It was Andorra v Oviedo again, but this time Quique Setién wasn’t watching. He was busy and had better things to doQuique Setién started the season at Real Oviedo, where the football ground is overlooked by a 30-metre Jesus Christ. He hadn’t come to coach and had no intention of going anywhere else to do so either. Everyone knows there are cows in his tiny hometown of Liencres, human population 3,537; what fewer know is that there is a club there too and as far as the former Barcelona boss was concerned, Marina Sport Under-19s were his team now, the only place he wanted to be. The professional game was best left to other people, one man in particular, so...
‘Bomber, Champion, Legend: thanks to you we know nothing is impossible.’ It was left to other teams to prove that last pointThe match was over but nobody wanted to go home, as if leaving this place meant letting go of him. To stay was to hold on a little while longer. One more time, Sampdoria’s supporters at the Marassi started to sing. “Luca Vialli, Luca Vialli, Luca Vialli alé alé, we love you and we adore you, you are better than Pelé.”There was no malice toward the Brazilian here, no intent to disrespect the memory of a player who died at the end of December. This has been their ode to Vialli for decades, since he was a twentysomething firing...
Edin Dzeko’s header proved decisive as the Serie A leaders started 2023 by seeing their lead at the top cut to five pointsThe mid-season World Cup interruption felt that little bit longer to many Italian football fans, left without a team to cheer for, so Serie A’s organisers opted for total immersion on its return. If you thought four games in an afternoon was a lot during Qatar’s group stage then how about 10, scheduled in pairs to kick off every two hours throughout a regular workday?Typically, the Italian top flight would return from its winter break on the Christian feast day of Epiphany, 6 January, a national holiday, but that falls on a Friday this year. Playing then would...
The celebrity referee who handed out 17 cards in the Argentina-Netherlands quarter-final came home and went one betterBarcelona and Espanyol were a quarter of the way into their first game for more than 50 days, La Liga back at last, when referee Antonio Mateu Lahoz was suddenly set off. Urgently heading across the pitch wearing a determined look, triggered by what he heard or perhaps remembering something really important he had to do, he sprinted straight at Xavi Hernández, who was all in black and shouting. This was only ending one way. Pulling up pitchside, he grabbed Barça’s coach. And then he kissed him, whispering in his ear. “He said he was happy to see me,” Xavi revealed later. “And...
The celebrations at San Siro were of relief that runaways Napoli did not enter the World Cup break with a double-digit leadIt was the 91st minute at San Siro when Milan scored the goal that might have rescued the Serie A title race. Technically the Fiorentina defender Nicola Milenkovic scored it for them – deflecting Aster Vranckx’s cross into his own net – but few were dwelling on the fine details as Zombie Nation’s Kernkraft 400, a German dance track older than some players on the pitch, blared out across the public address.A crowd of 73,000 danced and sighed with relief. Milenkovic’s own goal secured a 2-1 win and kept Milan ‘only’ eight points behind Napoli at the top. The...