The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Torino have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Torino hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Rolando Mandragora 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 Torino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
22 appearances at Empoli and the goals keep coming. Torino are watching this more closely than the borrowing club would like.
The dugout8 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 2‑3 defeat, delivered by Gianmarco Raimondi to a room that had heard them before.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Santa Clara waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Torino is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 88th, and AC Milan spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Pietro Comuzzo did not need any: 7.88, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
The offer from AS Roma for Gvidas Gineitis was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 2 arrived, 5 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Words at Torino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rolando Mandragora 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.
Successful dribbles: 39. 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.
2 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Torino can pretend not to have heard.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Lorenzo Carvalho 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.
Rolando Mandragora 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 name of Flynn Macnack has come up in conversations Torino were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Atalanta have kept their man, and Torino go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Atalanta had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. Torino have paid $3.1M for Francesco Salvemini, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
Che Adams 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.
13 goals and a season average of 7.29 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Words at Torino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rolando Mandragora 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 offer from Sassuolo for Che Adams was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Torino people have started saying his name in the past tense.
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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Torino have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Che Adams 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 phone has started ringing about Gvidas Gineitis again, and this time the name on the line is Atalanta. Torino are listening politely and promising nothing.
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.
Torino have gone to Bologna with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Torino have gone to Hellas Verona with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Torino had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Enzo Ebosse has agreed terms with Genoa for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Rolando Mandragora 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 general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Che Adams. 1‑0 against Cagliari, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Nikola Vlašić 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 is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Torino can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Rolando Mandragora was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Position 9, 26 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Nikola Vlašić wants continental football; whether Torino can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
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 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 Torino 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.
The ambition story running backwards, and the one nobody tells: a footballer who wants a smaller ground, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is rarely reported as anything else.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Flynn Macnack will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Torino the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Torino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
8 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Torino and Juventus in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
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.
Beaten 6 times, with 5 saves for company. Goalkeepers carry these scorelines on their record whoever actually caused them, which is the quiet injustice of the job.
Successful dribbles: 41. 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.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Rolando Mandragora was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Duván Zapata 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.
Nothing about the week ahead is ordinary. Juventus on Saturday, a town that has already started talking about it, and a dressing room that does not need telling what it means.
The young player of the month award goes to a 21-year-old at Torino who has looked like the finished article for four weekends running. The next four are the ones that decide whether he is.
Successful dribbles: 39. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Pietro Comuzzo, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.69
A mark of 7.69 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 general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Rolando Mandragora 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.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Che Adams was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.60. 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.
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.
Something was said to Duván Zapata and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
The words a physio says slowly. 14 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.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
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 Gvidas Gineitis is on it.
26 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Torino lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
There were 88 minutes on the clock and Pisa had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and Torino did not stop to explain themselves.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Pietro Comuzzo did not need any: 7.85, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Torino they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Che Adams 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Cesare Casadei 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 10 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Niccolò Fortini did not need any: 7.75, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Torino hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Nikola Vlašić 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 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.
0‑2 to AS Roma, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Words at Torino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ricardo Rodríguez 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.
Successful dribbles: 27. 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.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Torino heard it as anything else.
Rolando Mandragora 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 general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Che Adams was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.09. 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.
Something was said to Nikola Vlašić and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Nikola Vlašić wants continental football; whether Torino can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Rolando Mandragora was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
7 new faces, and Torino 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Torino 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 Torino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Gianmarco Raimondi after 2‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
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.
Rolando Mandragora 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 training ground goes quiet for a fortnight. 5 men have gone off to be somebody else’s players, and the manager is left with the ones nobody has called.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Gianmarco Raimondi after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Torino know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The ambition story running backwards, and the one nobody tells: a footballer who wants a smaller ground, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is rarely reported as anything else.
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 8.15 — 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.
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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Gianmarco Raimondi on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
In brief
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Lucas Perri
The dugoutNathan Patterson is still being punished for one mistake
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 7.83 for the rest of it.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Giovanni Simeone wants continental football; whether Torino can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
7 goals in one match, Che Adams on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Torino and Napoli.
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.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Rolando Mandragora scored, was marked 7.81, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Flynn Macnack will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Torino the goodbyes have quietly begun.
At 20 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.
Minute 95, against AC Milan, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
Successful dribbles: 17. 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 8.60 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Torino have lost him in all but the paperwork.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.77 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Rolando Mandragora was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
100 for the club now, each one filed in somebody’s memory with a date and a scoreline. Numbers like this are what supporters argue about in twenty years.
Duván Zapata 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 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.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 0 arrived, 3 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Rolando Mandragora and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
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 phone has started ringing about Enzo Ebosse again, and this time the name on the line is Reggiana. Torino are listening politely and promising nothing.
6 call-ups is a compliment to the squad and a headache for the man running it. He will get them back in a fortnight, tired, in various states of repair.
25 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Torino lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The offer from Giana Erminio for Flynn Macnack was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
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.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Guadalajara keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Che Adams 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 7.87. There is a kind of forward whose value only shows up when you count what he was involved in rather than what he finished, and this is the day that argument makes 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.
200 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.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 96. Cagliari had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Benfica have kept their man, and Torino 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 Torino people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Torino offered $9.1M; Atalanta said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
The offer from Empoli for Enzo Ebosse was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Rolando Mandragora was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Torino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ricardo Rodríguez 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.
Torino have made the call to Guadalajara. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Cagliari in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
The offer went to Atalanta this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Pineto waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Torino is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Torino asked and Lazio 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 have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Torino have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at Torino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Zakaria Aboukhlal 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 offer from Fatih Karagumruk for Nikola Vlašić was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Torino asked and Lazio 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 want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Torino hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Che Adams and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Torino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rolando Mandragora 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.
6 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.