Displaying items by tag: Serie A

50 years ago, on the 12th April 1970, a seismic event happened in the world of Italian football. A party broke out on the beach bars along the Poetto, cars sped around deliriously honcking their horns, people jumped into fountains. At the end of every football season there are similar celebrations, but this was different – this was Cagliari.

Italian news outlet Calciomercato has revealed that West Ham United lead the race for AS Roma striker Edin Dzeko, as the Hammers look to bring the 32-year-old back to the Premier League. Dzeko, who once played for Manchester City,

Craziest Moments In Football History

1994 Documentary on Paul Gascoigne's time in Italy

The sore heads of the Neapolitans were only starting to clear when the team completed their first Italian double when they clinically and professionally dispatched Atalanta 4-0 in the Coppa Italia final. In less than twelve months Maradona had won the World Cup in Mexico and then came back to domestic duties and proving to be a major part of the fairy tale in usurping the mighty North of Italy as part of the

By 1990, the once all-conquering Juventus had not won a league title in four years and were at best the fourth team in the nation. They were lagging behind Diego Maradona’s Napoli and the Dutch and German inspired Milanese clubs of AC Milan and Internazionale. The era of Platini, Tardelli, Zoff, Bettega and Furino had given way to a team whose only reliable players were Captain and goalkeeper Stefano Tacconi and defender/midfielder Luigi De Agostini, the only player with any significant presence in the national team.

The Style Council Serie A Leaders  

I am an Italian football critic and an avid Style Council fan and like my favourite sport, the Council’s career is a tale of two halves. Paul Weller formed his new squad when he left his previous champion wining side, just as they were ready to topple the mighty Manchester United. The tactics were the same every match, there was talk of fights on the training ground and they played too many games. Although they had a wining formula, there was no width to their game and it was typically English - all kick and run.

The hardest job in football has to be the job of the referee; they are paid (or in some cases not!) to keep the letter of the football law upheld. Sometimes, this can prove easier said than done. As a football fan, I’ve done my fare share of abusing referees: it’s part of the game, part of being a fan. But in the sober, non-football light, let’s be honest; it’s not an easy job.

When Diego Armando Maradona joined Barcelona following the 1982 World Cup for a then world record transfer fee of £5m it was for most, a logical and evolutionary move for a player already deemed one of the best players in the world and one who's star was most definitely on the rise. Leaving his native Argentina and his boyhood heroes Boca Juniors for Catalunya this, as the world’s football media speculated, would prove to be the move that would elevate him to the very top of football’s table of the elite.

Walter Smith’s 1995 summer capture of England’s star of Italia 90 was seen as an absolute coup de maitre.  His arrival at Ibrox captured the imagination of the obsessive Gers fan base and stoked up expectations to white hot level.  And despite Gazza’s appalling injury record and a much maligned battle with his erratic weight gain, the ‘Geordie Galactico’ proved to be as successful as the manager who signed him by amassing the biggest trophy haul of his career; two League Championships, one Scottish Cup and one League Cup.  Furthermore, he secured a place in the greatest ever Glasgow Rangers team and was also rightfully inducted into the Rangers Hall of Fame.