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

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
Calcio is back by popular demand, and this time we’re headed for the Football Italia years, when Serie A ruled the world and the game’s greats adorned the peninsula. Wherever you were,…
This feature is part of The Masterminds He came as a former shoe salesman, left as a legend, and rewrote calcio’s tactical rulebook along the way. He coined some of the greatest quotes…
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…
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 –…
One of the game’s finest writers, Gabriele Marcotti, talks about one of the game’s most treasured leagues, Serie A, in this wide-ranging delve into Italian football. Gab is joined by TFT’s Jim…
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…