Only a few seasons ago Italy’s top league was regarded as a defensive, Juventus-dominated turn-off but now it is game onThere was a time when Italians might have been insulted by the suggestion of theirs being the third-best football league in Europe. Serie A was always il campionato più bello del mondo – the most beautiful championship in the world. How else to describe a competition that produced 12 European Cup finalists between 1983 and 1998, a place where you could watch Diego Maradona take on Franco Baresi, or Zinedine Zidane battle Ronaldo for the Ballon d’Or?Nobody is blind, though, to the power shift since. Between TV deals and billionaire owners, Premier League clubs became able to offer wages the...
Gian Piero Gasperini’s in-game tweaks are one reason his Atalanta side keep recovering from losing positions – and they did it again to draw with JuventusIt should have been all over. Within 25 minutes of Serie A’s Sunday night fixture, Juventus were two goals to the good. What opponent could overcome such a disastrous start against the champs: winners of six consecutive Serie A titles, as well as six consecutive games to begin this season? Who would even dare to fight back against the Old Lady of Turin?Only the Goddess of Bergamo. Atalanta share their name with Greek mythology’s virgin huntress, and over the past 12 months they have embodied her combative spirit just as well. Related: European roundup: Neymar...
The son of Enrico Chiesa shone in Fiorentina’s draw with Atalanta to further justify optimism in Italy about the young talent emerging thereThe bar has always been set high for Federico Chiesa. At 19 years old, he is a fixture of Fiorentina’s starting XI and has already played one unofficial friendly with the Italian national team. And yet, during an interview with La Repubblica, he suggested it may be some time before he considers himself a top-flight footballer. “My dad once told me: you become a Serie A player when you have made at least 300 appearances,” he observed.An outrageous standard, albeit one founded on personal experience. Federico’s father Enrico played 380 games in the domestic top-flight, representing Fiorentina but...
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...
The 16-year-old, who has similar qualities to Zlatan Ibrahimovic, lived up to the hype with two goals against Lazio to become the league’s youngest scorerMarco Pellegri decided to go on living. Genoa’s team administrator had warned us that he might not, telling reporters: “The day [my son] Pietro steps out at Marassi wearing a Genoa shirt I can go ahead and die, because it will mean that I have seen everything.”Nope, not even close. Pietro Pellegri would make his home debut in April, a three-minute cameo at the end of a defeat to Chievo. It was a beautiful moment: father and son stood side by side on the touchline at Marassi as the board went up announcing the latter’s introduction...