Evan Ndicka offered to Real Madrid
Roma will have to try to find a way to keep Evan Ndicka beyond this summer.
As important as he has been this past season, the Ivorian centreback continues being linked with an exit from the Italian capital.
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Despite reassurances from people close to Roma that the club are planning to keep him, several top European clubs are monitoring Ndicka's situation.
According to Leggo, Ndicka's entourage have recently offered the player to Real Madrid who are searching for an additional defender.
However, Roma's demands are currently putting off most of Ndicka's potential suitors: the Giallorossi are said to be asking for minimum 40 million euros.
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ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Zack Grossi rehearsed the pitch countless times. He envisioned Sean Payton sitting in front of him, peppering him with questions about his background or how he viewed the next frontier of NFL offense. The interview had been conducted over and over again before it actually arrived. Advertisement 'I had all this practice of what I was going to say,' Grossi said. 'I was ready.' It was early 2023. Payton had just been hired as the Denver Broncos' head coach, but he spent the first couple weeks of his tenure finishing the last assignment from his previous job: providing commentary for Fox ahead of the Super Bowl. Grossi had just finished his first season as an offensive quality control coach in Denver, but his coaching future, like that of many of Denver's assistants following Nathaniel Hackett's firing, was in limbo. Finally, Payton returned to Denver, ready to finish assembling his staff. 'He comes back from the Super Bowl and walks around to my desk,' Grossi said. 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Grossi, who spent part of his childhood on the sidelines at Tampa Bay Buccaneers games while his dad ran security operations with the team, loved being in the middle of it all. 'The game was love at first sight,' Grossi said. 'There was never anything else for me.' That's what made the quiet so deafening as the 35-year-old sat alone on his back porch on an early October afternoon last year. Grossi had just been on a two-week road trip with the Broncos from Florida to West Virginia to New Jersey, which included two season-altering victories. As Broncos coaches and players spent their Wednesday afternoon in the thick of another week of game preparation, Grossi stared ahead, contemplating the news he had just received. Advertisement A massive tumor was growing in his chest. And he had no idea what came next. 'It's just like, boom, everything stops,' he said. 'Your whole world gets flipped upside down.' Just as Grossi was collecting himself, sharing the news with his wife, Jacqueline, his phone pinged with a message from Greg Penner. The Broncos' owner told the young assistant that he and fellow owner Carrie Walton Penner were fully behind him as he began what would be a brutal, whirlwind battle over the next four months. What Grossi didn't know at the time was that Penner had already funneled that same message to others throughout Broncos headquarters. That set the stage for an 'overwhelming' amount of support that would prove critical for Grossi and his family as they stepped into the unknown of fighting a cancerous tumor that came with an avalanche of complications. 'It's not realistic in this profession, but I hope I can work for Greg and Carrie for the rest of my life,' Grossi said earlier this month as he looked out at the Broncos' practice field following an OTA workout. 'That's the only way I can scratch the surface of beginning to repay them for what they did for me.' The first warning signs were easy enough to shrug off. Grossi couldn't sleep after the 2023 season ended. He tossed and turned. His body was restless, unable to get comfortable. He'd drift off, only to jolt awake again. 'I ignored it,' he said. 'I'm like, 'It's probably just because we had a long season. It is what it is.'' Grossi figured he needed to lose weight. He began doing 22-minute walks on an inclined treadmill. He then closed the workout by sprinting for three minutes. He paid more attention to his diet. Pounds started falling off. His weight kept dropping, even when training camp for the 2024 season arrived, and Grossi entered more of a maintenance stage with his workout and diet regimen. Advertisement 'I'm like, 'Man, my metabolism must just be going,'' Grossi said with a laugh. ''All the work I did, I created this monster of a guy.'' Grossi began experiencing neck pain as the season approached. 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What Grossi knows now is that it helps to have 'a bulldog' in your corner when charting out a fight against cancer. He had one in Beau Lowery, the Broncos' vice president of player health and performance. Lowery helped schedule Grossi's biopsy and set him up with an expedited treatment plan, which included an initial, five-day round of chemo that began just one week after Grossi's initial diagnosis. He charted a blueprint that helped the young assistant grasp what he was facing. 'He was so instrumental in that early part of everything,' Grossi said. The best-laid plans for Grossi during the next four months came with their fair share of setbacks. He was initially scheduled to go through his entire treatment at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, but days before the scheduled flight to Texas, he began coughing up blood and had to be admitted to CU Anschutz hospital just outside Denver. It was there he met Dr. Laura Graham, the on-call oncologist who happened to specialize in the exact kind of germ-cell tumor Grossi was battling. 'It was a miracle she was working that night,' Grossi said. 'I meet her and she tells me, 'Hey, this is what you've got, and this is the treatment plan.' She said, 'I think you need to start chemo tomorrow.' I'm like, 'OK, here we go.' Once I got the treatment plan, it became a very clear opponent every day. 'This is what you have to do.' … It was fourth-and-1 every day.' Two days after Grossi finished his first round of chemo, he felt better. He was breathing easier. His bloodwork revealed that the medicine was already impacting the tumor. The next day, though, Grossi felt like he had an anvil on his chest. He couldn't walk up the stairs. He couldn't catch his breath. He developed a fever, a worrying sign because the chemo treatment left his body's immune system compromised. Advertisement The culprits were blood clots that had developed in the PICC line used to deliver the chemo through his body. One of the clots traveled to Grossi's lungs, resulting in a pulmonary embolism. 