Category: Italy Serie A

Inter’s victory over Napoli had the feel of a title race classic, while Juventus and Milan exposed familiar shortcomings despite their summer spending

Already as the words were being spoken, Cristian Chivu started to bristle. “Scontri diretti” translates to “head-to-head clashes”. The term is commonly deployed in a football context as a shorthand for those high-stakes games between teams who are expected to finish close together in the table – much like “six-pointers” in the English game.

Chivu’s Inter finished 11 points clear atop Serie A last season, his first as their head coach, but caught criticism along the way for an early Champions League exit and underperformance in some scontri diretti. Inter lost four out of six games against Napoli, Milan and Juventus. Their only win, at home to the Bianconeri, came after Alessandro Bastoni deceived a referee to get Pierre Kalulu sent off.

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• Gatti’s stoppage-time header rescues Juve against Milan

• Goalkeeper Koeman Jr scores two penalties in Eredivisie

Lamine Yamal struck twice for Barcelona as they demolished Valencia 5-0 on Sunday to maintain their 100% start in La Liga.

The reigning champions moved three points clear at the top of La Liga after Jose Mourinho’s Real Madrid lost 1-0 at Real Betis on Friday. Fermín López, Raphinha and Pedri were also on target for Hansi Flick’s swaggering visitors on a hot afternoon on Spain’s east coast.

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• Champions Inter and Roma pull off stunning comebacks

• Schalke 0-0 Bayern Munich; Hoffenheim 2-3 Dortmund

Lautaro Martínez scored in the 91st minute as Inter rallied from two goals down ⁠to secure a stunning 3-2 home victory over Napoli, continuing their 100% start to their ⁠Serie A title defence.

Napoli looked ⁠to be ​on course for victory when Matteo Politano and Rasmus Højlund put them 2-0 up after 53 minutes, but Martínez’s ⁠first goal halved the deficit and Marcus Thuram equalised eight minutes from the end. Both sides had excellent chances to win ⁠it after that but it was Inter who took theirs when the Argentinian stabbed ​home the ball at the back ‌post from a corner.

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• Mbappé sees late penalty saved by Valles

• PSG are beaten by league leaders Monaco

Real Madrid’s perfect start in La Liga ⁠ended on Friday when Real Betis beat them 1-0, with the ⁠substitute Troy Parrott ⁠scoring ​nine minutes from time and goalkeeper Álvaro Valles saving a stoppage-time ⁠penalty from Kylian Mbappé.

The clash began at a high tempo but the pace ⁠dropped after the interval in the heat in ​Seville. The Republic of Ireland star Parrott, introduced ‌in the 68th ‌minute, broke the deadlock in the 81st when ‌he reacted quickly after Thibaut Courtois parried a header into his path.

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The home game against Frosinone seemed a perfect way to celebrate their landmark. It did not work out that way

Fiorentina’s 100th birthday party had been going for four days, starting with a fan procession through the historic centre of Florence on Wednesday night and extending to their home game against Frosinone on Saturday afternoon. The club was founded on 29 August 1926, but a decades-old discrepancy in the reporting of that date has led supporters to celebrate traditionally on the 26th.

This time they started a few hours earlier, gathering in their thousands beneath the marble façade of the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella on the evening of 25 August and building to a firework show beside the river Arno at midnight. The club’s president, Giuseppe Commisso, stopped by to give a speech. At least one former player, Borja Valero, was among the crowd.

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• Promoted Málaga slump to 4-0 defeat at the Bernabéu

• Como defeat Napoli; Jones makes Inter debut in win

Real Madrid maintained their perfect start to the season in La Liga with a comfortable 4-0 home ⁠win over promoted Málaga on Sunday, scoring three times inside 30 minutes before adding a late fourth.

Jude Bellingham’s brilliant solo opener, an own ⁠goal by the Málaga goalkeeper, ⁠Alfonso Herrero, and ​a sharp Kylian Mbappé volley in effect settled the contest before half-time, with the substitute Arda Guler wrapping up the victory in added time at ⁠the Bernabéu.

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• Marquinhos grabs late equaliser for Ligue 1 champions

• Bayern overwhelm Stuttgart 5-1 at Allianz Arena

Paris Saint-Germain defender Marquinhos scored deep into stoppage ⁠time to snatch a scarcely deserved 2-2 draw at Lille on Friday as the Ligue 1 champions ⁠continued to struggle ⁠after ​being held by Rennes on the opening weekend.

After the poor 2-2 draw ‌against Rennes, things went from bad to worse for PSG when Lille took the lead in the 21st minute as Icelandic playmaker Hákon Haraldsson latched on to a brilliant reverse pass from Olivier Giroud and curled an unstoppable shot past ‌Matvei Safonov.

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Rossoneri overcome fascinating first challenge at Torino as teams across Serie A give homegrown talent a chance

“I love Cissè. I love Cissè.” Ruben Amorim had not yet taken charge of his first competitive game as Milan head coach but already he was furnishing journalists with soundbites and supporters with memes, clippable moments that you just knew we were destined to revisit.

