Tuesday 06 January 2009, 13:00
There is something worth pointing out with the credit crunch kicking in as the January sales get into full swing. With the euro now almost on parity with the pound, Italians have been flooding the streets of London in search of a bargain. This time last...
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Monday 05 January 2009, 10:00
So 2009 is upon us and it's out with the old and in with the new in Serie A. Ricky Kaka, for one, will be glad to see the back of 2008. The big question now is what will the New Year hold for the Brazilian superstar? One thing is certain, with the...
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Tuesday 30 December 2008, 11:00
So another year comes tumbling to a end quicker than you can say "Filippo Inzaghi's offside" and Serie Aaaaargh! would like to bring 2008 to a close with its very own take on the Serie A table. Six points ahead of Juventus and a further...
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Monday 29 December 2008, 10:00
Too many players have flattered to deceive so far this season. Injuries have played a major part, with the likes of Francesco Totti, Ricky Kaka, Gianluigi Buffon and Adrian Mutu a few of the big names who have only featured in fits and starts. With this...
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Monday 22 December 2008, 13:00
Milan is synonymous with luxury and wealth – where else would the poor and homeless feast on beluga caviar* for Christmas? So when the world’s most fashionable city welcomed the world’s most fashionable man, it was always going to be done with a certain...
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Friday 19 December 2008, 15:30
Apparently, Italy has leapt ahead of the UK in terms of GNP and Serie A’s three Champions League representatives feel they will be in the money when they face the Premier League's rich list. The Italy game has been lagging behind its English counterpart...
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Thursday 18 December 2008, 10:00
Never let it be said that Serie Aaaaargh! isn't generous. In a show of festive cheer, it purchased six tickets for AC Milan’s final UEFA Cup group game against Wolfsburg on Wednesday. Delving into the Christmas fund to dredge up 12 euro, it was to...
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Wednesday 17 December 2008, 09:30
As Adriano staggers back to Brazil - future uncertain - another South American arrives in Milan. Thiago Silva completed his move to AC Milan on Monday and as the defender is ineligible to actually play, he hightailed it back across the Atlantic after...
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Monday 15 December 2008, 12:00
Things are now getting so desperate at AC Milan that the fallen giants of Serie A cannot wait until David Beckham parks up at the San Siro. Anything will do to lift the mood, which is currently as depressing as the weather which hangs over the Rossoneri...
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Friday 12 December 2008, 14:00
Carlo Ancelotti in Father Christmas guise would certainly be an arresting sight in the lead up to the Christmas break. With his ever-expanding girth and drooping jowls, the AC Milan boss would play the part of old Santa to perfection. Speaking to satellite...
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Wednesday 10 December 2008, 12:00
Jose Mourinho has been sporting an ugly scar on his forehead over the last couple of days. Those imagining that a disgruntled Inter reserve - take your pick - had finally cracked and smacked his boss over the head with a boot will be disappointed to learn...
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Tuesday 09 December 2008, 08:00
They say you should never go back, but in Italy coaches have little choice but to return to the scene of their crimes. It’s very unlikely that a Serie A coach would ever send their president a text message with a curt “I am off,” and – Roberto Mancini...
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Monday 08 December 2008, 10:00
Jeremy has finally spoken. It looked odds on that Jeremy Menez would land the title of 'flop of the season so far' as we head towards the winter break, but the plucky French lad finally answered his ever-growing band of critics at the weekend...
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Friday 05 December 2008, 12:00
Ricky Kakà caught offside as the lone striker, grumpy Ronaldinho elbowing an opponent in the face, Kakha Kaladze stood stock still in the centre of midfield… This was a snapshot of the once mighty Milan on Wednesday evening as they crashed out of the...
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Wednesday 03 December 2008, 15:30
It’s taken the Italian media five long months, but they have finally, grudgingly accepted that Jose Mourinho is actually good for Serie A. “SuperMou,” headlined La Gazzetta dello Sport on Wednesday before going on to wax lyrical about the Inter coach...
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Monday 01 December 2008, 14:00
These days it seems that to best prepare for facing world class opposition, you might as well dispense of all the old coaching manuals and buy a PlayStation. It certainly worked for Marco Amelia, who has been honing his penalty-saving skills by watching...