'I was in bad shape — real bad shape,' Grossi said. 'That was the lowest, scariest time. I called my dad and had some tough conversations. 'This is where I want to be buried. My financial people, this is their number. They'll have everything.' You are trying to set up things for your wife and your daughter. That was the scariest time.' Grossi was battling on multiple fronts. He was dealing with the chemo, the medicine's side effects and now the clots that forced him to be on blood thinners. It created a complicated dance, all as doctors tried to stabilize Grossi enough to stay on schedule for his next round of chemo. 'I remember one of the doctors saying, 'This is one of the most complex cases I've ever been on,'' Jacqueline recalled. 'It's usually more straightforward. Like, 'OK, this is the cancer, and this is what we're going to do.' He just had so many little things that were popping up that had to make them regroup and say, 'OK, what's our strategy?' That was hard.' Graham and Grossi's medical team ultimately found the right balance of treatments to treat the blood clots and prepare the coach for his next round of chemo. Meanwhile, the Broncos sent in reinforcements. Ema Thake, the team's nutritionist, would make the 30-minute drive from the team facility to Anschutz to bring customized meals for Grossi, helping him limit weight loss as a result of the chemo treatments. Joe Harrington, the team's director of football video, set Grossi up with a film system so he could watch cut-ups during treatments and while he recovered at his house between rounds. Staff members Pam Papsdorf and Adam Newman helped book travel and hotel reservations for Grossi's family so they could be at his side during treatment. The team sent meal-delivery gift cards for the family to use while they sat with Grossi at the hospital. Kilgore would call Grossi on his drives home after marathon game-planning sessions, 'making sure he still felt connected to what we were doing.' General manager George Paton and his wife also checked in routinely. The Broncos' medical team stayed in close contact. 'I was taken aback,' Jacqueline said. 'I think I underestimated how much they would help. They were awesome from the get-go, from the first day Zack got the diagnosis. There were constant texts and encouragement. It was awesome.' Advertisement As Grossi recovered from the blood clots and delved into his second and third rounds of chemo, a goal materialized. The Broncos were on track for their first playoff appearance since 2015, and Grossi wanted to be a part of it. In the middle of November, as Grossi was ascending from the neutropenic 'dip' that immediately follows a chemo treatment, he was cleared to visit the team facility. After the Broncos went through their final walk-through before a home game against the Atlanta Falcons, Payton asked Grossi to break the team down in the final huddle. Grossi was still frail. He wore a beanie, the chemo having taken his hair. But he reveled in the camaraderie with players, several of whom pulled him aside to share ways cancer had impacted their own families. It was all a reminder of the finish line Grossi was trying to reach. 'He's a fighter,' Payton said. 'It's inspiring.' Grossi finished his final round of chemo ahead of the Broncos' regular-season finale against the Kansas City Chiefs. He returned to practice that week. He prepared to coach in the game that Sunday afternoon, Denver needing a victory to secure its playoff spot. But on Friday, his body began sounding alarm bells. Grossi was quick to listen. 'I know something's wrong. I go to the care clinic, they swab me, and they're like, 'You've got COVID,'' Grossi said. 'Not a huge deal for a normal person, but for someone in the middle of chemo, they're like, 'I wouldn't do the game.'' Grossi was sidelined for one more week, but Denver's victory against the Chiefs set up a playoff matchup against the Bills on Jan. 12. He was scheduled for surgery to remove the shrunken tumor in February but was cleared to travel with the team. Grossi found his familiar seat in the coaching booth above Highmark Stadium. He stared down at the field, taking it in, ruminating on all that had taken place over the past four months. He thought about his wife's strength. He still laughs at the image of Jacqueline rolling a fridge through the hospital, one that the Broncos supplied so he could store the customized meals they were sending. So many hands had helped pull him here, to his first NFL playoff game as a coach, and Grossi reflected on all of them. Advertisement Then, it was time to work. 'I got back on the headset, the full thing,' Grossi said. 'There was a moment in the game where I was talking on the headset, and Sean goes, 'Who is this?' I was like, 'It's Zack Grossi, baby! Let's roll!' Everyone started laughing. So making it back for the playoff game was very special. Everybody was unbelievable.' 'It was like he never missed a beat,' Kilgore said. 'He was just sharp. The things that he would bring up situationally and the things he would provide on game day, it was like he picked up where he left off in Week 4. He had clearly stayed connected to what was going on (with the team), and with everything else that was going on, I think that provided some normalcy.' Five weeks after the loss to the Bills, Grossi had his tumor removed by MD Anderson surgeon Wayne Hofstetter — 'an absolute beast,' as Grossi calls the doctor. The resulting scans revealed the Broncos assistant was completely cancer-free. During the days that followed the surgery, Grossi broke down film from his hospital room in Houston. By the time the Broncos hosted their rookie minicamp in May, Grossi was back on the field, working with a new group of young receivers. A bright coaching future remains firmly in front of him once again. He just spends less time getting lost on that horizon. 'You just appreciate every bit of what you're doing right now,' Grossi said. 'There is never a moment where you're looking like, 'Man, I'm ready for this to be over.' Like, 'I'm getting out of here today; I've got the weekend off.' You're never looking at anything like that ever again. It's much easier to be where your feet are.'
