“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.
The deal that would have taken Luca Schirone to Cagliari has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Pineto with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
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.
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.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Words at Pineto training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lorenzo Dickmann 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 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.
Luca Schirone 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.
“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.
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.
Alessandro Tonti 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.
Squad28 Aug 2028
Words at Pineto training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lorenzo Dickmann 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.
Squad28 Aug 2028
Federico Baggi has improved at 24, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
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.
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.
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Alessio Zini is a Pineto player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
At 25 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 4 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
“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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
Lorenzo Dickmann was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad14 Aug 2028
Luca Schirone has improved at 25, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 5 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
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.
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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Alessandro Ciardi is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pineto 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.
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 4 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Pineto, another week without a signature from Lorenzo Dickmann.
17 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pineto lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Alessandro Tonti 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.
In brief
SquadWords at Pineto training over how hard people work
24 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pineto lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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.
31 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pineto 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 Pineto can pretend not to have heard.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
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.
Squad17 Jul 2028
Luca Schirone has improved at 25, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
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.
“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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Agostino Grasso has just signed for Pineto, and for once the answer mattered.
The phone has started ringing about Luca Schirone again, and this time the name on the line is Frosinone. Pineto are listening politely and promising nothing.
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.
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.
At 25 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Day 9 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.
The end came on a Tuesday, as these things usually do: a short meeting, a shorter statement, and Samuele Tedesco clearing his office by noon. Football’s cruellest ritual, performed to schedule.
“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; Paolo Marini recited it perfectly.
Alessandro Tonti 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.
Squad3 Jul 2028
Words at Pineto training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lorenzo Dickmann 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.
Christian Rinaldi is 19, and Pineto have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
4 arrivals, an average age nobody would call a squad, and a set of parents being shown around a building their sons will spend more time in than at home. The scouting has already happened; today is only the paperwork.
“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.
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.
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 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Luca Lombardi trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“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.
Lorenzo Dickmann 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.
In brief
SquadAntonio Lubrano falls out with a teammate over standards
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.
“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.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 16 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Žan Majer 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.
Trento will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Gabriele Calzà has pre-agreed a move to Pineto, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Samuele Tedesco has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Lorenzo Dickmann 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.
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.
“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; Pineto are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“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.
Squad5 Jun 2028
Words at Pineto training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Pasquale Iaccarino 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.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Lumezzane will make the call about Miłosz Kurzydłowski this week. Pineto have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
“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.
Luca Schirone 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.
Catania will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Edoardo Mannino has pre-agreed a move to Pineto, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
In brief
SquadWords at Pineto training over how hard people work
“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.
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.
In brief
SquadWords at Pineto training over how hard people work
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.
“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.
Žan Majer 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Luca Lombardi trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
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.
In brief
SquadWords at Pineto training over how hard people work
“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.
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.
Squad1 May 2028
Words at Pineto training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marco Valecilla 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.
Position 18 and 28 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.
“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.
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 20 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 Pineto can pretend not to have heard.
Luca Schirone 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.
9 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
The words a physio says slowly. 27 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 Pineto, and it is not being withdrawn.
Lorenzo Dickmann 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 9 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.
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.
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 words a physio says slowly. 34 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 am not thinking past Saturday, and I would advise nobody else to.” The caretaker’s first rule is to pretend the job is small; Samuele Tedesco recited it perfectly.
1 for Lorenzo Dickmann, marked 7.47, 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.
“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.
Žan Majer 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.
Position 18 and 27 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.
“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.
“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.
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.
A 3‑2 win over Gubbio, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad27 Mar 2028
Words at Pineto training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lorenzo Dickmann is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
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.
“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.
Žan Majer 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.
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 Dren Terrnava.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Darius Cristian Groza did not need any: 7.60, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pineto this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad13 Mar 2028
Words at Pineto training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lorenzo Dickmann 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Darius Cristian Groza. 2‑1 against Pianese, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Darius Cristian Groza has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
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 Filippo Cecchini.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Gabriele Salvatore has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
“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.
Žan Majer 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.
AlbinoLeffe will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Christian Rinaldi has pre-agreed a move to Pineto, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Player ratings6 Mar 2028
Luca Schirone was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.66. 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.
