A baffling decision not to review a clear foul on Nicolò Zaniolo cost Roma a penalty and added to frustration with technology“There’s nothing to say,” lamented Francesco Totti. And then he said it anyway. “We’re all here asking ourselves how the guys in the VAR booth didn’t see [a foul on Nicolò Zaniolo inside the penalty area]. It’s an embarrassment. What are they doing?”The incident occurred shortly after the half-hour mark in Roma’s game at home to Inter. Receiving a pass with his back to goal on the edge of the box, Zaniolo turned and weaved past Danilo D’Ambrosio. The defender stuck out a foot and brought him down. Related: Nagelsmann and Tedesco fly flag for Bundesliga's young and reckless...
Summer deals have left last season’s Champions League semi-finalists imbalanced and time is not on the manager’s sideFive games in, and the Serie A top scorers chart has a decidedly unfamiliar feel. Fans might have expected to see Cristiano Ronaldo in first place, perhaps pursued by the man he displaced at Juventus: Gonzalo Higuaín. Or how about reigning joint-capocannonieri, Ciro Immobile and Mauro Icardi, each returning with the same teams?All but the last of that foursome scored this weekend, yet none of them leads the way. The most prolific player in Serie A is a 23-year-old signed by Genoa from Cracovia this summer for a paltry €4.5m. Krzysztof Piatek’s five goals only look more impressive when you consider his team...
Jürgen Klopp’s men did what they had to do by scoring first in a tense semi-final second leg at Roma, where they lost on the night but squeezed into the Champions League finalIt was, of course, never in doubt. Or perhaps only a little in doubt in those moments when Roma pressed and suddenly Liverpool’s defence began to look alarmingly zany, pockets of space opening up as though subject to a sudden buckling of the earth’s crust.Certainly the Champions League has never known anything like this. A 4-2 victory for Roma brought to an end a double-header that has seen 20 goals scored in two semi-finals, capped by a pair of hysterically open second legs. Defending is over. Clean sheets...
Bayern thrashed Zidane’s side 2-2 and there is plenty to suggest a knockout blow can be landed on their elegant glass jawReal Madrid tried so hard to lose this semi-final. Bayern Munich tried so hard to win it. That neither could achieve this apparently shared aim speaks in the first place to Real’s pure champion will and secondly to that nexus of game-management, calamitous Bayern defending and something close to a kind of white-shirted voodoo, the ability to win even while in the process of sputtering and panting like a stalled presidential motorcade.This was a fun, wild, oddly drunken game of football that ended 2-2 at the Bernabéu and 4-3 to Real on aggregate. At the end of which a...
The two late goals in the first leg at Anfield have given the Giallorossi hope they can repeat their Barcelona heroics and beat Liverpool to reach the Champions League finalIn the last few days the city has been trembling with excitement. No one speaks about anything else: there is only Roma v Liverpool, in the bars and in the restaurants, among friends or on the metro. It will be a great celebration of sport with an extraordinary atmosphere: trust me, the Olimpico will be an inferno.For Roma it is only their second time in a European Cup semi-final, and therefore something historic: the climate inside the stadium will be even hotter and even more fiery than what we saw against...