Tag: Milan

CHELSEA BACK ON KOULIBALY’S CASE

Premier League champions Chelsea are back on the case of Napoli defender KalidouKoulibaly, according to reports in Italy.


The Blues are already considering a deal of €60 million for the player. He joined from Genk back in 2014 but he quickly established himself at the Partenopei.

Past Chelsea bosses were keen on the player. Current manager Antonio Conte, who is knowledgeable about Italian football, agrees that he is worthy of chasing. Stamford Bridge were linked with the player last season and they launched a bid of €55 million. However, the move failed and Koulibaly remained with the Serie A side.

There are reports that Conte is looking at getting the player this summer after all the speculations have died down. Conte is believed to be a fan of the player and he hopes Napoli take the €60 million he values the 25-year old. In his three year stay, Koulibaly had played 119 games, scoring three times. Continue reading CHELSEA BACK ON KOULIBALY’S CASE

Italian Football is completely dependent on Juventus

For the latest 7 years, Italian Football has been sustaining a huge dip in quality and this is becoming very clear as Juventus has consecutively been winning the Italian League Serie A since 2011.


Juventus is the dominant team in Italy and no other club has seriously challenged them and this is something buy office 2013 key that has been occurring even after Juventus experienced a managerial change as Antonio Conte was pushing the club for the top spot of Serie A from 2011 until 2014 and even after Conte left to take over the Premier League club Chelsea and Massimiliano Allegri arrived to the Juventus Stadium on July of 2014, the placement of Juventus has not suffered any negative effects.

The last Italian club that has managed to win the Champions League was Inter Milan and this was back when Jose Mourinho guided them to the finals and overcame Bayern Munich with a final scoreboard of 2-0. Continue reading Italian Football is completely dependent on Juventus

Mancini reveals why Balotelli left the Etihad

Former Manchester City boss Roberto Mancini has revealed a picture of what happened behind the scenes during his burst-up with Mario Balotelli that eventually led to the exit of the Italian.


“In a training session, I said to players not to make stupid tackles on Gael [Clichy] because he was just coming back from injury. And then, Mario made a strong tackle on him. I was furious. I grabbed him by the collar wanting to push him but he is so strong physically,” Mancini said to L’Equipe.

Mario Balotelli suffers poor public acceptance due to his off the field activities, particularly when he moved to England. His spat with Mancini eventually led to his exit from the City squad.

“He came to conflict with some teammates because of his behavior, and he wanted to return to Italy. I was disappointed that he wanted to leave because he should have done so much more in an extraordinary championship,” the former Etihad manager added. Continue reading Mancini reveals why Balotelli left the Etihad

MARIO SET TO JOIN PLAY ITALIAN FOOTBALL IN FORTHCOMING SEASON

Portuguese No. 10 player at the recently concluded Euro 2016, Joao Mario is set o have a taste of Italian football as reports say he has snubbed the Blues to move to Italy.


EuroSport claims the player is set to sign the deal that will ensure he plays Italian football in the forthcoming season with Inter Milan. The Sun earlier reported that the player would snub Chelsea for a move to Italy. The reports say the 23-year old player, who displayed decent performance at the Euro 2016, will head to the Serie A to play for Inter.

Mario is believed to have agreed to a five year deal with the club as his club Sporting Lisbon agreed to Inter’s 29 million Pounds offer. The deal is expected to be finalised and the player unveiled anytime soon, after personal terms of 29,000 Pounds weekly wages was agreed. Chelsea would have to get another as they are reported to be in talks with the Premier League champions Leicester city over the possibility of signing Frenchman N’Golo Kante this summer.
Continue reading MARIO SET TO JOIN PLAY ITALIAN FOOTBALL IN FORTHCOMING SEASON

Italian football shocked by defeat

Italian football has reached a new low with the 4-1 defeat against Germany on Tuesday. This was the first time in almost 21 years that Germany manages to beat Italy.

Germany, who was beaten by England in their last match, wanted to reassure their fans as well as themselves by producing an exceptional performance. Unfortunately, it was the Italians that were on the receiving end of a well-deserved victory from the World Champions.

