Whisper it, but some believe José Mourinho’s side could challenge in Serie A after astute recruitment and a fine startAtalanta were the big winners on transfer deadline day in Italy. Not for any last-minute wheeling and dealing but because, well, they won. They had hoped to balance the books by offloading Jérémie Boga to Leicester and Hans Hateboer to Villarreal but, after both deals collapsed, they had to settle for thumping Torino 3-1 and going joint top of Serie A.It is the team alongside them in first, however, who might have enjoyed the best summer window overall. Roma landed Paulo Dybala, Andrea Belotti, Georginio Wijnaldum, Zeki Celik, Nemanja Matic and Mady Camara, while spending less than €10m on transfer fees....
This was another opportunity to marvel at the Serbian’s outlandish talents and wonder how, at 27, he was still hereMaurizio Sarri was not trying to send a message. His decision to leave Luis Alberto out of Lazio’s starting XI to face Inter on Friday was simply a choice to trust Matías Vecino to run the left side of his midfield. The Uruguayan arrived in Rome this summer, but he and Sarri go a long way back having worked together at Empoli in 2014-15.Plenty has changed since then, but Vecino’s strengths remain the same: robust physicality, positional discipline and a willingness to play vertically: using straightforward directness to help his team break the lines. His gifts are less eye-catching than Alberto’s...
Some big names are gone but the goals of Georgian winger Khvicha Kvaratskhelia have helped Napoli top the early tableThey have stopped worrying about how to pronounce Khvicha Kvaratskhelia’s name in Naples. When the player’s transfer to Napoli was announced in April, one anxious reporter asked Aurelio De Laurentiis for guidance. “I’ll make something up,” replied the club president. “We’ll call him something. He can be ‘Zizì’, that’s not bad.”A more obvious abbreviation was adopted elsewhere, ‘Kvara’ becoming accepted shorthand among journalists and fans. Two Serie A appearances later, however, a new nickname has taken hold. From the alleys of Naples’s Spanish Quarter to the headlines of national newspapers, the Georgian was being hailed on Monday morning as ‘Kvaradona’. Continue...
On an opening weekend of thrills and spills, Milan looked far more self-assured than their city rivals even as both sides wonThe only thing missing from Serie A’s opening weekend was a bleary-eyed traveller bursting into the room and demanding to know what year it is. Rodrigo Becão scoring a header against Milan? How did a story this unlikely get stuck on repeat? The Udinese centre-back’s three goals in four seasons against the Rossoneri are more than he has managed against every other opponent combined in his professional career.Six hundred miles away, Romelu Lukaku netted on his Inter debut against Lecce, exactly as he did when he joined for the first time in 2019. The shirt on his back has...
Milan pipped Inter to the title and José Mourinho brought 100,000 Roma fans to the Circus Maximus. It’s awards time!Serie A lost some stars, but the football on the pitch still sparkled. Without Cristiano Ronaldo, Romelu Lukaku, Achraf Hakimi, Gianluigi Donnarumma or Antonio Conte the league simply had to make do with one of its most compelling title races for decades.It ended as a duel between Milan and Inter, two halves of the same city, clubs who share a stadium and the black stripes on their shirt but are divided by the red and the blue. Rivals who have emerged together from a decade in the wilderness, reminding themselves and each other that this league did not always belong to...