Category: Italy Serie A

Dan Ndoye’s goal secures a 1-0 win over Milan and sparks scenes of joy in the Piazza Maggiore once again

Vincenzo Italiano knew there was a little bit of poison in the chalice offered to him last summer but accepted it anyway. The opportunity to manage Bologna was a chance to lead a Champions League team for the first time in his career. It was also an invitation to become the public face of a project that had nowhere to go but backwards.

What could he possibly do to improve on the work of the previous manager, Thiago Motta, who led Bologna back into Europe’s top club competition for the first time in 60 years? Italiano would not even have the same group of players to work with. Top scorer Joshua Zirkzee was on his way to Manchester United and the newly capped Italy defender Riccardo Calafiori to Arsenal. Lewis Ferguson would be out for months with a cruciate ligament tear.

Continue reading...

An astonishing array of outcomes remain possible with two games left in tantalisingly unpredictable end to season

Antonio Conte characterised it as Napoli’s “bonus” game, a free swing, the mistake they could yet afford. A 2-2 draw at home to Genoa left a bitter taste, after having taken the lead in both halves, but this was no time to panic. “Before this we needed seven points to win the Scudetto,” said Conte. “We took one, so now we must win our last two games.”

It sounded so simple, put like that, but we had just been reminded of why it will not be. Genoa at home was supposed to be the most straightforward of Napoli’s remaining fixtures, against opponents with no objectives left to play for.

Continue reading...

• Genoa’s Johan Vásquez scores late equaliser
• Dortmund spoil Alonso’s Leverkusen leaving party

Napoli’s Serie A title hopes suffered a late setback on Sunday when they were held to a 2-2 draw at home against Genoa, setting up a thrilling season finale as Inter are just one point behind. Napoli remain top on 78 points, holding a slim lead over Inter, who won 2-0 at Torino earlier in the day, with two rounds remaining.

Scott McTominay delivered a perfect pass into the box where Romelu Lukaku got rid of his marker before guiding his shot into the bottom corner to give Napoli the lead in the 15th minute. Genoa equalised in the 32nd minute when the Napoli goalkeeper Alex Meret initially parried Honest Ahanor’s header on to the post, only for the rebound to bounce off his body and into the net for an own goal.

Continue reading...

• Atlético striker completes treble in first 11 minutes
• Kane scores as Bayern lift Bundesliga trophy

Alexander Sørloth scored four goals inside 30 minutes in a 4-0 home win for Atlético Madrid over Real Sociedad.

The Norwegian forward completed his treble in the opening 11 minutes, the earliest ever in the competition, before adding a fourth goal to seal the rout on the half-hour. He opened the scoring in the seventh minute and took just three minutes and 57 seconds to wrap up his hat-trick.

Continue reading...

Murals of McTominay in Naples? Don’t rule that out with the volatile manager who never stays long despite serial success

There’s always a Tottenham exception. Since leaving Siena in 2011, since he got his first break with a club that had a realistic chance of winning trophies, Antonio Conte has won league titles with Juventus, Chelsea and Inter. Going into Sunday’s matches, with three games remaining, his Napoli lead Inter by three points. In a decade and a half he has won a trophy with every club he has managed, apart from Tottenham.

Maybe Tottenham simply aren’t a club that had a realistic chance of winning trophies. Certainly it’s not as familiar to them as it is to Juventus, Chelsea and Inter. Napoli were Serie A title winners the season before last. Conte led Tottenham for 17 months and although he has the fifth-best win record of any Spurs manager, although he took them to fourth in his first season, having replaced Nuno Espírito Santo in the November, and although they were fourth when he left in March 2023, by the end the situation was so toxic as to be unsustainable.

Continue reading...

Simone Inzaghi dreamed of a quadruple but European success is now the Nerazzurri’s best chance of silverware

The Inter team that lined up to face Verona on Saturday was so heavily rotated it even included a backup manager. OK, their first-choice boss Simone Inzaghi was technically suspended, but seeing his assistant Massimiliano Farris trot out for the pre-game interview only reinforced a feeling that we were not about to watch the real thing.

For months, Inter had tried to compete at full focus on every front, Inzaghi speaking of the ambition to win a quadruple. Then they lost three games in a week, falling behind Napoli at the top of Serie A and suffering elimination from the Coppa Italia by neighbours Milan. Suddenly their most ambitious target, the Champions League, looked like it might be their most realistic shot at claiming any silverware.

Continue reading...

• Real beat Celta Viga to move four points behind leaders
• Solskjær’s Besiktas win against Mourinho’s Fenerbahce

Kylian Mbappé scored twice as Real Madrid fought off a late comeback attempt from Celta Vigo to secure a 3-2 win on Sunday and stay within four points of the La Liga leaders Barcelona, whom they visit in next weekend’s Clásico.

Real’s fourth win in succession kept their title dream alive with four matches to go in the Spanish top flight, while Celta Vigo remained seventh after their third loss in four league games. “The most important thing was the win. We played a good first half, but then we fell apart … they are a great team and they put us in trouble,” midfielder Federico Valverde told Real Madrid TV.

