Italy

MILAN — Parma became the latest Serie A team to come under U.S. ownership when they were taken over by the Krause Group on Friday, the club said in a statement following a deal signed in Milan.

The group bought a 90 percent stake in Parma, which won three major European trophies during its heyday in the 1990s, was declared bankrupt in 2015 and returned to Serie A in 2018.

Nuovo Inizio, a group set up by local entrepreneurs which took over the club following its bankruptcy and relegation to the fourth tier of Italian football in 2015, will retain a 9 percent stake.

Ahead of opening its Serie A campaign next weekend, Juventus played a friendly against third division side Novara at the club’s training center on Sunday morning. As the first friendly of preseason, the match served as a debut for 22-year-old American Weston McKennie following his year-long loan to the club from Schalke.

Italy midfielder Nicolò Zaniolo will undergo surgery to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee just weeks after recovering from a similar injury in his right knee, his club AS Roma said on Tuesday.

The 21-year-old limped out of Monday's Nations League match against the Netherlands in obvious pain after what looked like an innocuous tackle.

"Nicolò Zaniolo will undergo surgery on Wednesday after MRI scans today confirmed the player has suffered a complete tear to the anterior cruciate ligament of his left knee," Roma said in a statement.

Barcelona forward Luis Suárez is due to sit a language test on Monday in a bid to obtain Italian citizenship that would enable him to move to Serie A champions Juventus, Italian and Uruguayan media said Sunday.

There have been widespread reports that Juventus are chasing the 33-year-old Uruguayan who, if the moves go through, would line up alongside defender Giorgio Chiellini, the Italy defender he famously bit in a World Cup match in 2014.

MILAN — Bologna coach Sinisa Mihajlovic believes his children might have infected him with COVID-19, he said on Saturday after being forced to miss his team's pre-season training camp for the second year running.

Mihajlovic, who was diagnosed with leukaemia in July last year, said he remained asymptomatic and denied that he had done anything that could have put himself at risk.

Inter Milan forward Alexis Sanchez has said he was ready to end his ill-fated spell at former club Manchester United after only one training session with the Premier League side.

United had signed Chile international Sanchez in January 2018 after he scored 80 goals in 3-1/2 years at Arsenal, but he failed to reach those heights at Old Trafford under both Jose Mourinho and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, with five goals in 45 games.

Veteran forward Zlatan Ibrahimovic is to stay at AC Milan for another season in a bid to help the once-mighty club end their long wait for a major trophy and return to the Champions League, Italian media reported on Monday.

The charismatic Swede, who will be 39 in October, returned for a second stint at Milan in January on a six-month contract and inspired an upturn in form as they finished last season with a 13-match unbeaten run in all competitions. That lifted them to sixth place in Serie A and booked them a place in the Europa League qualifying rounds.

Weston McKennie, a 22-year-old midfielder from Little Elm, Texas, has become the first American to join Juventus, completing a loan deal from Schalke with a club option to make the move permanent. Juventus announced the deal on Saturday, confirming earlier reports after McKennie had flown to Turin for a medical.

Victor Osimhen began as he means to go on at Napoli, scoring an eight-minute hat trick in a friendly against Serie D side L'Aquila on Friday. 

Victor Osimhen has scored a hat-trick inside the first eight minutes of his pre-season debut for Napoli.

Starting strong pic.twitter.com/BGQOJs7Pwu

— B/R Football (@brfootball) August 28, 2020