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Friday 28 November 2008, 11:00
It’s a similar flight time from Milan to Portsmouth or Palermo, but a world away in terms of football culture. Carlo Ancelotti’s boys 2-0 down in Sicily with six-minutes remaining would more than likely remain 2-0. If not, home coach Davide Ballardini...
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Thursday 27 November 2008, 11:00
Jose Mourinho cannot bring himself to say a bad word about Ricardo Quaresma... well not in public anyway. While he continually lambasts the likes of Adriano, Julio Cruz and the moody teen Mario Balotelli, he goes all misty-eyed when it comes to his fellow...
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Wednesday 26 November 2008, 10:00
Paolo Maldini’s glittering career will remain incomplete... he will never play at Fratton Park. The legendary defender failed to board the flight for Southampton this morning with the rest of the squad. Although Portsmouth fans may never get the chance...
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Monday 24 November 2008, 14:00
Serie Aaaaargh! took the opportunity to watch the Inter-Juventus dust-up in the company of two couples from opposing camps. The city of Milan was the venue, where everyone supports Inter, Milan or Juventus, with a smattering of Napoli and Cagliari die...
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Friday 21 November 2008, 13:00
You can still catch The Odd Couple on cable TV in Italy, but Serie A’s very own Felix and Oscar will have a prime-time slot on Saturday. Jose Mourinho and Claudio Ranieri will take their cantankerous, mismatched relationship in front of an enthralled...
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Thursday 20 November 2008, 11:00
Can Italy go another 20 games or so unbeaten? That’s the number of internationals, give or take the Confederation’s Cup and a friendly here or there, that would see the Azzurri crowned world champions again come 2010. Maybe not, but any defeats that do...
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Tuesday 18 November 2008, 11:00
It’s only Tuesday but it’s already turning into one of the wackiest weeks in Italian football for a long time. An unemployed coach is named top manager of the year, players are caught with their shorts down and ungrateful fans throw a player’s shirt back...
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Monday 17 November 2008, 12:30
Just when we were about to start contemplating the closest title race in years, the pretenders to the throne collectively implode. Napoli, Lazio, Udinese and Fiorentina all lost over the weekend , leaving the top of the table with a more familiar look...
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Friday 14 November 2008, 10:30
It's derby weekend in the capital and anyone hoping for all manner of dastardly goings-on is set to be left disappointed. While the players will be expected to get stuck into each other, on the terraces at the Stadio Olimpico peace and harmony is...
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Thursday 13 November 2008, 11:00
Antonio Cassano is known as a fantasista in Italian football parlance. The player whose skill and all round game are so valued that he is allowed to roam free wherever he feels. The term also means someone who embellishes his life with tall tales in order...
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Wednesday 12 November 2008, 11:00
The Sulky One, as he must be known as from now on, didn’t taken long to turn a country against him. Yes, surprise surprise, Jose Mourinho and Italy don’t mix. First, he made disparaging remarks about Claudio Ranieri, then he belittled an official from...
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Monday 10 November 2008, 12:00
Cicinho must have been taking some advice on defending from his AS Roma team-mate John Arne Riise if his last-gasp own goal on Saturday evening is anything to go by. A flying header in the 93rd minute sent an admittedly excellent Marco Di Viao cross high...
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Friday 07 November 2008, 12:00
Notwithstanding his dodgy knee, Saturday should see Francesco Totti makes his 400th Serie A appearance as AS Roma look to keep the feel-good factor going at Bologna. Ah, Bologna. On any other weekend we would have said, finally, three points for the Romans...
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Thursday 06 November 2008, 11:00
It’s a long way from Rimini to the Bernabeu but for Juventus the trip, in the end, has been worth it. 17-months ago and the Old Lady started out kicking her heels in Serie B at the Italian resort town and now they are running all over the “great” Real...
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Wednesday 05 November 2008, 12:01
No team has ever won the Champions League and been relegated. But there's always a first time, and the way things are going for AS Roma at the moment, anything could happen. The side that turned up on Tuesday and left hot favourites Chelsea feeling...
