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.
Once dubbed an old men’s league, Serie A changed its face in recent years. Few things in football are as exciting as watching footballing talents turning into stars in front of our eyes. We’re witnessing a number of growing talents flourishing this season and, in this article, we’ll take a look at the four names that made it to our Top Serie A Sensations list.
Sassuolo’s first point ever at the Allianz Stadium has the face of 18-year-old goalkeeper Stefano Turati. His brilliant debut, which helped Roberto De Zerbi’s side to preserve a precious 2-2 tie against Juventus, reminded the one made by Gianluigi Buffon in 1995. Today at 41, Buffon was still playing, but a blunder of his forced the Bianconeri to surrended the Serie A top spot to Inter.
On September 1, 1991, Cagliari received title-holder Sampdoria at the Sant’ Elia Stadium in the opening match of Serie A 1991-92. The most representative player of the Rossoblu was Uruguayan midfielder Enzo Francescoli, who is still widely remembered in Sardinia for a magnificent goal that helped his side knock the Italian champions down.
Ciro Immobile is a particular kind of striker. He has always scored, in every team he played. At the same time, he has also always shown some limits, especially when he tried to take his career to the next level. That is one of the reasons why public opinion never seems to have ever considered him a top striker, even though his scoring stats with Lazio are impressive.
A 1-1 stalemate didn’t heal either contender’s wounds as Milan and Napoli split the ante in the match clou of Serie A Round 13. Saturday’s clash at the San Siro Stadium confirmed that both Stefano Pioli and Carlo Ancelotti have still much to work on, at the end of a game where Giacomo Bonaventura answered to Hirving Lozano’s opener in the space of five minutes.
Juventus switched to HD (Higuain-Dybala) mode in the second half of a complicated game to come from behind and wrap a 1-3 win in Bergamo. The Bianconeri’s recipe is always the same: A poor start, Maurizio Sarri’s mark failing to catch on the Zebras’ game, then the stroke of genius of a single individual to pull his side’s chestnuts out of the fire.
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.
As the international break continues to unfold and Serie A teams have now 12 games on their back, it’s time to draw some initial conclusions. Juventus may still be lying at the top of the table, but new coach Antonio Conte is doing an extraordinary job at Inter, as proved by the fact that all those who preceded him since 1998 collected less points in the first 12 league rounds.
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.
If the Roma-Juventus feud characterized the first half of the ‘80s in Italian football, there is no doubt about Milan-Napoli being the most exciting duel towards the end of the decade. The match that set the beginning of this rivalry took place on January 3, 1988, when Ruud Gullit literally drove the Partenopei nuts and inflicted them their first seasonal defeat.
There is only a few clubs besides the “usual suspects” which have been showing glimpses of greatness in Serie A in the past few years. This season, the team stirring up a storm is Cagliari, currently sitting 4th in the table. The Rossoblu managed by Rolando Maran have been exceeding everyone’s expectations thanks to Radja Nainggolan’s comeback to Sardinia.