Win over Inter was another landmark for the Partenopei but fans are left wondering what next for title-winning manager?Napoli reached another landmark in their title-winning campaign, a 3-1 win at home to Internazionale making this the first season in club history when they have beaten all 19 Serie A rivals at least once. Yet this latest feat was overshadowed by reports that the manager, Luciano Spalletti, might not return next season.On Friday the club’s owner, Aurelio De Laurentiis, left room for doubt when he told Sky Sport: “Spalletti is a superstar and superstars need a place where they can express the best of themselves. He found that here and it all worked. [But] in life freedom is an immeasurable and...
As Dortmund close on the Bundesliga title, it is Leipzig’s first win at Bayern that will continue to resonateOne of German football’s primary clichés is that of Bayern-Dusel – an undeserved helping of fortune that would help them somehow get it over the line in the last knockings, however well or badly they had played. A sense of inevitability. If you make your own luck in this game, though, Bayern Munich have not made nearly a good enough job of manufacturing any for themselves in recent weeks.For the champions, licking their wounds after Saturday evening’s stark, humbling home loss at the hands of RB Leipzig, Borussia Dortmund’s Sunday teatime victory at Augsburg was almost irrelevant, even if it did mark...
After a little extra ‘motivation’ from their fans following defeat to Spezia, Stefano Pioli’s side need a turnaround against InterDefeat was a disaster, but it was the aftermath that made international headlines: Milan’s players and manager silently facing their supporters in the away section of Spezia’s Stadio Alberto Picco while one fan addressed them with a monologue. There were no TV microphones close enough to listen in but bowed heads and solemn expressions made it appear as an act of submission: disobedient students being scolded by a master.Those present told it differently. “What happened beneath the Curva was something positive,” said Stefano Pioli. “They were only motivating us, pushing us to give our all.” The defender Simon Kjær echoed that...
Amid financial worries and unrest behind the scenes, another capitulation on the pitch has left Hertha on the brink“Maybe it was my mistake,” pondered Pal Dardai, the Hertha coach, “that we were too busy working on the offensive side [of the game] during the week. Because defensively, there was nothing at all.”Dardai, a club legend, is too hard on himself. Nobody blames him, parachuted in during the last knockings of this shambolic season as a hopeful punt, as was evidenced by the standing ovation he received from members when taking the stage at Sunday morning’s club AGM. Continue reading...
La Liga’s Javier Tebas and Crystal Palace’s Steve Parish claim to be champions of ‘small clubs’ that are not small at allThere are some debates in football which just never go away: Pelé or Maradona? What should the handball rule be, exactly? And, perhaps most infuriatingly, what makes a “big” club?This last question has popped up again over the past couple of weeks, but with a strange twist. Rather than bigging themselves up, some people are suddenly keen to claim that they are in fact “small” and being treated terribly by the so-called “elite”. In particular, these “small” clubs are apparently suffering from not playing in Europe and need Uefa to give them more money to make up for it....