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Monday 03 November 2008, 09:44
“I don’t know what else to do.” So lamented the forlorn figure of Luciano Spalletti after witnessing AS Roma capitulate at Juventus on Saturday. His voice was as dull as the inclement weather currently sweeping the peninsula and it’s plain to see that...
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Friday 31 October 2008, 14:00
100 days into his reign and, with just one defeat, Jose Mourinho has made his point. He’s the boss, he’s the man – the shaven-headed tough guy in a dressing-room full of tough guys. However, has he the man-management skills to wring the very best out...
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Thursday 30 October 2008, 12:00
It never rains but it pours. AS Roma’s damp squib of a season continued to float down the swanny on Wednesday evening. A monsoon hit the Eternal City just before kick-off against Sampdoria and after a few minutes of splashing around out on the pitch,...
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Wednesday 29 October 2008, 13:00
Fiorentina have lost a lot of the good will they have built up over the last year or so. The Tuscans have been the little angels of Italian football ever since they applauded Inter off the pitch at the end of last season’s encounter. This gesture came...
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Monday 27 October 2008, 09:53
Weekend Serie A reports Results: Atalanta Bergamo 0-1 AC Milan; Cagliari 2-0 Chievo Verona; Inter Milan 0-0 Genoa; Juventus 1-0 Torino; Lazio 0-1 Napoli; Palermo 1-3 Fiorentina; Reggina 2-0 Lecce; Sampdoria 2-0 Bologna; Siena 1-1 Catania; Udinese 3-1...
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Friday 24 October 2008, 14:00
Football fatigue could be the undoing of some of Serie A’s Euro-trippers this weekend. Juventus, Inter, Roma, Fiorentina, AC Milan, not to mention Udinese and Sampdoria are feeling the strain to varying degrees following their Champions League and UEFA...
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Thursday 23 October 2008, 13:00
Market research carried out by Serie Aaaaargh! has revealed that 70% of Milan fans surveyed feel that “yes” David Beckham’s arrival at the club is no more than a marketing tool. The data was gathered not by standing outside some football ground like a...
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Wednesday 22 October 2008, 11:30
We came to bury Caesar not to praise him but Claudio Ranieri lives to fight another day. Just when you thought the bottom was falling out of the Old Lady’s world, she digs out the gladrags and dolls herself up to seduce the whole country once again. She...
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Monday 20 October 2008, 13:00
“Indefensible” was how Tuttosport summed up Juve's performance in the 2-1 defeat at Napoli, and the very same could easily describe AS Roma’s abject display in a 4-0 home reverse against Inter. The Tinkerman and the Stinkerman are mismanaging their...
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Friday 17 October 2008, 08:00
Italians worship women. Well, that’s like saying the Pope is a catholic and bears do whatever they do in the woods. The female form is adored at every turn in il bel paese so it’s no one wonder in football that traditionally the top teams have been known...
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Wednesday 15 October 2008, 14:00
The fans want him out, the press want him out and the players apparently want him out, but Claudio Ranieri is nothing but a battler. The Juventus coach faces three games that will make or break his tenure in Turin. On Saturday, the Bianconeri are in the...
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Monday 13 October 2008, 15:00
The revolution starts now – and not before time. The Italian press may not have been that impressed with the goalless draw in Bulgaria but Marcello Lippi certainly can be, as he stretched his unbeaten run as Italy coach to 29 games. Having finally decided...
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Thursday 09 October 2008, 10:00
It is not only English clubs that could be feeling the pinch as the worldwide credit crunch starts to bite. AS Roma are reportedly heading for financial ruin unless they can start paying back some of the massive debt owned to the Unicredit Bank, which...
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Wednesday 08 October 2008, 10:00
So it’s a dream come true for Portsmouth and probably Braga, Wolfsburg and Heerenveen as well. If AC Milan have their way it will be a once in a lifetime opportunity for their UEFA Cup opponents because another season away from the Champions League and...
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Monday 06 October 2008, 09:00
Jose Mourinho has saved his job for another couple of weeks. Well, it isn’t that dire of course, but the pressure has been on the Portuguese. The honeymoon period is long gone and the reality of daily life married to the demanding Italian press seems...
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Friday 03 October 2008, 13:00
Whisper it but whisper it anyway, Andriy Shevchenko can score. He did it on Thursday when the Ukrainian finally found the net again for the only goal of the game in AC Milan’s UEFA Cup win at FC Zurich. Maybe now we can start to lay off with the jokes...
