Juve, Milan and others said goodbye to key players and staff but struggling clubs are still battling not to say so long to Serie A“No more tears, I’ve shed enough already,” insisted Massimiliano Allegri on Saturday. Nobody in the audience was fooled. Juventus had announced one day previously that his time as manager was coming to a close. Allegri could scarcely get through the first sentence of a press conference called to honour his achievements before he had to break off into a hum as he fought to compose himself.There was no such attempt to hold back the emotion one day later, as he stood and hugged Andrea Barzagli for what felt like an eternity in front of the dugouts...
Inter v Juventus drew the focus but the cities’ other teams – Milan and Torino – played a more significant match“Game over.” The words stretched out across the second tier of San Siro’s northern stand on Saturday night in an epic display of schadenfreude. Juventus are champions of Italy for the eighth year running, yet their quest to conquer Europe for the first time since 1996 remains unfulfilled. No club’s supporters enjoy that truth more than those of Inter: the last Serie A team to lift the Champions League.Still, the mockery cut both ways. If the game is over for Juventus in Europe, then domestically it never even began. Inter, in their second season under Luciano Spalletti, were supposed to...
Juventus’s teenage forward continues to suggest he is less the new Mario Balotelli than a successor to Cristiano Ronaldo, and his Juve teammate seems to be an admirerLet’s talk about Moise Kean. Not about the cretins who racially abused him, nor teammates who should have supported him better. Let’s talk about a teenager who has scored in five consecutive matches for club and country. Let’s talk about a player who is averaging one goal for every 47 minutes he has spent on the pitch in Serie A this season.Kean was at it again on Saturday, stepping off the bench to hit the winner for Juventus at home against Milan. The Bianconeri stand on the brink of an eighth consecutive Scudetto,...
Defeat was hardly catastrophic for Milan, but they have failed to beat Inter now in any of their last six Serie A meetingsThe choreography produced by Milan’s Ultras for Sunday’s derby had been months in the making. As kick-off approached, a colossal depiction of Hellboy was unveiled: stretching from the top of the second tier in San Siro’s Curva Sud all the way down to ground level. The demon crashed his fist on to a pile of skulls, interwoven with an Inter scarf. “Send them to Hell,” read the accompanying slogan.The banner left on display in the same section at full-time cannot have taken quite so long to prepare: a single word spelled out in letters as tall as your...
Away games against Milan are a daunting prospect at the best of times, let alone when you’re stuck in the middle of a protestIt began like so many other Saturdays at Cagliari’s practice facility, the manager Rolando Maran coming in from training to update reporters on the injuries and fitness concerns affecting his first-team squad. It took a turn towards atypical shortly afterwards, as players lined up in the street to kick over milk churns and spill their contents into the road.This was not on the schedule. After speaking to the press, Maran was supposed to board the team bus with his players and head to the airport for a flight to Milan – where they would play the following...