Draw at Napoli was yet more evidence that the manager’s bond with his players has improved results immeasurablyAs the curtain came down on Napoli’s 1-1 draw with Roma, Lorenzo Insigne turned and booted a water bottle back toward his bench. His body language spoke less of rage than resignation. The player’s hopes of leaving his boyhood club with a Serie A title as a parting gift had already dimmed with defeat to Fiorentina in the previous round.Still, this was a day that could have belonged to him. Insigne’s well-taken penalty put Napoli ahead for 80 minutes. A win would at least have kept them in touching distance of the summit. Instead, someone else had taken hold of the narrative. Not...
Four years on from a famous title-chasing failure against Fiorentina, Napoli allowed history to repeat itselfFour years have passed since Napoli “lost a Scudetto in the hotel”. That was how Maurizio Sarri explained things after his then team was thrashed 3-0 by Fiorentina in April 2018, effectively ending their title bid. They had begun the weekend with hopes of going top of the table but suffered an emotional collapse after watching Juventus come from behind to beat Inter the night before.The Bianconeri trailed that game as late as the 87th minute, despite playing with an extra man for more than an hour. They should have gone down to 10 themselves when Miralem Pjanic, already booked, leapt knee-first into Rafinha at...
Juventus were incensed as the Serie A champions took their first away Derby d’Italia victory since 2012The Derby d’Italia was only 34 minutes old, but already we had seen blood, sweat and tears – and that was just Manuel Locatelli. The game had barely begun when Lautaro Martínez’s high boot caught the Juventus midfielder in the face, opening a gash above his left eye. Locatelli soldiered on, only to injure his knee while raising his own studs into a challenge on Danilo D’Ambrosio.Some journalists speculated that he might have ruptured his cruciate ligament as they saw him hobble to the sideline weeping. Perhaps Locatelli is just a man willing to share his emotions. He cried on the pitch after scoring...
The forward is flourishing under José Mourinho and scored the earliest ever Serie A Rome derby goal against Lazio on SundayThe way Tammy Abraham tells it, his decision to join Roma came down to a desire to enjoy a little more vitamin D. He has recounted many times the story of how José Mourinho opened his sales pitch last summer with a simple question: “Do you want to enjoy some sun or stay in the rain?”Yet the real question was a more profound one: was Abraham ready to give up the familiarity and comfort of England for a chance to make his name somewhere different. He had scored goals at Chelsea – 30 in all competitions across the preceding two...
Seven straight draws have marked a turnaround, but the manager is yet to find the right formula up front to escape Serie A’s relegation placesGenoa needed someone to steady the ship. By mid-January, the Rossoblù seemed to be disappearing beneath the waves of the Ligurian Riviera, having collected more managers than wins through the first 22 games of this Serie A season. Davide Ballardini was fired in November with the team in 17th in the table. In two months under Andriy Shevchenko, they sunk a further two places.Alexander Blessin arrived promising “high velocity” football, “made of pressing and mentality”. Supporters did not know what to expect. The newspapers promised a disciple of Ralf Rangnick – one who had coached youth...