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Thursday 02 October 2008, 12:00
Italian football has always had a strong relationship with Argentines. Some have delighted, some disappointed and then, of course, there was Diego Maradona. But most have got on with their jobs in a professional manner give or take the odd dodgy passport...
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Wednesday 01 October 2008, 11:30
There was once a thing you could always rely on with Juventus, and that was a mean old defence. Never one to give the opposition as much as a sniff at goal in the past, the Old Lady is now looking decidedly shaking at the back. Those defensive frailties...
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Monday 29 September 2008, 11:00
Plenty of indigestion this morning. What with all that humble-pie to be eaten last night. Ronaldinho answered all his critics with a man-of-the-match performance in the Milan derby although it has to be said that Ricky Kaka ran him close. A good night...
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Friday 26 September 2008, 12:30
October 18 1908: baggy shorts, square goal-posts, handlebar ‘taches, ball like a piece of cement, pitch full of English and Swiss gents. September 28 2008: baggy shorts, plenty of facial hair, ball like a balloon, pitch full of South Americans. Yes, the...
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Wednesday 24 September 2008, 13:00
It’s derby week and fashion week all rolled into one in Milan so there has been plenty of preening around the city. Willowy models and braying fashion designers have all been giving their views on La Derby della Madonnina. Of course, the Jose Mourinho...
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Monday 22 September 2008, 11:00
Crisis? What crisis? While Italy’s state-run airline Alitalia plummets towards a financial crash-landing, at least the country’s prime minister Silvio Berlusconi can stop worrying about AC Milan. The perma-tanned man of the nation was in the stands to...
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Friday 19 September 2008, 10:28
The cappuccini are tasting a lot sweeter this morning after all four Italian clubs produced fine wins in the UEFA Cup on Thursday evening. In fact, apart from AS Roma leaving a bitter taste in the mouth, it was a European week to savour for Serie A and...
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Wednesday 17 September 2008, 10:00
Clued in to the clueless. That seems a neat summing up of Inter and AS Roma’s first foray into the Champions League or “the Champions” as the Italians call it. Well, certainly the two sides were a league apart in terms of their approach to their European...
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Monday 15 September 2008, 11:00
Well, we didn’t expect to see this after the first two games of the season: Lazio and Atalanta on top of the table on maximum points, with Torino in third. Only the sight of Inter and Juventus, level on four points with Toro, gives the Serie A table a...
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Friday 12 September 2008, 11:00
What better way than to spend a Wednesday evening than with a relaxing visit to Lugano? Nestling on the shores of Lake Lugano, just across the border from Italy and known as the ‘Monte Carlo of Switzerland, it’s the perfect spot for the well-paid footballer...
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Wednesday 10 September 2008, 11:00
Out with brawn, in with flair. Italy may not be able to defend any more but who cares, let’s get all Brazilian and go on all-out attack. “A swashbuckling Azzurri,” trumpeted La Gazzetta dello Sport ahead of Wednesday evening’s World Cup qualifier with...
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Monday 08 September 2008, 13:00
Cracking stuff for Italy at the weekend. Well, cracking in the sense of a broken rib, broken wrist and dislocated shoulder. Such have been the ills and misfortunes suffered by Azzurri players Fabio Grossi, Alessandro Gamberini and Gennaro Gattuso in the...
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Friday 05 September 2008, 11:00
The traditional late August start to Serie A means that it’s back to the beach as the league closes down for the international break. Well, summer is winding down and with Italy off to Cyprus for what should be a winning start to the defence of their...
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Wednesday 03 September 2008, 15:00
We have only had one game of the new season but it would seem as if it’s business as usual in Serie A: ultras on the rampage and coaches set for the chop. Let’s start with the incidents that marred Napoli’s opener at AS Roma. It seems now that there was...
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Tuesday 02 September 2008, 12:00
As the transfer window slammed shut promptly at 7pm on Monday evening, a grand total of €500million had made its way out of the coffers of the 20 Serie A sides. Needless to say, leading the way were money-bags Inter who took their spending spree for the...
