Saturday 28th April Roma v Napoli The game of the weekend is between two teams of contrasting fortunes. Roma have lost their last two games, a heavy 4-0 loss to Juventus in Turin and a 2-1 home reverse to Fiorentina. Napoli on the other hand, have beaten strugglers Lecce and Novara to move up to fourth. A huge game in the battle for third place, a Napoli win would leave Luis Enrique’s side with only Europa League football to play [...]
There was some idiotic scenes in the Genoa, as the home side -losing to Siena at the time -were demanded to take of their jerseys by their own ultras. The reasoning; according to this small minority of fans the players were not fit enough to wear the club’s colours. Marco Rossi, Genoa’s captain, ceded to their demands and went about collecting jerseys from his team-mates. This left Genoa Giandomenico Mesto in tears on the pitch. To their credit, at least [...]
It could not have been any better. It could not have been any sweeter. Four unanswered goals from Milan against Arsenal ensured the Italians have at least one foot in the quarter finals. For coach Max Allegri, it was his most significant moment in the Champions League of his short managerial career. But, Allegri was not the star of the night. Led from the front by an inspired Zlatan Ibrahimovic, it was the collective performance of Milan that shone the [...]
Health scares, multi-million pound on-off deals and the toppling of a prime minister. It has the makings of a political thriller that any dramatist would be proud off. Instead, it has been the script of Massimiliano Allegri’s awkward second season in charge of Milan. It is easy to forget just how rocky the waters have been in the background to his attempts to build on the foundations of a debut year Scudetto. The champagne had hardly dried on the carpets [...]
As the old cliché goes, history repeats itself. And this could not be truer come every February for Milan striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Whether at Barcelona or in the blue or red half of Milan, the ‘big’ Swede’s scoring record often leaves something to be desired at this time of the year. Goals, to be precise. In each of the last five seasons he has just managed one solitary goal in this month. While in the last two seasons he has [...]
Diego Milito’s quadruple known as a ‘poker’ against Palermo was a rare moment, in fact it was only the sixth time it’s happened in ten years, but with Italy’s final friendly before Euro 2012 looming it focused the eyes on the Azzurri’s frontline. The Argentinian’s four-step sent him into a comic book group that features ‘the little plane’, Vincenzo Montella, twinkle-toes Christian Vieri, and ‘The Wonder Boy’ Alexis Sanchez. The sextuplet is completed by Alberto Gilardino, who should be nicknamed [...]
On October 11 last year in the provincial city of Pescara, Italy ended their qualifying campaign with a 3-0 win over Northern Ireland. It was the perfect ending as Italy finished top of their group. It was also just reward for coach Cesare Prandelli who managed to rebuild a strong Azzurri from the wreckage of the 2010 World Cup disaster. The undoubted star man for Prandelli’s new look Azzurri was Milan’s Antonio Cassano. A player who came to prominence at [...]
Interazionale sprung a big surprise on Sunday night to claim their biggest win of the season with a 1-0 victory in the Milan derby. Both teams entered the fixture in fine form (Milan were unbeaten in 12, Inter had won five in-a-row), but it was the Nerazzurri who prevailed after one of the season’s great stifling performances. Wesley Sneijder returned to the match-day squad for the first time since early November, giving Inter a clean bill of health save for [...]
It was not supposed to happen this way. After years as a wayward, controversial and underachieving player, this was the season when Antonio Cassano’s career finally started to show all of its glorious potential. And it did, at least until November. The Italian champions start to the current campaign was nothing short of atrocious. A heavy loss to Napoli and a convincing defeat by Juventus saw Max Allegri’s side slide down the table. Yet, there was one truly bright spark [...]
Guest writer/Matthew Coccoluto With international break again upon us, a few European countries will be squaring off in the Euro 2012 playoff rounds. The rest will be using these upcoming friendlies to further prepare for the tournament in June. Cesar Prandelli will be without some key players as they face Poland on Friday and host Uruguay on Tuesday. The big news leading up to the international break was the loss of Giuseppe Rossi and Antonio Cassano for six months. Rossi [...]
UEFA Champions League Recap: BATE Borisov 1-1 AC Milan On Tuesday night Milan secured qualification to the next phase of the Champions League after their 1-1 away draw against BATE Borisov. Despite seeing his team qualify with two games remaining, Max Allegri was clearly not content with how things unfolded in Minsk. The Italian said he was “very disappointed” and regretted that his side “wasted chances, played bad final passes and failed to get shots on target”. Milan’s official website [...]
Saturday evening in Italy hosted two monumental games as Juventus travelled to the San Siro to take on Inter, and Milan travelled to the Stadio Olimpico in Rome to face Roma hoping to pick up a win for the first time since March 2005. AC Milan have started this season in Serie A from the bottom up but ever since injured players have been coming back especially Kevin-Prince Boateng and Robinho the Milan based team have been showing better form. [...]
