“Paulie Gualtieri wanted to know why Tony Soprano was a quiet and sullen presence at dinner. The goomahs in attendance were having to listen about the good old days, a time when many of them weren’t even born; a beach house booked on the Jersey shore, the summer of ’78, the hippie kid who mysteriously drowned during a party. … On the morning of the World Cup draw on Friday, a photo from the restaurant of the FIFA hotel went viral. It showed the coach of Uzbekistan and Italy’s last World Cup-winning captain, Fabio Cannavaro, sat round a table with Christian Vieri. Behind them were Francesco Totti, the original Ronaldo, Marco Materazzi, Roberto Baggio and Vincent Candela. ‘Once upon a time in Serie A’ should have been the caption. …”
NY Times/The Athletic
NY Times/The Athletic: James Horncastle’s Serie A Briefing: Italian fans are getting high on Serie A supply
James Horncastle’s Serie A briefing: Italy’s ‘Operation Nostalgia’, Spalletti’s return and Vardymania
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“‘I don’t read the papers,’ Igor Tudor insisted. But the Juventus coach clearly does pay attention to what is said about him and his team. An innocuous question about how he planned to approach Wednesday’s game against Real Madrid got a six-minute answer. Tudor wanted “intellectual honesty” from the press pack that followed Juventus from Turin. Analysis of a six-game winless streak had, in the papers he doesn’t read, been unfair and lacking in context. …”
“This season, Arsenal’s in-possession shape has mainly featured a 
“The advanced plans to stage a La Liga match between Villarreal and Barcelona in Miami in December spectacularly and suddenly crumbled on Tuesday. Villarreal executives learned the game would no longer take place in the middle of their 2-0 home Champions League defeat by Manchester City, while Barcelona were shocked out of their celebrations having just beaten Olympiacos 6-1. …”
“When you have spent 17 years stuck behind the Electrical Contractors’ Association, the Edinburgh College of Art, and the European Cockpit Association in Google’s search results for the acronym ‘ECA’, it probably is time for a makeover. So, when the hundreds of delegates arrived at the European Club Association’s 32nd general assembly in Rome this month, they actually found themselves at the first general assembly of European Football Clubs, which is a good name for a lobby group that represents European football clubs. …”
“It was almost four in the morning in Milan. But the lights were still on in city hall. The councillors were not preparing to watch Jannik Sinner in the semi-finals of the China Open. Nor were they bringing the gavel down on another fantasy football auction, which is usually what keeps Italians up at that hour, albeit earlier in September. Something sport-related but far more consequential was going down at Palazzo Marino. A vote was being held, the outcome of which promised not only to change the face of Milan but the prospects of the city’s football clubs and the Italian game as a whole. …”
“Jose Mourinho seems to love these returns to old haunts right up to the moment the football actually starts. This was the Portuguese’s eighth return to Stamford Bridge either side of his two stints in the home dugout, and he has still only won once — with that powerful Inter with whom he went on to win the Champions League back in 2010. He spent much of the second half here scowling at perceived injustice as Benfica, impressive for periods, fell marginally short. He was booked late on, too, for good measure. …”
“It wasn’t pretty but Tottenham Hotspur’s return to the Champions League was a winning one. A calamitous own goal by Villarreal goalkeeper Luiz Junior in the fourth minute proved enough for Thomas Frank’s side in a low-key encounter in north London, although few Spurs fans were complaining at the relative lack of fireworks. Here, we analyse the major talking points. …”
“Less than four months after Paris Saint-Germain lifted their inaugural Champions League title by thrashing Inter, the 2025-26 edition is upon us. The 36-team league phase of Europe’s premier club competition kicks off on Tuesday, with Arsenal facing Bilbao’s Athletic Club in one of the two early kick-offs. There are plenty of other highlights this week too, with Bayern Munich facing Chelsea in a 
“An early memory of visiting Milan involves walking through arrivals at Malpensa and being confronted by Andriy Shevchenko. Our meeting, then at least, was in portrait rather than in person. Shevchenko was the face, the masculine muse, of a monochrome Armani campaign. The poster showed him standing against a wall, pinstripe suit loosely buttoned at the lapel, his silhouette cast on marble tile. …”
“… Champagne Papi has been in Lombardy on his ‘$ome $pecial $hows 4 UK EU’ tour. He, in turn, missed Venezia, the team the Canadian hitmaker invested in, playing in Serie B. An away day in Castellammare di Stabia, hometown of Fabio Quagliarella down by the bay of Naples, either didn’t appeal or clashed with his schedule. Drake, as it happened, didn’t miss much. Venezia’s goalkeeper Filip Stankovic, son of Dejan, was the undisputed man of the match. Kitted out in 
“It is just 90 days since Paris Saint-Germain claimed their first Champions League with 
“In an era when football is criticised for its tactical homogeneity, an interesting debate has arisen around the idea of defending a crossed free kick. It had become the accepted approach to use a high defensive line, keeping opponents away from the box and leaving space in front of the goalkeeper. 