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Monday 01 September 2008, 17:00
He came, he saw, he perspired a lot. An unfortunate choice of Alice-blue shirt exposed Jose Mourinho’s inexperience at the highest level of fashion sense on the opening day of any Serie A season. With the thermometer hitting the high 20s in the notoriously...
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Friday 29 August 2008, 11:00
Don’t believe the hype about the English Premier League. Real, grown-up football is back again. While the Premier League has been slogging away, humping long balls into the overcast skies of a late English summer, cooing over a Barcelona has-been and...
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Wednesday 27 August 2008, 12:00
Tiago Mendes just cannot take a hint. He’s like the unwanted guest at the end of the night who hangs around when all the host wants to do is hit the sack. However, Juventus can’t exactly sling him out the door – not without tearing up his contract which...
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Tuesday 26 August 2008, 11:55
East-west relations may not currently be cordial at governmental level, but they’re far from frosty in the high-powered world of football business. After enjoying a pleasant afternoon bobbing about off Sardinia on former Chukotka governor Roman Abramovich...
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Friday 22 August 2008, 12:00
On Wednesday it was 'Sheva back to Milan!' and by Friday it’s 'Sheva back playing golf!' That’s the way the Italian press summed up the sorry summer saga of Andriy Shevchenko ’s on-off return to AC Milan. In fact, La Gazzetta dello Sport...
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Wednesday 20 August 2008, 13:00
It’s an end of an era in Rome following the passing of AS Roma president Franco Sensi. The 82-year-old had been seriously ill for some time so it was a matter of not if but when. The fact that his death occurred during the height of the holiday season...
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Monday 18 August 2008, 15:00
As second comings go it should be a pretty low-key affair. Marcello Lippi is back in charge of Italy and everyone’s favourite 60-year-old Paul Newman lookalike has named his squad for Wednesday’s friendly With the country still officially closed for business...
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Thursday 14 August 2008, 14:55
Juventus last played in the Champions League on April 6 2006 when they were eliminated from the competition in an insipid display against Arsenal at the Stadio delle Alpi. The Old Lady‘s black and while world then turned a little gray after that and within...
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Wednesday 13 August 2008, 13:00
Where better to begin a renaissance than Florence and where better to *** a snoop at your old employers than scoring in the Champions League. Welcome back Alberto Gilardino, previously second fiddle at AC Milan but now set to hit the high notes at Fiorentina...
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Monday 11 August 2008, 15:00
They won't let it go will they. The old Ricky Kaka-to-Chelsea story is out in the UK press again. Milan must be sick of Chelsea, and England for that matter. Thumped 5-0 by the Blues last week, losing 1-0 to Manchester City at the weekend and now...
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Friday 08 August 2008, 14:40
It was too good to last: a summer of silence from Jose Mourinho. Just when we thought that the moody one had gone all soft under the warm Italian skies, there he is putting the verbal boot into Claudio Ranieri. The Juventus boss had started the mischief...
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Wednesday 06 August 2008, 11:00
Time for Italy to restore some pride at international level after the fiasco of Euro 2008 – and where better than at the Olympic Games. After all, it’s basically a mini-version of the World Cup, minus a couple of big names. Italy would not have been there...
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Monday 04 August 2008, 18:30
A recent survey has claimed that Italy is becoming an ageing population and the current generation are not doing their bit to produce upstanding citizens for the future. The upshot is that everyone is going to have to work longer before they can head...
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Friday 01 August 2008, 15:45
It’s not much fun being Dejan Stankovic at the moment; well it can’t have been fun for some time in fact. A Roberto Mancini loyalist, a hoax call sacking him, facing the wreath of Juventus fans and a firm favourite of a war criminal defendant: just a...
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Wednesday 30 July 2008, 12:45
What is it with Inter and central defenders? They can’t seem to keep them on the pitch. Last season, Walter Samuel snapped knee ligaments in the Milan derby in December and then Ivan Cordoba’s season was ended in similar fashion against Liverpool in the...
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Tuesday 29 July 2008, 11:55
Italy may be gearing up for its annual August shutdown when the whole country takes off on a collective holiday but at least it’s business as usual in the football world with the release of the new Serie A fixture list. For many, the 2008/09 campaign...
