 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.
Erdis Kraja 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.
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. Filippo D'Andrea had Pineto level again within 1 minutes, and Forli never got to play with a lead at all.
Half the programme played, position 8, 16 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 2‑3 Franco Neri left the room before anybody could ask which.
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.
14 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.
13 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Forli next, and one man in the Pineto dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Francesco Marone will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Pineto the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Filippo D'Andrea and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
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 Francesco Marone is on 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.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Marco Spina was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.10. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Niccolò Postiglione and Pineto agree another 5 years.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Davide Giannini is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
A 1‑1 draw with Latina leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Franco Neri chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
He used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Gubbio in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pineto this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Franco Neri on a 2‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
“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.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Words at Pineto training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Giuseppe Saccomanni 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 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.
Filippo D'Andrea 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: 20. 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.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Luca Lombardi. 2‑0 against Guidonia Montecelio, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Luca Lombardi was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.02. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Pineto have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Pineto is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Pineto, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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.
Marco Spina 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 point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Franco Neri after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Shots: 4. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
In brief
Player ratingsThe chances came and went for Luca Lombardi
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pineto 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 Pineto can tell you which week it ends in.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Franco Neri after 0‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
In brief
The dugoutLuca Schirone knocks on the manager’s door
Player ratingsMarco Spina beats them one at a time
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
9 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.
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.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Franco Neri was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Pineto dressing room was either.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Livorno? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Francesco Marone will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Pineto the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Filippo D'Andrea was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Alessandro Pellegrino 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Vis Pesaro in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The 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.
Saad El Haddad 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 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 demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Silvano Biggi is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Monopoli go through and Pineto go home, 0‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Filippo D'Andrea 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.
0‑1 to Perugia, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad28 Sep 2026
9 new faces, and Pineto 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.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Nobody at Pineto is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Pineto is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
Shifted about, taken off before the hour, asked to do somebody else's running — Silvano Biggi has had enough of being useful and would like to be picked. Pineto know, and have known for weeks.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Filippo D'Andrea 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. Rapid Bucharest have kept their man, and Pineto go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Luca Schirone scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑2 to Pescara, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
The dugout14 Sep 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 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Franco Neri to a room that had heard them before.
Successful dribbles: 11. 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.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
“If we are going to be beaten, let it not be because somebody in here could not be bothered.” He stood up and said it in front of everybody, which is a thing a squad remembers about a man for years.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pineto can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Pineto close the window on a squad of their own making
12 in and 0 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pineto this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Pineto asked and Pro Vercelli 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 demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Gianluca Vigliotti is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Pineto, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Giuseppe Saccomanni was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Pescara next, and one man in the Pineto dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Pineto people have started saying his name 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 Pineto, and it is not being withdrawn.
Pineto asked and Spezia said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
9 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Franco Neri after 0‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Pineto had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Le Havre AC, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Pineto training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Filippo D'Andrea 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.
Pineto 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.
Niccolò Postiglione and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Udinese have kept their man, and Pineto go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Farul Constanța 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.
Pineto had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Padova, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Filippo D'Andrea 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. Temperley have kept their man, and Pineto go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Orazio Gamberini 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. Cristiano Verdi is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Gabriele Calabrese 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. Romano Bosco is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Pineto 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 Filippo D'Andrea 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. Spezia have kept their man, and Pineto go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Giovanni Di Renzo 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.