The forward is flourishing under José Mourinho and scored the earliest ever Serie A Rome derby goal against Lazio on SundayThe way Tammy Abraham tells it, his decision to join Roma came down to a desire to enjoy a little more vitamin D. He has recounted many times the story of how José Mourinho opened his sales pitch last summer with a simple question: “Do you want to enjoy some sun or stay in the rain?”Yet the real question was a more profound one: was Abraham ready to give up the familiarity and comfort of England for a chance to make his name somewhere different. He had scored goals at Chelsea – 30 in all competitions across the preceding two...
The 1998 Uefa Cup final witnessed a goal that was probably the greatest moment of Ronaldo’s greatest gameGrowing up as a football obsessive, by the time I was 17 I thought I’d seen pretty much everything the game had to offer me. You can probably see how I became a sportswriter.Around then, I was also spending most weekday evenings hanging about parks, alleyways and pubs to state-alter in one way or another, often under the guise of watching a game. So in the summer of 1996, my parents – who’d spent a decade resisting my pleas to get Teletext – signed up to Sky, sagely rationalising that beaming industrial quantities of sport into our front room would inspire me to...
Maurizio Sarri has made a slower start to life in Rome than Mourinho but his team’s fast start left Roma unable to catch upMaurizio Sarri looked at the eagle perched on his wrist and started to laugh. Olimpia, Lazio’s club mascot of the past 11 years, is quite a presence up close: a 12kg bird of prey with a two-and-a-half-metre wingspan. He realised quickly that one arm wasn’t going to manage it, bringing across the other one to support her weight and glancing up toward the Curva. Thousands of fans were packed in there, lost in delirious celebration.OK, so maybe the Rome derby was a bigger deal than Sangiovannese v Montevarchi after all. Continue reading...
Lazio’s impressive win over the Rossoneri has them closing in on the struggling pair with a handful of games remainingWas Fabio Paratici still in denial on Monday night? Before Juventus kicked off away to Fiorentina on Sunday, their chief football officer insisted nobody at the club was even considering the possibility that they might finish outside the top four. By the time this latest round of Serie A games had finished, his team was locked in a three-way tie for third.One of the teams alongside them was Milan. Between the two, it is hard to know which might feel more dread at the prospect of missing out on the Champions League. As winners of the past nine Serie A titles,...
Internazionale outclassed Juventus on Sunday night in a 2-0 victory to strike a significant blow in the title raceIt was a weekend that promised fireworks. Lazio against Roma on Friday night, and Inter hosting Juventus on Sunday: a derby that defines Italy’s capital city, leading into a game that has long been billed as the Derby d’Italia – a derby for all of Italy. Related: Premier League: 10 talking points from the weekend action Vidal accidentally kissed the Juventus badge before kick off pic.twitter.com/VduftSgVN4 Related: Messi sent off as Athletic Bilbao sink Barcelona to win Spanish Super Cup Continue reading...