“When Antonio Conte resigned as Juventus manager last July, the rest of Serie A breathed a sigh of relief. After all, Conte had just finished guiding what seemed to be an invincible Old Lady to a third straight title. When Massimiliano Allegri was announced as his successor the next day, those sighs turned to giggles. Mad Max may have lead Milan to the 2010-11 scudetto after one year in charge and, with Cagliari and Sassuolo before that, shown his ability to instill attractive play, but by the time he got to Juventus, Allegri had become a mere punchline. He was the man who’d left the rossoneri unable to qualify Europe, much less challenge for titles.” Fusion

“Thirty years ago, Hellas Verona concluded Italian football’s greatest fairy-tale. On May 12th 1985, the club travelled to Atlanta looking for a point that would secure them their first, and to date only, Scudetto. A one-all draw saw the team return home with the trophy, their place won in the hearts of generations of Veronese and a special page for them in the history of the sport.” backpagefootball

“The crest of S.S. Lazio depicts a golden eagle, wings outstretched, grasping a blue-and-white-striped club badge in its talons. The eagle looks a little ferocious, as many mascots are wont to do. Still, its steely glare shouldn’t provoke such loathing – yet this misunderstood avian has managed to become a perfect symbol of the much-maligned club. You see, an eagle was commonly used as a fascist symbol. It doesn’t matter that the eagles worn on Italian Fascist uniforms bear little resemblance to the Lazio eagle; for those seeking to make their cases against the side, the bird’s use gives further credence to the theory that Lazio is a fascist club, founded by army officers and doomed to be Mussolini’s team.” Fusion

“Once, not so long ago, the soccer world looked to Italy’s Serie A to lead the way. Now the league’s asking the rest of the planet for help. It’s considering playing the first round of matches in the 2015-16 season in cities such as London, New York, Paris, Jakarta, Shanghai and Beijing. It’s a desperate idea to drum up interest from a faltering league. We should caution that it’s Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis (below) who’s pitching the idea, and as you’d expect from a big-time film producer, he has a penchant for dramatic but unrealistic gestures – like threatening to send his players to some kind of training prison camp, and proposing suing the Italian government for $16 billion.” Fusion

“By now, you’re probably sick fed-up of hearing about AC Milan are their troubles. You’ve read in excess of 100 articles attempting to dissect their woes, you’ve been exposed to the hackneyed contrast between their current squad and the side which dominated Europe all those years ago, and you’ve likely stumbled across the Serie A standings and were left befuddled at their current league position. Granted, many people have came to accept that Milan are no longer a force to be reckoned with, but sitting yourself down in front of a Milan game in recent times has became more of a penance rather than a reward.” backpagefootball

“Faustino Asprilla is not a man who prefers to dwell on the negatives in life. Not if his Twitter account is anything to go by, at any rate. A quick scan of his last 10 days online reveals a chaotic mix of Oscars commentary, support for Colombian athletes, and coarse visual gags. That and photos of himself grinning. Grinning at a carnival, grinning on a boat, grinning while surrounded by half-naked women (warning: the last one is not something to click on at work). On Friday he posted a photo of himself grinning on a football pitch, too, and wearing the colours of his former club, Parma. But for once, Asprilla’s accompanying words lacked their customary exuberance. ‘Very sad to see what’s happening to Parma,’ he wrote.” Guardian

“Last Saturday, soccer fiends across the globe were licking their lips at the line-up of matches in Europe. There was a North London derby, a Merseyside derby, a Madrid derby, and over in Italy, defending champion Juventus was hosting Milan. The Merseyside derby was an unspeakably dull affair, but it was still not as disappointing as the showdown in Turin. It was hard to watch Juve-Milan without a tinge of sadness. Milan — one of the most successful clubs in the sport, remember –wasn’t even at the races. This wasn’t just a case of Juve’s players being more motivated, or superior coaching, or even a one-off result for the ages. The bianconeri’s win over its once fierce rivals was much worse than a historic pasting. Sadly, the 3-1 win felt … routine.” Soccer Gods

Ernö Erbstein, far right, lines up with his Torino team before the friendly against Benfica on 3 May 1949. Tragically the entire Torino team was killed the following day in the Superga air disaster.
“Ernö Egri Erbstein was a pioneering coach who created Il Grande Torino, the great side that won five successive Serie A titles. He was killed with the rest of his squad in the plane crash at Superga in 1949. Erbstein was part of the great Jewish Hungarian football tradition of the 20s and 30s and had begun to make a name for himself as a coach in Italy but when the Manifesto of Race was passed by Mussolini shortly before the second world war broke out, the newly appointed Torino coach was forced to flee the country where he had made his home. He eventually returned to Budapest with his wife, Jolàn, and his two daughters, Marta and Susanna, but their lives were devastated when, in March 1944, his homeland was occupied by Nazi Germany.” Guardian

“Even the most casual followers of Italian football are aware of the dark history of the rivalry between the Milan clubs. The peak of the violence associated with the fixture between the two may have been a long time ago but the Inter Milan Ultras are still very much in the forefront of matters. Joseph Solomon traces the origin and history of ‘organized groups’ of the Nerazzuri.” Outside of the Boot

“In Turin, the locals spoke fretfully of a bestia nera coming to pay Juventus a visit. Those words translate in English to black beast, although bête noire might sound more familiar. The expression has its origins in medieval times, when the devil would often be represented in works of art as an animal with black fur and burning eyes. These days it is applied mostly by Italians to sporting bogey teams. No demon had troubled Juventus as greatly over the last few seasons as Sampdoria – a side they had beaten just twice in their latest six attempts. The Blucerchiati were responsible for the Old Lady’s most recent home defeat, recovering from a goal and a man down to snatch an unlikely 2-1 victory in January 2013.” Guardian

“Benoit Cauet managed just one goal for Torino. It came in February 2002, with the Granata attempting to survive in Serie A after winning promotion the previous year. Riccardo Maspero, Torino’s mercurial trequartista, collected the ball midway inside the opposition half and slid a perfectly weighted pass to striker Cristiano Lucarelli, who had peeled off the back of his marker. Lucarelli showed great awareness to slide the ball back across the box while running in the opposite direction, and Cauet, having made a lung-busting run to arrive at the back post, made no mistake from four yards out.” backpagefootball

“The aggression, intensity, and general bearded shoutyness that made ex-AC Milan star Gennaro Gattuso one of the best defensive midfielders in the world during the 2000s aren’t serving him quite as well now he’s gone from tackler to tactician. First there was a 2013 spell as player-coach of Swiss club Sion, which lasted less than three months. To be fair, that’s actually a long time at Sion. Gattuso was their fifth manager of the season, because the club’s president is a testicle-kicking architect who’s incapable of designing solid foundations. Later that year, Gattuso moved on to another club where managers have shorter lifespans than mayflies – then Serie B’s Palermo. The Sicilians axed him after he steered them to only seven points in the first six games.” Soccer Gods