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Wednesday 23 July 2008, 16:00
If Sopranos creator David Chase is on the look out for a new take on the Mafia story then he could do no worse than ponder a series around the colourful life of Giorgio Chinaglia. Tony Soprano actor, James Gandolfini, is already a dead-ringer for the...
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Tuesday 22 July 2008, 12:21
Well, that’s it, the paparazzi can abandon the beaches now. Christian Vieri is finally back in pre-season training so no more pics of the cankerous frontman cavorting in the sea with his svelte, young girlfriend. In fact, big Bobo’s new club Atalanta...
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Monday 21 July 2008, 13:46
It’s an old story of underhand dealings enabling bogus Italians from Argentina and other South America countries to gain European Union passports. Suddenly, players were finding untold numbers of ancestors from cholera-ridden, well back in the 19th century...
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Thursday 17 July 2008, 12:20
There’s nothing like a knockdown sales bargain to put a smile on a shopper’s face. So it’s no wonder AC Milan were whooping with delight as they ran up the street with a toothy Brazilian dressed in Snoop Dogg’s castoffs, tucked under one arm. It’s hard...
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Tuesday 15 July 2008, 12:24
Italian football and theatrics have gone hand-in-hand well before even Filippo Inzaghi threw his first hissy fit and dived out of his pram. And each year ahead of the new season, the referee’s association comes out with the usual platitudes about ‘cleaning...
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Friday 11 July 2008, 12:55
Inter fans are in no doubt that Frank Lampard will sign for the club but he isn’t going to have much time to win over such ever-demanding followers. In the die-hard Nerazzurri cafes in Milan they are not exactly raising their coffee cups to toast the...
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Tuesday 08 July 2008, 12:00
It’s almost two years to the day that Juventus started out on their long road to redemption. It was back in July 2006 that Giovanni Cobolli Gigli took on the task of rebuilding the toppled giants from the rubble of Calciopoli and humiliation of relegation...
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Monday 07 July 2008, 11:23
It’s no wonder Italian bookies give up quoting odds on Serie A games during the end of season run-in. They know that it’s time for favours to be called in; a point dropped here or there when a team is safe, a draw suits two sides, okay, a draw it will...
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Thursday 03 July 2008, 10:01
AC Milan have done the right thing and refused to offer Ronaldo a new contract. Although the Brazilian has claimed he will be running again in a few weeks, recent photos suggest he would find it hard trotting up the stairs. It’s nothing really to do with...
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Monday 30 June 2008, 11:30
Ah, summer. Time for Italian footballers to head to Sardinia for two weeks of sun, sea and whatever else takes their fancy. However, while his peers are clubbing the night away and indulging in the odd ice-cream or three, one player has kicked such hedonistic...
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Friday 27 June 2008, 11:26
Well, if you have been out of the game for around eight months why hang on and take an extra few days holiday? Thus Jose Mourinho has been marching around Inter’s training ground making sure everything is just so ahead of the squad’s return in mid-July...
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Wednesday 25 June 2008, 12:22
Italy doesn’t like to experiment and when it does it invariably goes wrong so it is no surprise that Marcello Lippi will be back leading the Azzurri in their 2010 World Cup qualifying campaign. The Italian football federation never really believed in...
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Friday 20 June 2008, 12:11
Here’s a new take on an old spin. “The only way I would leave Milan would be if Milan want to sell me.” The words of one Ricardo Kaka just 72 hours ago over speculation that Chelsea will make an offer that neither he or Milan can refuse. Rewind two years...
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Monday 16 June 2008, 11:14
Just when Jose Mourinho thought that he had the orchard all to himself to pick the best of European talent, along comes Gene Hackman’s doppelganger Felipe Scolari to knock over the apple cart. The feeling in Italy is that Chelsea turned to Big Phil partially...
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Tuesday 10 June 2008, 11:28
They started the evening blasting out the Brothers of Italy and ended it the country’s orphans. No mamma to dry their tears and no papa to bring order. While Marcello Lippi took on both roles at World Cup 2006, Donadoni seems very much the missing parent...
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Friday 06 June 2008, 00:14
This is more like the build up to a major championship you expect from Italy. A captain crocked by one of his own players in the first training session, before a loose cannon fires off a couple of rounds and is sent to the dressing room to cool off. The...
