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...
Success at the Euros and Olympics has created a feelgood factor but high-profile departures have damaged the league’s statusItaly has never known a sporting summer like it. After Roberto Mancini’s Azzurri delivered on his vow to win Euro 2020, the Olympians followed up with a record 40 medals and 10 golds in Tokyo. Fabio Capello spoke for many: “I have never felt so Italian as I do right now.”Will the feelgood factor carry over into a new Serie A season? Or has Italy’s top football league been diminished by the departures of too many leading lights? The Internazionale team who ended Juventus’s nine-year reign as champions have since bid farewell to Antonio Conte, Romelu Lukaku and Achraf Hakimi. Their city...
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...
Another slip in the Serie A title race, another game in which the adventure of Inter’s opposition caused real problemsAmbition. The word ran through the pre-game press conferences of Paulo Fonseca and Antonio Conte like mozzarella in Roman supplì: the mouth-watering core ingredient that elevates all the rest. Both managers wanted their audiences to know that this was a weekend that mattered, an occasion for which the recipe had to be just right.Fonseca’s Roma were seeking validation for their rise to third in the table. They won only a single game against Serie A’s top four last season, his first at the club, and that against a Juventus side who had already sewn up the title. The Giallorossi were yet...
Internazionale were held at home, but Lazio failed to capitalise in the Rome derby before Juve were rocked in NaplesOn his first weekend playing in Serie A, Ashley Young brought Inter back within touching distance of league leaders Juventus. OK, maybe that’s oversimplifying things a smidge. There were twists and turns galore on a weekend when the top four sides picked up three points between them, scoring fewer goals collectively than Atalanta managed on their own.Still, let’s begin with Young, and Inter. They were first to act in the title race, with a Sunday lunchtime kick-off at home to Cagliari. It felt like an opportunity to put pressure on Juventus and Lazio before they played at Napoli and Roma, respectively,...