Continue reading...

• Male in his late teens arrested over incident, say police
• Violence ‘must never happen again’, says Gasperini

A 26-year-old fan of Serie A side Atalanta was stabbed to death during clashes between Atalanta and Inter supporters in the northern city of Bergamo, Italy’s police said.

The groups of supporters clashed in a pub in Bergamo on Saturday night after one of the Inter supporters chanted provocatively, the head of the carabinieri office in Bergamo, Carmelo Beringheli, said.

Continue reading...

• RB Leipzig’s Poulsen strikes in injury time to seal 3-3 draw
• Bayern can still be crowned champions on Sunday

RB Leipzig’s Yussuf Poulsen scored a stoppage-time goal to snatch a 3-3 draw against Bayern Munich on Saturday and delay the Bundesliga leaders’ title celebrations by at least a day. Poulsen struck seconds before the end to leave Bayern on 76 points, nine ahead of Leverkusen, who travel to Freiburg on Sunday. Bayern, with two games left to play, will secure their 34th league crown should Leverkusen fail to win.

It was supposed to be triumphant afternoon for Bayern, but they found themselves on the back foot from the start with the hosts piling on early pressure. Leipzig had two big chances before Benjamin Sesko completed a quick break with a superbly curled shot past Jonas Urbig in the 11th minute.

Continue reading...

Midfielder keeps collecting nicknames – and goals – as he drives his side towards a title that would be his own

Scott McTominay could have said anything and a whole city still would have loved him: the man who fired Napoli clear at the top of Serie A with four rounds of games left to go. His first-half strikes delivered a 2-0 win over Torino on Sunday. He had scored the only goal as Napoli won away to Monza in their previous fixture, and two out of three in a rout of Empoli before that.

Carrying his team towards the finish line, in other words, though McTominay has been decisive from the start. He scored within 28 seconds of coming off the bench for his home debut in September and his goals have broken seven 0-0 deadlocks since then. No player in Serie A has done this more.

Continue reading...

• Napoli beat Torino 2-0 in Sunday’s late game
• Title rivals Inter lose 1-0 at home to Roma

Two first-half goals from Scott McTominay helped Napoli to a 2-0 home win against Torino in Serie A on Sunday as the hosts reclaimed the sole lead in the standings with four games left to play.

Napoli are three points above the defending champions, Inter, who were handed a 1-0 home defeat by Roma earlier in the day. Napoli raced to a seventh-minute lead through McTominay, who bundled the ball in from close range before doubling the advantage just before half-time from a neat lofted cross by Matteo Politano.

Continue reading...

• Jovic double gives Milan 3-0 win over rivals
• Juventus lose 1-0 at Parma in fresh setback

Milan ruined Inter’s push for a treble and advanced to the Coppa Italia final with a 3-0 derby win courtesy of two goals from Luka Jovic.

Inter pressed forward early on and Federico Dimarco struck the crossbar in the 23rd minute. But Jovic put Milan ahead 13 minutes later with a powerful header and then doubled the advantage from close range shortly after the break. Tijjani Reijnders added another for Milan in the 85th minute by finishing off an excellent team move, giving them a 4-1 aggregate triumph over two legs.

Continue reading...

• Serie A leaders Inter will now host Roma on Sunday
• Italy v Wales in Women’s Six Nations to be rescheduled

Serie A has postponed its three fixtures on Saturday because of Pope Francis’s funeral being held that day in Rome. Meanwhile, Italy’s Women’s Six Nations match against Wales is also expected to be rescheduled as the country prepares to pay its respects.

Earlier media reports in Italy had suggested that Serie A might make an exception for Inter’s clash with the visitors Roma to allow Simone Inzaghi’s side additional rest time before their midweek Champions League semi-final at Barcelona. However, the league has confirmed that the game at San Siro will now kick off at 2pm (all times BST) on Sunday.

Continue reading...

Champions looked leggy in defeat at Bologna but fatigue could lead to a rare and dramatic finale with Napoli

“The season does not end here,” repeated Simone Inzaghi at full time: to Sky Sport, to Dazn, to anyone who would listen. An undeniable truth, seeing as there are still five rounds to go, yet the more he said it the more you started to wonder who he was trying to convince. Himself? His players? Beppe Bergomi back in the studio?

Why should he even be troubled by this idea? His team were still top of the table. A 1-0 loss to Bologna meant Inter finished the weekend level on points with Napoli, but officially they remained ahead courtesy of Serie A’s second tie-breaker. Both head-to-head meetings ended in 1-1 draws, but the Nerazzurri’s goal difference is far superior.

Continue reading...

• Bologna shock leaders with stunning ultra-late winner
• Real Madrid score stoppage time winner against Bilbao

A stunning last-gasp goal by striker Riccardo Orsolini gave Bologna a 1-0 home win against Inter in Serie A on Sunday in a blow to the visitors’ hopes of retaining their title.

Treble-chasing Inter stayed top of the standings with 71 points after 33 games but second-placed Napoli are now level on points with the leaders after securing a late 1-0 win at relegation-threatened Monza on Saturday.

Continue reading...