For a decade at the top, no referee in world football compared to the intensity and integrity with which Pierluigi Collina went about his business
Tag: calcio
With a modest record, Salvatore Schillaci headed to Italia 90 as the Azzurri’s final player. What followed was the most glorious but brief summer in the sun
In what is arguably the most chaotic professional season in recent memory, Serie B in 2004/05 saw match-fixing and national scandal rock calcio
WHEN THE UNHERALDED MAURIZIO SARRI was appointed as Napoli coach to replace Rafa Benítez ahead of the 2015/16 season, it was met largely with indifference. “We won’t have a winning Napoli with…
THERE IS SOMETHING about Brescia Calcio. Founded in 1911 in the quaint but industrial city that is situated in the Lombardy region of Italy, they are oft described as a yo-yo team, yet…
"WHAT DISTINGUISHES NAPLES from other large cities is something it has in common with the African kraal: each private attitude or act is permeated by streams of communal life. To exist, for…
As featured on Guardian Sport As a football fan living in the United States, it blows my mind how many games are available on television these days. I’m 33 now and can…
THE CROWD AT THE GIUSEPPE MEAZZA WAS DELIRIOUS. Mauro Icardi just converted a penalty in the 90th minute to clinch a 3-2 win for Inter over AC Milan in the Derby della…
THE CONFINES OF WHAT MAKES VENICE UNIQUE AS A CITY are seemingly restrictive factors for a football team. Extremely limited physical space to train and play, a tiny permanent population from which…
OVER THE YEARS, Italian football has endured its fair share of sporting, socio-cultural, political and economic hardships. The 2006 Calciopoli scandal sent shockwaves throughout the Peninsula, leaving three of Serie A’s top four…
THE NEW SOCIETY OF AC MILAN doesn’t sound too far from something the iconoclastic Italian politician and media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi would have dreamed up, but it is in fact the symbolic…
IT SEEMED AN IMPOSSIBLE TASK, but by the end, Lazio had made it possible. For more than two years Juventus had been undefeated in Turin, an imposing, inexorable force with six successive…
DIEGO MARADONA IS AN IMMORTAL ICON IN NAPLES, a figure with almost divine right within his adopted city and the Stadio San Paolo. In the Campania capital, there is no Pelé, Ronaldo or…
Partita Della Lattina has a nice ring to it. It rolls off the tongue with the beauty of the Italian language, almost rhythmic when spoken. The phrase comes across as playful –…
LAND OF MY FATHERS swept through the cold St David’s Day air, the Swansea Male Voice Choir sang for one of their own. The crowds outside the Leeds parish church were there…
Illustration by Federico Manasse Football is seldom, if ever, free from political realities. Had it not been for the collapse of Communism in 1989, Pavel Nedvěd’s career would have likely followed the…
Illustration by Federico Manasse The 1982 World Cup may just have boasted more great teams, players and matches than any other since. Champions Italy, the brilliant France of Platini, Giresse and Tigana,…
Illustration by Federico Manasse Italian football is first and foremost defined by defence and tactics. No player in the history of calcio more closely defines these ideals than Franco Baresi of AC…