Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Sorrento they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Sorrento can tell you which week it ends in.
Leonardo Capezzi 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.
200 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Nobody at Sorrento 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Sorrento can pretend not to have heard.
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.
Successful dribbles: 23. 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.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Marco Cuccurullo’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Sorrento needing him to play as if none of it matters.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Sorrento have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Deadline passes with 0 signed and 0 gone
That is the business done at Sorrento 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.
Everything agreed with Cremonese, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Hellas Verona have kept their man, and Sorrento go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody has moved past him. It is not a dropping and it is worse than one, because a dropping is about a Saturday and this is about where he stands.
The dugout1 Feb 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 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Federico Grassi to a room that had heard them before.
“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 Sorrento, and it is not being withdrawn.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.65 for the rest of it.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Sorrento they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Defensores have kept their man, and Sorrento go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Sorrento have made the call to Hellas Verona. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
The dugout25 Jan 2027
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.” Federico Grassi chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
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.
In brief
The dugoutFederico Ricci unhappy with how he is being used
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Sorrento can pretend not to have heard.
The deal with Frosinone is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
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.
“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 Sorrento, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Gubbio waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Sorrento is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Sorrento have done the hard part with Hellas Verona, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
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.
Alan Martínez 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 door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
The dugout11 Jan 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑3 Federico Grassi left the room before anybody could ask which.
The deal with Picerno is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Leonardo Capezzi 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.
Hellas Verona have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Federico Marchesi has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
Leonardo Capezzi 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.
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.
Half the programme played, position 13, 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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
One weekend, judged against everybody else's. Alan Martínez has come out on top of it, and for most footballers a weekly award is the only silverware a career ever produces.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Casertana in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Two goals and a mark of 9.53 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
He is 22 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.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Federico Grassi kept it short after the 3‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Something was said to Federico Marchesi and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
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.
Squad21 Dec 2026
The division's best last weekend was a Sorrento man
It is a small honour and it is not nothing: somebody watched every match in the division and decided that Alan Martínez was the best thing in any of them.
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. Alan Martínez had Sorrento level again within 3 minutes, and Monopoli never got to play with a lead at all.
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
The dugout14 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.” Federico Grassi chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Sorrento has been clear about where Simon Harrasser stands, which is more than many ever get.
Every signing waits for it and every press conference asks about it until it comes. It has come, Sorrento have their man off the mark, and the second one is always easier.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Leonardo Capezzi’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Sorrento needing him to play as if none of it matters.
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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Federico Grassi after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Luca Crecco's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Francesco Fusco’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Sorrento needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Leonardo Capezzi and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
He 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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.99 on the card, and the Sorrento support went home talking about one name.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Federico Grassi kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
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.
Alan Martínez 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 door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
The dugout23 Nov 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 0‑3 Federico Grassi left the room before anybody could ask which.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Sorrento told Francesco Fusco something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sorrento this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Cosenza in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Fabrício Kanté trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Sorrento that is a harder question to answer.
Leonardo Capezzi 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 pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Angelo Viscardi, and the manager let it.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Federico Grassi to a room that had heard them before.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
Luca Crecco 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.
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 demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Ciro Loreto is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Federico Grassi after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Sorrento than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Antonio Matera
“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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
8 new faces, and Sorrento 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.
A goalkeeper’s error has no defender behind it to tidy it away. He knew before the ball crossed the line, the crowd knew a second later, and there is nothing anybody can say tonight.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Federico Grassi to a room that had heard them 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.
The team at the top of the table next, and the honest measure of where this side actually is. Anybody can beat the club below them; the question is what happens against Catania.
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.
Successful dribbles: 14. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Federico Grassi was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Sorrento dressing room was either.
Nobody at Sorrento 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.
Cavese next, and one man in the Sorrento dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Leonardo Capezzi 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 Sorrento has been clear about where Lorenzo Colombini stands, which is more than many ever get.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Sean Parker’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Sorrento needing him to play as if none of it matters.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Ciro Loreto has written the date down.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Sorrento, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The language has come, the shrug has gone, and he argues in training like a man who expects to be here next year. None of it shows up on a fee and all of it shows up on the pitch.
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Marco Cuccurullo’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know 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 Sorrento this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
He is 22 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.
Successful dribbles: 14. 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.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Federico Grassi was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Sorrento dressing room was either.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Audace Cerignola defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
Novara go through and Sorrento 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.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.66 for the rest of it.
Alan Martínez 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.
Level with 86 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon Sorrento had all but put away. Potenza will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
Squad28 Sep 2026
8 new faces, and Sorrento 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.
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
The dugout28 Sep 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.” Federico Grassi chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
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.
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 85th, and Casarano spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
Marco Cuccurullo 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Marco Cuccurullo. 2‑1 against Casarano, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑1, Federico Grassi could afford to be generous.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Sorrento can pretend not to have heard.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ciro Loreto was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 89. Foggia had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
“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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Sorrento can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Sorrento close the window on a squad of their own making
14 in and 8 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.
Sorrento asked and FC Villefranche said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Sorrento training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ciro Loreto 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 manager has re-ordered his thinking and Nicolò Evangelisti has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Rosenborg have kept their man, and Sorrento go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
7.92, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Sorrento had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
Squad31 Aug 2026
8 new faces, and Sorrento 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.
It needed Marco Cuccurullo to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Casertana, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Federico Grassi was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Sorrento dressing room was either.
Nobody at Sorrento 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.
Sorrento had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at San Lorenzo, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Pianese have kept their man, and Sorrento go back to a list with one name crossed off 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 Sorrento this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Add another name to the list: Dolomiti Bellunesi have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Mattia Esposito. The answer from Sorrento has not changed — yet.
Sorrento have made the call to Farul Constanța. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Casertana in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
They sit in position 6 and they will be waiting. Away form is where a season shows its true character, and this side has a point to make about its own.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Slavia Prague have kept their man, and Sorrento go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Sorrento are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Alan Martínez 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.
Sorrento 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Gennaro Troisi is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Federico Sala 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Raffaele Di Stefano 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Mariano Mariani 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.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Sorrento are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. FC Copenhagen have kept their man, and Sorrento go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Claudio Santini was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
61 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.