Simone Davi falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Südtirol this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Bjarki Bjarkason trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Carrarese next, and one man in the Südtirol dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Federico Davi is on it.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Südtirol. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
3 goals in 9 games at Ravenna — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Südtirol updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Simone Davi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
Andrea Masiello 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.
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
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 Lombardo to a room that had heard them before.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Südtirol this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Federico Lombardo after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Empoli defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
Nobody at Südtirol will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Cesena in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Two goals and a mark of 8.40 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Kevin Zeroli, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.22
A mark of 8.22 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Südtirol is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
500 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Simone Davi falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Alvin Obinna Okoro 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 dugout26 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Federico Lombardo, on a 3‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Daniele Borra
At 18 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Simone Davi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Salvatore Molina’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Südtirol needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Filipe Bordon was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Davide Veroli’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Südtirol needing him to play as if none of it matters.
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.
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 Andrea Masiello has written the date down.
3 goals in 5 games at Ravenna — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Südtirol updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
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.
They sit in position 17 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 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Simone Davi falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
The young player of the month award goes to a 21-year-old at Südtirol who has looked like the finished article for four weekends running. The next four are the ones that decide whether he is.
7 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.
Marked 7.35. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Federico Lombardo was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Südtirol dressing room was either.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Domen Črnigoj obliged against Sambenedettese. 2‑1 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Südtirol.
Two goals and a mark of 8.20 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Gabriele Platto will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Südtirol the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Simone Davi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Südtirol this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
He is 21 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Gabriele Platto is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Palermo in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
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.
Successful dribbles: 10. 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.23 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Campobasso waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Südtirol is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Two of the goals had his name somewhere on them, which is the afternoon a manager wants from anybody asked to both create and finish. 6.44, and 2 involvements.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Simone Davi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Aljoša Vasić'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 deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 6 arrived, 2 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Simone Davi falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Südtirol asked and Fiorentina said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
7 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Südtirol can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Südtirol is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Senior shirt numbers handed to boys the coaches have known since they were twelve. Most will not make it and all of them have already done the hard part.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Simone Davi falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Martino Villa 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Domenico Zangari 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. Paolo Baldini 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.
It is the quietest way a club tells you what its ambitions are. The money was asked for, the money was refused, and the people who work there every day now know exactly where they stand.
Avellino next, and one man in the Südtirol dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Words at Südtirol training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Simone Davi 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.
Andrea Masiello and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Torino have kept their man, and Südtirol go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Südtirol people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Südtirol had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Lazio, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Südtirol this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Südtirol asked and Cremonese said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Andrea Giorgini, and the manager let it.
Squad10 Aug 2026
6 new faces, and Südtirol 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.
48 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.
484 appearances across 12 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Südtirol this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Simone Davi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Südtirol asked and Fiorentina said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.