Napoli and Sassuolo’s six-goal thriller upstaged the Milan star’s guest appearance at the Sanremo Music FestivalZlatan Ibrahimovic took some time off from co-hosting the Sanremo Music Festival to watch Milan draw with Udinese on Wednesday. After weeks of anguished speculation about how his involvement in the event might impact his team’s title push, the Swede had picked up a thigh injury that ruled him out of this game regardless. Related: 'This is why we kneel': Van Aanholt reveals racist abuse over miss Zlatan Ibrahimovic makes his big entrance at Sanremo... “Good evening, Italy. It’s an honour to be here, but it’s also a great honour for you to have me here.”️️ @TheMilanGuyspic.twitter.com/H3Q3WTj15c Related: Gianluigi Buffon: 'It’s important to get things...
It is is a sign of how bad things have got that the clash of Italy’s title-race frontrunners is greeted with relief and celebration Across Europe a spirit of competitiveness has broken out. Not in England, perhaps, where Manchester City’s excellence looks sure to win out. Nor in Germany, where Bayern Munich remain inviolable. But elsewhere revolution is in the air. Paris Saint-Germain are not top in France, neither Real Madrid nor Barcelona are top in Spain and Juventus are not top in Italy. The elite are being challenged in a way they have not been for almost a decade.The temptation is to blame the pandemic for this spirit of revolution, to see Covid as the explanation for everything. It...
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...
Coaches whose ideas were considered almost extinct have re-emerged as teams battle fatigue and a lack of training timeFor football, this was the year evolution went backwards. It began with further victories for the high press, with Hansi Flick’s Bayern Munich surging to the Champions League and the Bundesliga, and Jürgen Klopp’s side giving Liverpool their first league title in 30 years, but it ended with a widespread reversion to a more cautious style.A dozen years ago, Pep Guardiola led the rise of press-and-possess football; recently, the pressing element has come to be prioritised – and then Covid-19 arrived. There are those who will dismissively point out we had pressing in the 80s. And we did – we’ve had it...