Alphadjo Cissè is a 19-year-old attacking midfielder who signed for Milan from Verona in February but only joined up with them this summer, after completing the season-long loan he had already begun at Catanzaro in Serie B. He scored six goals in 22 games there, missing the second half of the campaign with a thigh injury. Previously he had played a combined 14 minutes for Verona across three substitute appearances in the top flight.

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• Atlético’s Alvarez booed by own fans in home draw

• Salah scores first goals in Trabzonspor victory

Ferran Torres came off the bench to score a late double ⁠on his debut as Paris Saint-Germain rallied from two goals down to draw ⁠2-2 with ⁠hosts Rennes in their Ligue 1 season opener on Sunday. Sebastian Szymanski and Esteban Lepaul gave ⁠the home side a 2-0 lead at half-time but PSG piled on the pressure in ⁠the second period and were rewarded with a point.

Rennes led ​inside nine minutes as ‌Szymanski’s shot went ‌in off the post to provide the perfect start ‌to the season for the hosts. Désiré Doué thought he had levelled for PSG, but his effort was ruled out for offside, and the home side made it 2-0 seven minutes before the break. Przemyslaw Frankowski found space ‌on the right wing and his low cross into the box was turned into the ​net by Lepaul.

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Milan, Napoli and Atalanta all have new head coaches as Italian football hopes to return to the spotlight

And so, calcio’s “third apocalypse” has passed. A lot of Italians enjoyed the World Cup more than they expected. Without a team to cheer for, again, a country turned its attention to different sports. And found its athletes dominating them.

On the day Spain defeated Argentina in New Jersey, Kimi Antonelli, the first Italian to win a Formula One race in 20 years, extended his lead in the standings by triumphing again at the Belgian Grand Prix. A week before that, Jannik Sinner defended his men’s singles title at Wimbledon.

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• England defender keen on move to Italian champions

• Udogie and Porro set to be Spurs’ first-choice full-backs

Tottenham are prepared to allow Djed Spence to join Inter, with the England defender expected to cost around €30m (£25.6m).

Spence – who started four games for England at the World Cup, including the semi-final against Argentina – has fallen further down the pecking order at Spurs after the arrival of Andy Robertson from Liverpool. He signed a new four-year contract in north London at the start of last season but is believed to be keen on joining the Italian champions, with Destiny Udogie and Pedro Porro expected to be Roberto De Zerbi’s preferred full-backs this season.

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Inter bounced back under Cristian Chivu, Como made a splash, and Scott McTominay kept Napoli ticking

This has not been a happy year for Italian football. The men’s national team failed to qualify for a third consecutive World Cup, while Serie A clubs endured one humiliation after another in Uefa competition.

Inter went from Champions League finalists to elimination in the playoff round by Bodø/Glimt, while Juventus conceded seven goals to Galatasaray. They both did better than last year’s Scudetto winners, Napoli, who failed to even get through the group stage. At least Atalanta rescued Italy from having no representatives in the last 16 for the first time in almost 40 years when they overturned a two-goal deficit against Borussia Dortmund. And then they got walloped 10-2 on aggregate by Bayern Munich.

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The battle for the top four in Italy was overshadowed by violence in Turin, where Juve joined Milan in missing out

The stage was set for a grand finale: five games to settle season-long battles at either end of the Serie A table. Top spot was decided – Inter claimed their 21st Scudetto at the start of this month – but there were four teams contesting two Champions League berths, while Lecce and Cremonese fought to escape relegation. All of them would play simultaneously. Or at least, that was the plan.

Among these five games was a derby between Torino and Juventus. As kick-off approached, supporters clashed close to the stadium. One, a 36-year-old Juve fan named Marco Leonardo Basoccu, was rushed to hospital for emergency surgery after suffering a head wound.

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• Juventus and Milan miss out on top four Serie A spots

• Turin derby at Torino delayed after pre-match clash

Antonio Conte announced his departure as Napoli head coach on Sunday after guiding the team to a 1-0 home victory over Udinese in their final match of the Serie A season.

The 56-year-old confirmed the decision at a press conference alongside the Napoli president, Aurelio De Laurentiis, after the match. Having joined the club in July 2024, he won the league title in his debut campaign. Conte’s final match was settled by a 23rd-minute goal from striker Rasmus Højlund, securing a second-place finish in the league table for the hosts behind Inter.

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• Stuttgart beaten 3-0 in DFB-Pokal Cup final

• Girona and Mallorca relegated from La Liga

Harry Kane cut through the smoke of the DFB-Pokal cup final with a hat-trick for Bayern Munich to beat defending champion Stuttgart 3-0 and complete another domestic double on Saturday.

Kane’s goals in the second half set off fireworks among the Bayern fans who had joined their Stuttgart rivals in protesting against the German soccer federation (DFB) for a planned increase in security measures.

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