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...
Gian Piero Gasperini’s Serie A top scorers have been likened by Fabio Capello to the thrilling Dutch side in the way they commit to one-on-one battles all over the pitchA lesser team would have broken. On 15 April, Atalanta played out one of the most imbalanced draws in Serie A history: a goalless stalemate at home to Empoli in which they produced 47 shots to their opponents’ three. Eighteen went on target. The last Serie A club to rack up so many attempts on goal in a single game were Roma, against Catania in 2006, in a game they won 7-0.At full time, Atalanta’s players crumpled to the floor. The draw had cost them a share of fourth place, dropping...
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,...
The Juventus captain’s claim that teammate Moise Kean shared the blame for monkey chants aimed at him against Cagliari felt staggeringly ill-judgedMassimiliano Allegri explained his decision to leave Moise Kean out of the Juventus starting XI that faced Empoli over the weekend as a move to protect the player. “My challenge is to understand when he’ll recover from this crush that the media has on him right now,” said the manager. “If he doesn’t touch the ball in the next game, they’ll make him into a donkey.”Kean came off the bench instead, scoring the game’s only goal with his first touch. Perhaps, after that, Allegri accepted that this hype train was already running beyond his control. Or maybe Juventus simply...