“When Martin Scorsese saw Fellini’s 8½ for the first time he was a student at New York University. Upon returning home, he tried to sketch his favourite scenes from memory and then set about thinking what the film was about. ‘Then you realise you don’t have to because it’s very simple really,’ Scorsese explained. Dreams. Memory. ‘It’s total fantasy.’ There’s nothing to get. Don’t try to understand. Let it wash over you in all its beauty and absurdity. Following Serie A is similar. The main plot points — who will win the scudetto, qualify for the Champions League, suffer relegation — often feel secondary to the elaborate, often mind-blowing set pieces that happen simultaneously. …”
“Players are the focus of any football transfer storyline. Managers, agents and club owners add to the intrigue, of course, but it’s a relatively new role which has been garnering increased attention with every transfer window — the sporting director. Fundamentally, the remit of the sporting director is to be a link between the coaching staff and the club’s hierarchy, providing continuity, sustainability and a stable strategy in the club’s football operations. …”
“The Club World Cup begins on Saturday, June 14, when Inter Miami take on Al Ahly at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami. How will Lionel Messi and friends get on? Are they likely to get out of Group A? And what about Real Madrid? The world’s biggest club have replaced Carlo Ancelotti with Xabi Alonso, their former midfielder, and signed Trent Alexander-Arnold and Dean Huijsen in the mini transfer window before the tournament. 
“Time can make fools of us all. Even supercomputers. Barring some sensational results in the quarter-final second legs this week, there are probably only five teams left who can win this season’s 
“Fifteen of the 16 clubs left in the 
“Wojciech Szczesny returns to the Estadio da Luz on Wednesday — the place where, only five weeks ago, his short Barcelona career must have flashed before his eyes. His first Champions League start of the season, in 
“If Liverpool’s loosely-defined ‘luck’ in the Premier League is a real thing then consider the not-so-compelling narrative in the 
“The 
“The Champions League’s new format may have given every team only two possible opponents in the round-of-16 draw but that has done little to dampen the excitement now that we know the eight ties. 
“When a manager turns a match around in the second half, the logical question to ask is: what did they change at half-time? That was the first question Juventus’ head coach, Thiago Motta, was posed on television last night after his side changed the tide against Inter to earn a 1-0 Serie A home win. … Then in the post-match press conference, Motta was asked again about his half-time message, and explained that he’d talked about ‘the usual things’ alongside ‘small details’. …”
“Lloyd Kelly’s first start of 2025? Against Bromley of League Two, English football’s fourth tier, in the FA Cup’s third round on January 12 as one of nine Newcastle United changes to their previous line-up as coach Eddie Howe fielded a largely second-string side. Kelly’s second start of 2025? Against Dutch title holders PSV on February 11 in a Champions League play-off to decide who goes forward to the round of 16 next month as the 26-year-old defender made his home debut for Juventus, 36-time champions of Italy and two-time winners of the European Cup/Champions League (among their nine appearances in the final). …”
“Football very rarely goes to plan. AC Milan’s new strike force were supposed to quickly start scoring a lot of goals. Feyenoord selling their best player was supposed to mean their season was over. Bayern Munich were supposed to crumble away from home again. Oh, and VAR was supposed to eradicate horrendous refereeing decisions. As you can see from last night’s Champions League play-off knockout clashes, the sport rarely fails to disappoint when it comes to predictability. Here Tim Spiers analyses the key talking points from Wednesday evening’s matches. …”
“The faces surrounding Cesc Fàbregas were glum, yet he spoke like a conquering general: bellowing praise at his troops as he strode among them, pointing at his eyes then pounding a fist into his open palm. ‘We devoured them! We devoured them! 
“Diego Simeone’s super-charged Atletico Madrid were just too much for Xabi Alonso’s eventually overwhelmed 
A mural of Arsenal co-chair Josh Kroenke on the approach to the Emirates Stadium
“Claudio Ranieri does not have all the answers. It can seem as if he does: the man who steered Leicester to a Premier League title and who long before that built a reputation in Italy as the first person to call when a top team was failing. In case of emergency, do not break the glass, just dial Claudio instead. He had retired after leading Cagliari to an improbable escape from relegation last season, but 
“The 
“David de Gea said on day one that he wanted to ‘make history’ with 
“Five games into the new-look 
“… Hello! 
“There was absolute silence at Valencia’s Mestalla stadium at 1.59pm on Saturday, as a crowd of 43,975 remembered the victims of the horrific flooding that struck the region last month. An incredibly emotional pre-game ceremony began with people from the areas most affected by the flooding bringing a huge Senyera, the Valencian regional flag, donated by 
“The map page has a location-map of the 2024-25 Serie A, along with 3 charts. The location-map features each club’s home kit [2024-25]. The map also shows the 
“The script was already written. 
“This was one of those results that felt like an instant piece of sports trivia, future material for the writers of football-themed pub quizzes. “In 2023-24, Inter won their 20th league title with a dominant league campaign in which they only lost two games. Which opponents beat them?” A trick question, as both defeats were to the same team. And an unlikely answer: 
“In the summer of 1999, Simone Inzaghi left boyhood club Piacenza and joined Lazio, where he would enjoy a fruitful first season by winning the Coppa Italia as well as their first Scudetto in 26 years (and their last to date). He would spend the following decade at the Biancocelesti before hanging up his boots, quickly transitioning into coaching with Lazio’s youth sides and eventually taking the reins as Lazio manager following Stefano Pioli’s sacking. Inzaghi’s interim spell in charge would last just a couple of months, but after his replacement Marcelo Bielsa walked away after less than a week at the helm, the Italian became the club’s permanent manager. Over the next five years, Inzaghi would lead Lazio to two trips to the Coppa Italia Final, winning the 2018/19 edition and coming away with the Supercoppa Italiana on two occasions. …”
“When 
Scissors Kick 