‘JAAP STAM WAS THE ONE. Without a question, I made a mistake there.’ The words of Sir Alex Ferguson ring true, years after selling star defender Jaap Stam to the surprise of…
Tag: lazio
THE COMMON ATTRACTION we often have with footballers derives from what these individuals accomplish with the boots laced up and between the lines. Whether it’s a timely back-heel that comes off with…
The Stadio Marc’Antonio Bentegodi in Verona bore witness to one of the finest individual performances of Italia 90. Under the sweltering Venetian summer sun, Yugoslavia’s Dragan Stojković announced himself on the world…
Two of the finest strikers of their generation took to the field for Inter Milan on the final day of the 2001/02 Serie A season, with their side needing to win at Lazio…
I have this memory from my childhood that’s still vivid in my mind. It’s some time in the 1990s and I’m sitting on the sofa watching Channel 4’s Football Italia. I had…
AGED JUST 35, to say Adam Crozier was a surprise choice to step into the role of Chief Executive at the FA would be understating the case more than a little. The…
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…
Calcio in the 1990s was the golden age of modern football. From Franco Baresi and George Weah to Marco van Basten and Gabriel Batistuta, there were a good seven teams that could…
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 When Alexis Sanchez gave Chile an early lead against Germany in a 2017 Confederations Cup group stage encounter, he brought an end to a 10-year record. It was…
There is nothing more thrilling in football than a goal. The sight of seeing the ball hit the back of the net stirs up multiple emotions in different sets of fans and…
This feature of part of The Football Italia Years Rome is a hub of culture, commerce, beauty and history. What with the Colosseum, the Forum, The Vatican and the constant drone of…
PRIOR TO THE 2002 WORLD CUP, Marcelo Bielsa found himself deciding who to play in the most advanced position of the field for Argentina. On one hand, an ageing Gabriel Batistuta had…
This story starts in Valencia, but not where you might expect. The year is 2015 and Benicàssim is hosting one of biggest music festivals on the continent. Thousands of sunburnt revellers are…
IT IS FRIGHTENING the rate at which our childhood heroes are retiring from football – slowly descending away from the turf, slipping out from the present and into a deep-sea of nostalgia…
Raised in Wales to Italian parents, Giorgio Chinaglia took a unique route to reach the top of football. We look back at the remarkable career of the man voted Lazio’s greatest player and who scored over 200 official goals to become the greatest import seen at the New York Cosmos.
THERE ARE FEW images that evoke memories of Serie A in the 1990s better than the sight of Giuseppe Signori wheeling away with one hand in the air, having scored yet another trademark…
They are there for all to see; the burning intensity of the glare, the endless cavern of passion, and the relentless desire that seems to give an advantage in any confrontation. They’re ever-present in the sublime, the ludicrous,…