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Wednesday 04 June 2008, 15:00
Jose Mourinho did not disappoint and compelling stuff it was too. As charm offensives go he was pretty irresistible, wooing the massed ranks of press and television crews with an excellent command of Italian and relaxed style of a man sitting at the top...
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Monday 02 June 2008, 12:12
Today is Republic Day in Italy – a chance to commemorate the birth of a new nation and, more importantly, a Monday off for everyone. Everyone expect those Inter minions who have to organise the press conference to finally unveil Jose Mourinho. It’s the...
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Thursday 29 May 2008, 14:19
What with the uncollected refugee turning Naples into a no-go zone, national airline Alitalia bracing itself for an almighty crash and the cost of pasta going through the roof, the country certainly needs something to take its mind off its woes. Enter...
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Wednesday 28 May 2008, 10:53
Well that didn’t take long. In fact, all of 25 minutes for Roberto Mancini to be given the boot. Exit the Moody One and enter the Special One who apparently has a good five months of Italian lessons under his belt. Mancio was summoned to president Massimo...
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Monday 26 May 2008, 22:58
So the curtain has come down on another fun-filled Italian football season. AS Roma exacted some revenge over Inter in the Italian Cup final where once again Roberto Mancini got his tactics all in a tangle. But enough of the Mancio-baiting for a moment...
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Friday 23 May 2008, 22:00
Roberto Mancini popped into Massimo Moratti’s office for a little celebration drink on Thursday or what was more likely a little farewell tipple. The final act of the Inter drama is upon us and although they may well bring the curtain down by adding the...
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Wednesday 21 May 2008, 11:36
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton could learn aplenty from Alessandro Del Piero when it comes to persuading floating voters that the hopes of a nation rely on them. The Juventus man has been campaigning hard and long to win over Roberto Donadoni – something...
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Monday 19 May 2008, 11:24
So in the end there was no massive bottling and historical choker from Inter. In fact, it turned out to be something of a damp squib as Zlatan Ibrahimovic was unwrapped from cotton wool to provide the coup de grace. It was a soggy old afternoon for any...
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Friday 16 May 2008, 11:02
The ghosts of Inter’s past are no doubt rattling the windows of Massimo Moratti’s luxurious Milanese penthouse. The president has banned all talk of May 5, 2002 as his side stare into the abyss of the greatest collapse in modern Italian football after...
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Wednesday 14 May 2008, 12:07
You get the feeling as the days tick down to the Sunday showdown that the league title will not be won on the pitch but by delving deepest into the world of the dark arts. We have already had Luis Figo and the incident with the black cat and now down...
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Monday 12 May 2008, 15:00
It’s all Luis Figo’s fault: not content with undermining confidence within the squad by spreading rumours that Jose Mourinho will dump the lot of them, he then goes and runs over a black cat on the eve of Inter’s title decider. Black felines are deeply...
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Friday 09 May 2008, 09:50
Marco Materazzi just cannot seem to stay out of trouble. Bother follows him around like a bad smell. He has been called – with some justification – the dirtiest player in Italian football since the days of Pasquale Bruno back in the early-’90s. Plenty...
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Wednesday 07 May 2008, 11:07
Roberto Mancini has been walking around with a look of the condemned man for a number of weeks. Now his fate has finally been sealed when he threw himself to the hounds during the press conference ahead of Wednesday evening’s Italian Cup semi-final at...
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Monday 05 May 2008, 16:02
AC Milan did what Inter should have done in the Milan derby: played like champions. That’s the general opinion of the Italian media after the Rossoneri spoilt their city rival’s title party on Sunday. A victory would have given the ever-increasingly moody...
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Friday 02 May 2008, 11:00
While Ronaldo has been off amusing himself with his cross-dressing friends - something that has finally endeared him to most of the Italian male public - Serie A is gearing up for the Milan derby on Sunday. Let’s get one thing straight, AC Milan against...
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Wednesday 30 April 2008, 11:00
ACF Fiorentina are on the verge of finally putting six years of pain and hurt behind them. By defeating Rangers on Thursday in the UEFA Cup they will reach their first European final since 1990 and by