Italian Football Serie A News and Stories in English
This week’s Serie A match program promises to have some mouth-watering clashes, despite the biggest game of the weekend between Inter and Roma having already been played, ending in a goalless stalemate on Friday night. Bologna’s coach Sinisa Mihajlovic will hopefully be able to make his fifth dugout appearance since he was diagnosed with leukemia this summer.
Serie A is back with a bang! Round 13 of the Italian league features many important match-ups, the biggest of which surely is Milan-Napoli at the San Siro Stadium. Atalanta host table leaders Juventus in the battle between the league’s best attack and its best defense, while Antonio Conte’s Inter travel to the Olympic Stadium in Turin to play Torino.
Football is a cruel sport nowadays. Perhaps never in history has it been so difficult to keep up the highest level for so long, and Serie A is no different. Recently, we discussed Matthijs De Ligt’s struggles to adapt to the Italian football mentality. In this article, we’ll take a look at some other disappointments in Serie A this season, and discuss whether they can turn it around.
Napoli Ultras showed their anger and frustration before the match with Genoa on Saturday night as their beloved squad had failed to register a single win in their last four games in all competitions. The game with the Rossoblu was supposed to be all about redeeming those past failures, but the Partenopei bumped into a relentless opposition on the part of Genoa.
Before both supporter sides declared their 36-year-long gemellaggio officially broken, Genoa and Napoli fans had a long-lasting friendship. Their twinning had a fascinating history, deep-rooted in events where football merged with historical circumstances such as the aftermath of the 1973 tragic breakout of cholera in Napoli, which little had to do with sports.
Marco Giampaolo is safe. Milan’s coach found a last-minute ally in goalkeeper Juan Manuel Reina, who stopped a late penalty to preserve his side’s 1-2 win at Genoa. That’s the least the Spaniard could do to redeem himself after a blunder of his had put the Rossoblu ahead, before Theo Hernandez and Frank Kessié could turn the tables in favor of the Rossoneri.
A cap, a bandage on his neck, a hollow-cheeked appearance that still did not affect his proud look. Sinisa Mihajlovic dropped like a bomb on the Serie A opening round as he sat on Bologna’s bench for their debut in Verona. His appearance was the icicle on the cake of a Serie A Round 1 which saw Juventus, Napoli, and Inter win, whereas Milan lost to Udinese.