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 87th, and Perugia spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
Two goals and a mark of 8.57 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“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.
Lorenzo Dickmann was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
“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; Pineto are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
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.
“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.
Luca Schirone 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.
“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 Pineto know 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.
Lorenzo Dickmann 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 injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 15 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
8 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
10 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.
“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.
“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.
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.
Alessandro Tonti 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.
Squad31 Jan 2028
Words at Pineto training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lorenzo Dickmann 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 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.
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.
“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.
Squad24 Jan 2028
Words at Pineto training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Federico Viero is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Marked 5.40. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
Lorenzo Dickmann 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 one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
“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.
A mark of 7.80 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Luca Schirone 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.
9 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.
The end came on a Tuesday, as these things usually do: a short meeting, a shorter statement, and Valentino Bruno clearing his office by noon. Football’s cruellest ritual, performed to schedule.
“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; Gabriele Salvatore recited it perfectly.
A mark of 7.96 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
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 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.
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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Darius Cristian Groza provided it, and the 8.76 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Alessandro Tonti 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 8 goals between Pineto and Ravenna, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Squad27 Dec 2027
Words at Pineto training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lorenzo Dickmann 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.
Siracusa will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Martin Annunziata has pre-agreed a move to Pineto, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
At 19 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.
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 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Alessandro Marrancone. 2‑1 against Forli, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Alessandro Marrancone has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Forli spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
Player ratings20 Dec 2027
Luca Schirone was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.06. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 9 combined actions and a mark of 6.51, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
“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.
“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.
Alessandro Tonti 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.
Squad13 Dec 2027
Words at Pineto training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lorenzo Dickmann 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 Pineto know it.
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.
7 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Alessandro Ciardi did not need any: 8.26, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pineto 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.
At 20 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.
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.
6 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Pineto has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad29 Nov 2027
Words at Pineto training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lorenzo Dickmann is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
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.
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.
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 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 hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Mohamed Malang Touré did not need any: 7.77, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
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.
Lorenzo Dickmann 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.
“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 Pineto know it.
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.
“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.
“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.
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 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Pasquale Iaccarino has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
The words a physio says slowly. 16 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.
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.
Lorenzo Dickmann was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
A 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 words a physio says slowly. 23 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 terraces25 Oct 2027
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 7 of the 29 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
A mark of 7.62 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
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. 30 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
A mark of 8.06 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Alessandro Tonti 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.
Squad18 Oct 2027
Words at Pineto training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lorenzo Dickmann 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Mohamed Malang Touré. 1‑0 against Livorno, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
38 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pineto lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
45 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pineto 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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mohamed Malang Touré provided it, and the 8.48 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Lorenzo Dickmann 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Mohamed Malang Touré has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
54 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pineto lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Sambenedettese kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Pineto will be asked about the last half hour all week.
The terraces27 Sep 2027
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 11 of the 29 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
7 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Alessandro Ciardi did not need any: 7.70, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Player ratings27 Sep 2027
A first appearance Luigi Pedaci will want to forget — 5.69
Everybody's debut is one of two stories and this was the other one. 5.69, and the only consolation available is that nobody's career has ever been decided by ninety minutes in a shirt he had just been given.
Luca Schirone 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.
In brief
Player ratingsLuca Schirone was on a different afternoon to everybody else
61 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pineto 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 Pineto, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
4 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.
Lorenzo Dickmann 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.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Matteo Borsoi has improved at 24, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
68 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pineto lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 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.
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.
23 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.
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 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.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Gianluca Germinario has his answer from Pineto; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 15 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
75 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pineto lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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.
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.
82 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pineto lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Miłosz Kurzydłowski is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pineto this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $2.0M for Lorenzo Dickmann, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Anass Serbouti has improved at 27, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
89 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pineto lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
At 24 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
6 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Teodoro Palmieri 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.
96 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pineto lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 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.
103 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pineto lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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.
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.
110 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pineto lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Pineto can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
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.
Luca Schirone 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.
117 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pineto lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Alessandro Tonti 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 Jul 2027
Words at Pineto training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Pasquale Iaccarino 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.
124 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pineto lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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.
131 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pineto lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Alessandro Tonti 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.
Squad12 Jul 2027
Words at Pineto training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jallal-Dine Yansané 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Pineto know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
138 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pineto lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Valentino Bruno 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.
