After an incessant 19-month news cycle that began on Mar. 31, 2018, with an incredible brace against LAFC and concluded on Oct. 24, 2019, with a playoff defeat to the same team, we’ll admit that we’re already feeling pretty empty without Zlatan Ibrahimović in America.
It’s about time for the second half of the European club season, and you know what that means — it’s time to burn all the “Cristiano Ronaldo Is Finished” takes from September/October for the fourth straight year.
Serie A has a racism problem. Anyone who has followed the league for any amount of time knows it, with two high-profile instances this year alone with black footballers subjected to monkey noises.
Serie A launched an anti-racism campaign this week to try to fix its image as a backwards league that discriminates against non-white footballers.
Inter Milan is the best team in Italy through 15 Serie A matches.
And the Nerazzurri are now headed to the Europa League.
Barcelona’s B team, with Lionel Messi not even bothering to suit up, beat Inter 2-1 on Tuesday at the San Siro behind a late winner from record-setting 17-year-old Ansu Fati. The defeat consigned the Serie A leaders to the Europa League knockout stage.
According to The Telegraph’s Mike McGrath, Zlatan Ibrahimović has agreed to join AC Milan, putting an end to a month of speculation surrounding the 38-year-old striker following the expiration of his contract with the LA Galaxy.
A 10-year-old boy was racially abused during a soccer match by a mother of an opposing player on Saturday in Italy. The youngster played on and only reported the abuse after the match.
In response, those clubs will take a stand against racism this weekend — by making their youth players wear blackface in a match.
Hellas Verona defeated Mario Balotelli’s Brescia 2-1 today, but the lasting images of the match all pertain to the former Manchester City striker. In the 54th minute, Balotelli took possession near the corner flag and with the ball still in play, he responded to racist chanting by picking it up and punting it into the stands of the Stadio Marc'Antonio Bentegodi.
A good portion of the sports-loving world would love it if politics never entered sports. While that’s a pipedream (politics and sports will always be intertwined), we expect at the very least for sports to be conducted outside the purview of politicians.
But in Italy, two senators have brought up a debate on the state of Serie A.
I honestly wasn’t aware until today, but the Swedish Allsvenskan is making a pretty convincing argument concerning the best league in Europe. First, it came to my attention that with only one match day remaining in the 2019 season, three clubs — Djurgården, Malmö and Hammarby — still have legitimate aspirations of winning the title.
Match Day 8 in Serie A confirmed the early trends we’ve seen in Italy: It’s going to be an incredible title race between Juventus and Inter, while it’s going to be another season in hell for AC Milan. However, while those two plot points will dominate the headlines for months to come, a lot of the talk over the next few days will concern the wonder strike that Cagliari’s Radja Nainggolan hit against SPAL on Sunday.