Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Nicolò Zaniolo scored in the 89th minute, Hellas Verona had already begun thinking about the journey home, and Udinese took the lot.
Gabri Veiga 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.
Marked 8.67 — 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Udinese, and 0 appearances in 13 say he has earned the hearing.
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.
Idrissa Guèye is 20, and for one weekend he was the best of everybody his age in the division. Nobody should build a career on it and everybody quietly does.
0‑3 to Sassuolo, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Two goals and a mark of 9.52 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
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.
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Udinese may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Assane Diao, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.98
A mark of 7.98 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 Udinese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Udinese heard it as anything else.
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.
The young player of the month award goes to a 21-year-old at Udinese who has looked like the finished article for four weekends running. The next four are the ones that decide whether he is.
Gabri Veiga 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 Udinese can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Unai Gómez 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.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Unai Gómez was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.05. 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.
“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.
The dugout26 Oct 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.” Giulio Romano kept it short after the 3‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Gabri Veiga 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 chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 4 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Successful dribbles: 20. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Udinese, and 0 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Udinese can tell you which week it ends in.
100 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.
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.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Udinese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
13 combined actions and 7.32. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
Gabri Veiga 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 did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Udinese will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Udinese know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Udinese, and both men came out saying it was fine.
A brace, and Keinan Davis takes the afternoon — 8.89
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Keinan Davis provided it, and the 8.89 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Gabri Veiga 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Keinan Davis. 2‑0 against Parma, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Giulio Romano on a 2‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
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.
14 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Udinese lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Jordan Zemura reports back to Udinese with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
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.
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.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Udinese close the window on a squad of their own making
11 in and 1 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.
The phone has started ringing about Jordan Zemura again, and this time the name on the line is AS Roma. Udinese are listening politely and promising nothing.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Udinese 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Unai Gómez. 1‑0 against Pisa, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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.
In brief
Player ratingsUnai Gómez was on a different afternoon to everybody else
The words a physio says slowly. 31 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 fee is $34.9M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Porto drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Udinese asked and New York City 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 know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Thun had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Successful dribbles: 21. 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Giulio Romano after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Udinese asked and Genoa said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The chase for Danilo Veiga ended with $10.6M changing hands and Lecce out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Udinese this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
The dugout24 Aug 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 0‑1 Giulio Romano left the room before anybody could ask which.
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.
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.
Udinese have gone to Porto 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 deal with Lecce 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.
Nicolò Zaniolo 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Giovanni Di Franco trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Juan David Arizala signs something — a contract at Udinese or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
In brief
SquadLuigi Caputo is not doing himself any favours
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Lecce have kept their man, and Udinese go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Assane Diao is 20, and Udinese 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Gerardo Scalise 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. Tiziano Rossetti 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.
The offer went to Como 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.
“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.
Still no offer on the table, and Oumar Solet’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Udinese has been clear about where Daniele Padelli stands, which is more than many ever get.