The brilliance of Napoli’s front three – Dries Mertens, José Callejón and Lorenzo Insigne – should not blind us to the quality running through the sideMaurizio Sarri did not feel anxious as he headed for the tunnel. His team was a goal down to an in-form Lazio, who had already beaten Juventus and thrashed Milan in the past six weeks. And yet, the Napoli manager told his players to change nothing. Just keep doing what you’re doing, lads, and things will turn out right in the end.Or, at least, that’s the way he told it afterwards. Only those individuals present in the Stadio Olimpico’s away changing room can know whether Sarri’s team-talk truly was as zen as he claimed. What...
A penalty awarded against Juventus at home in the opening game was just what the VAR was supposed to pick up – but a referee whistling too soon at Bologna proved costly for TorinoIt used to be that a new Serie A season would provide us with a fresh round of discorsi da bar – football talking points to get worked up about over a beer or Monday morning espresso. This year, things went in a different direction. When the final whistles had blown and Giorgia Cardinaletti welcomed us back to Rai 2’s long-running highlights show, Domenica Sportiva, she and her studio guests instead dived straight into discorsi da VAR.Yes, this was the weekend when Italian football fans received their...
From another Scudetto triumph for Juventus to Crotone’s miraculous escape, we revisit Papu Gómez’s armbands, Joe Hart’s gaffes and the grace of TottiThis might have been another year of European heartbreak for Juventus, but domestically it was the same old story. The Bianconeri won Serie A for the sixth consecutive season, and collected their third straight Coppa Italia as well. No team had ever won either trophy so many times in succession. They have made the unprecedented look routine.And yet, this season was not lacking in drama. To the contrary, there was something wild about this campaign right from the start. There were 32 goals scored (not to mention three red cards) on the opening weekend alone. The final tally...
Comparisons with Lionel Messi are futile – Maradona belonged to a wild, violent game unrecognisable to modern players, as his new book shows‘If it had been up to the Argentines, each of the players would have gone out there with a machine gun and killed Shilton, Stevens, Butcher, Fenwick, Sansom, Steven, Hodge, Reid, Hoddle, Beardsley and Lineker.” At first glance it seems fair to say Diego Maradona hasn’t really mellowed much. So begins one of the key chapters of his brilliant new – rehashed, repeated, elegantly toddled off – autobiography Touched By God, which is out in the UK next month.Certainly, the proposed machine-gunning of England’s entire satin-shorted first XI makes for an arresting mental image. Otherwise Maradona is conciliatory,...
The striker’s reception on Naples return was tamer than expected – as was his display – in a draw that suggested Juve may be slowing down at the wrong timeMaurizio Sarri was looking unusually smart last Monday, shedding his Napoli tracksuit in favour of a white shirt and blue jacket to collect the 2015-16 Panchina d’Oro (Golden Bench). He had pipped Juventus’s Massimiliano Allegri into second for the award, given each year to the best manager in Serie A – as chosen by a panel of their peers.Humble as ever, Sarri expressed surprise at his triumph, suggesting he would expect such a prize to go to the man who finished higher. But with mischief in his eyes he also looked...