Lorenzo Bianchi

I spent my childhood between the Italian Riviera and Monaco, close enough to half a dozen leagues that I never settled on a single club — I followed systems instead of colours. While other kids memorised goalscorers, I was sketching where the press broke down and why a full-back kept getting isolated on the touchline. That obsession with the wiring under the result is still the whole of how I work. My soccer pages start from how a side is actually built to play, not how it is ranked. I look at pressing triggers and how cleanly a team escapes them, the rest days between fixtures, whether a manager rotates by rote or by need, and the narrow positional duels that quietly settle even matches. I won't post a call I can't defend in plain language, so the argument always travels with the pick. Eleven years of doing this has stripped away any illusion that the sport is tidy. A flawless read can be undone by a ricochet or a contentious VAR call after ninety minutes. What I can control is the rigour of the method and the honesty to stand behind the calls that go down. — Lorenzo Bianchi