Exits for Conte and Zidane, together with talk of Pochettino returning to Spurs, epitomise the chaos of modern football At first glance, Antonio Conte leaving a club in dispute with the owners soon after leading them to a league title may not seem particularly significant. This is what he does. His departure from Internazionale follows ostensibly similar departures from Juventus and Chelsea, and he left the Italy national job early as well.But this is about far more than Conte. What is happening at Inter is emblematic of the chaos of modern football and the struggles of an industry that had become a stage for the soft-power machinations of various states and oligarchs and was in need of major financial recalibration...
As the Italian parliament debates whether Italy should formally recognise that China is guilty of genocide on its Uyghur citizens, the Chinese state is a part-owner of the Scudetto championsYou might think Liverpool have had an underwhelming Premier League title defence. The mid-season collapse. The failed attempt to join a Super League. The strangely maudlin video address from the club’s owner, delivered in the style of a baffled senior executive apologising for an involuntary bladder malfunction at the company golf day. None of this is ideal.But spare a thought for the reigning Chinese Super League champions, Jiangsu FC, who are nowhere to be seen four games into the new season. Related: Conte overthrows Juve’s kingdom to restore Inter to Serie...
Inter’s manager ended Juve’s 3,283-day reign after persevering for two years to elevate good players into winning onesIt was Sassuolo who applied the final lick of paint to Antonio Conte’s masterpiece. The Internazionale manager had warned for weeks against presumption, insisting his team were not champions yet even as they pulled away at the top of Serie A. “We hope to finish what we started this season,” he said. “That would truly be a work of art.”A 2-0 win at Crotone on Saturday moved Inter to within a point of the Scudetto. The scenes in the changing room felt like a title celebration, as players bounced on benches and sang terrace chants about the league leaders pulling away. Mathematically, though,...
The manager has copped stick for ‘parking the bus’, but a first Scudetto in 11 years is in sight after Inter’s 11th win in a rowAs Inter prepared to extend their winning run to an 11th consecutive match, one former employee was calling for the manager to be sacked. “They don’t play well!” protested Antonio Cassano during his weekly appearance on Christian Vieri’s Twitch channel, his anger escalating as he repeated the phrase three times.“Antonio Conte plays a 5-3-2, everyone behind the ball, everyone lined up in front of their own goal. He parks the bus, and you can’t get by. If I had a manager like this, I would go to the president and say: ‘Get rid of him.’”...
It is is a sign of how bad things have got that the clash of Italy’s title-race frontrunners is greeted with relief and celebration Across Europe a spirit of competitiveness has broken out. Not in England, perhaps, where Manchester City’s excellence looks sure to win out. Nor in Germany, where Bayern Munich remain inviolable. But elsewhere revolution is in the air. Paris Saint-Germain are not top in France, neither Real Madrid nor Barcelona are top in Spain and Juventus are not top in Italy. The elite are being challenged in a way they have not been for almost a decade.The temptation is to blame the pandemic for this spirit of revolution, to see Covid as the explanation for everything. It...