The Italian side will have to conduct a thorough analysis of their performance in order to improve themselves. If they have any ambition to win the Euro 2016, they should not be playing the way they did against Germany. In fairness, this has been coming for quite some time now. This can be evidenced by the decline of Italian football in the European club competition with only Juventus managing to perform in the Champions League.

Toni Kroos opened the scoring in the 24th minute with a shot just from outside the box which gave no chance to Italian keeper, Gianluigi Buffon. Germany doubled the lead just before the stroke of half-time thanks to a Mario Gotze header. The opportunity came thanks to a cross from Thomas Muller.

After the break, Italy managed to improve their game and had some opportunities to reduce the deficit. However due to poor decision making, they could not have a clear chance on goal. To the contrary, it is Germany who extended the lead with a goal from Jonas Hector. Julian Draxler raided the Italian defence and passed the ball to Hector, who could not miss from inside the box. Continue reading Italian football shocked by defeat

Southampton is racing to reach a Europa League spot but is faced with tough obstacles

Southampton’s Ronald Koeman has set his eyes in securing a top spot in the Premier League that would allow the English club of competing in the Europa League for the upcoming season but things have started to become difficult for Ronald Koeman and his players.

On May 2, Sunderland received Southampton at the Stadium of Light and Ronald Koeman’s team were the favorites of claiming a victory as Sunderland is struggling just to stay out of the bottom relegation zone but in football anything can happen and indeed this match emerged with a surprising victory as it was Sunderland who came out on top with the victory.

Jordi Gomez scored twice as he helped Sunderland claiming a surprising but at the same time crucial triumph for his team as they overcame Southampton with a final scoreboard of 2-1.

Even with this defeat, Southampton still has a very good chance of snatching a Europa League position but they will have to get back to their winning ways and pick up triumphs in at least 2 of their 3 remaining matches.

Leicester City, Aston Villa and Manchester City are the last obstacles that Southampton have to face in this season and 2 triumphs from these games might just be enough for Ronald Koeman to position Southampton in a European spot. Continue reading Southampton is racing to reach a Europa League spot but is faced with tough obstacles

Juventus won their second major trophy of the season after a 2-1 win over Lazio

Juventus won their second major trophy of the season after a 2-1 win over Lazio in the Coppa Italia final.

They had already won the Italian Serie A for yet another successive season. The club have been immensely successful under the regime of Massimiliano Allegri, but it looked like everything was going wrong at the start of the season when Antonio Conte left the club just a few days before the season began. Allegri was not given much of a hope given that he was seen as an AC Milan reject. However, he has now guided the team to two titles with the possibility of a third as well.

Juventus will be taking on Barcelona in a Champions League final at Berlin. The club have not been seen at this stage of the competition for more than a decade and it will mean a lot for them to win their first European cup title since 1996. Juventus have had a hat-trick of defeats in the final since then. After the success in 96, the Italian outfit were runners up during the 97 and 98 season. They were runners-up once more during the 2003 campaign. Lazio coach Stefano Pioli, though, claimed that Juventus were lucky to win the Coppa Italia by beating them in extra time. Continue reading Juventus won their second major trophy of the season after a 2-1 win over Lazio

Antonio Conte was not too displeased about his Italian national team

Former Juventus manager Antonio Conte was not too displeased about his Italian national team only managing a 1-1 draw with England in a recent friendly match.

This was seen as highly competitive encounter for both teams given that they needed to win in order to banish the painful memories of the World Cup. Despite being one of the top teams in the world, both England and Italy failed to progress to the knockout stages of the World Cup in Brazil. This led to the appointment of Conte, while England continue to be spearheaded by Roy Hodgson.

The former Liverpool boss did not have a number of his first-team regulars like Raheem Sterling in the team. However, he was giving starts to the likes of Harry Kane, who have been mightily impressive this season. Just ahead of the game, Italy goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon said that he was studying every aspect of Kane very cleanly and that he may have found a way to stop the Tottenham forward. Kane failed to score in the match, but it was another Tottenham player who scored the important goal for the English – Andros Townsend. Since taking over from Cesare Prandelli, Conte continues to be unbeaten as the Italy manager. Continue reading Antonio Conte was not too displeased about his Italian national team