“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.
The words a physio says slowly. 18 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.
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.
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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Davide Giannini is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
The words a physio says slowly. 32 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Miłosz Kurzydłowski is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Pineto know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
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.
“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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
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.
Alessandro Tonti 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.
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 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. 20 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.
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.
Marc-Aurèle Caillard 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Jallal-Dine Yansané is living that version at Pineto, and it tends to show in the first month.
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.
28 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pineto lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Luca Schirone 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 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.
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.
Squad3 May 2027
Words at Pineto training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marc-Aurèle Caillard 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 award is a small thing with a heavy meaning: for four weeks nobody in this division did his job better. Pineto have the trophy on a shelf and the player in the side.
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 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 hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Saad El Haddad did not need any: 7.94, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
“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.
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.
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.
Forli 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.
The hardest thing about being 18 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Cristian De Angelis did not need any: 7.90, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Alessandro Tonti 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.
6 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Words at Pineto training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marc-Aurèle Caillard 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.
Marked 8.69 — 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.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Valentino Bruno has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Pineto has been clear about where Luca Schirone stands, which is more than many ever get.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Davide Giannini is the division's best young player this month
At 22 he has spent a month being better than everybody his age in the league, which is a different and harder thing than one good afternoon. Pineto will try very hard not to make too much of it.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Filippo D'Andrea is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Marc-Aurèle Caillard was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
At 18 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.
Davide Giannini, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.12
A mark of 8.12 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
“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.
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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Luca Schirone 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.
Marked 9.04 — 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Davide Giannini has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
7 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Alessandro Tonti 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.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Words at Pineto training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marc-Aurèle Caillard 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 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.
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.
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 one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
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.
Alessandro Tonti 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.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Words at Pineto training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marc-Aurèle Caillard is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 7 of the 30 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Niccolò Postiglione will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Pineto the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Niccolò Postiglione 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 Pineto this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Alessandro Tonti will call it something else in private.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Words at Pineto training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Stefano Maiorana 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.
Alessandro Tonti 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.
Player ratings15 Feb 2027
Marco Spina was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.43. 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.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Pineto spent a month trying to move him and nobody rang back. He trains with a squad that has told him where he stands, and both sides start counting down to the next one.
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 one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Filippo D'Andrea is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Alessandro Tonti was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
It needed Gianluca Vigliotti to find the net to bring anything home at all: 2‑2 against Vis Pesaro, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
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 afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Player ratings25 Jan 2027
Davide Giannini, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.56
A mark of 8.56 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
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.
At 23 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.
A 2‑0 win over Sambenedettese, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
The chase for Raffaele Marchioro ended with $250.0K changing hands and Guidonia Montecelio out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
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.
“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.
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.
14 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pineto lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Alessandro Tonti 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Gianluca Vigliotti has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
19 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.
Marked 8.13 — 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.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Davide Giannini has come out of that comparison in the side, and Pineto have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
In brief
Player ratingsA defender's afternoon for Luca Lombardi
The words a physio says slowly. 22 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
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.
30 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pineto lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Alessandro Tonti 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.
37 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pineto lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Luca Schirone 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.
3 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.
44 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pineto lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
23 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.
Alessandro Tonti 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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Pineto has been clear about where Luca Lombardi stands, which is more than many ever get.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Marco Spina is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
51 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pineto lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Pineto will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
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.
58 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pineto lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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.
1‑2 to Bra, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Marco Spina was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.27. 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.
65 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pineto lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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.
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. Gianluca Vigliotti had Pineto level again within 1 minutes, and Pianese never got to play with a lead at all.
74 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pineto lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Out, 0‑3 to Lazio, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
The terraces9 Nov 2026
Pineto are taken apart by Lazio — and the town wants answers
It finished 0-3. A cup exit is a disappointment; this was a public dismantling, and the difference between the two is the number of people who will still be talking about it in August.
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.
Marked 8.21 — 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.
In brief
BoardroomNobody left the Pineto dressing room in a hurry
81 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pineto lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
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.
Marked 5.60. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
88 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pineto lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The terraces26 Oct 2026
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 7 of the 27 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
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.
6 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.
95 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pineto lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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.
17 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.