Italy

Major League Soccer may be a retirement home for some, but David Villa affirmed last week you can still factor into one of the best national teams in the world while plying your trade in MLS.

So why can’t Sebastian Giovinco get a recall from Italy?

Villa earned a spot on the Spanish roster for the two upcoming World Cup qualifiers after starting the season with 19 league goals for New York City FC. These aren’t throw-away qualifiers either; Spain faces Italy for first place in UEFA Group G on Saturday. 

When do we begin to take Milan seriously?

Before we continue with this week’s column, it’s essential that we pause for a moment. On Sunday evening, Andrea Belotti did something. Something fantastic. The goal he scored — a first-time overhead volley — deserves a moment of reverence. That’s why the man has a $120 million release clause in his contract. Let’s take a pause here and appreciate the goal.

Andrea Belotti is not generally mentioned in conversations concerning the elite strikers in Europe, but it is looking more and more like the Torino man should be.

Belotti hopped on his bike Sunday against Sassuolo and scored a goal for the ages.

Andrea Belotti has your goal of the weekend covered pic.twitter.com/twoQ7RK6qj

— LuisMiguelEchegaray (@lmechegaray) August 27, 2017

This was the first week of the new Serie A season. Things seemed to go according to plan. Juventus won. Fiorentina played like a bunch of hastily assembled strangers. Napoli played free flowing, attractive football and almost undid itself in the end. Everything went according to plan. So, there’s not really a result that stands out from the rest in terms of demanding the attention. But that’s because there’s a new game in town.

In his heyday, everyone detested playing against AC Milan and Filippo Inzaghi. Physically and technically there was nothing about Inzaghi that stood out. He didn’t possess incredible pace or sublime technical skill, but he was an absolute menace nonetheless. 

The Serie A season starts in two weeks. The transfer window is open for another three weeks. Due to this strange arrangement, none of the squads are entirely set in stone. This week, we’ll examine some of the most interesting, important and lucrative transfers and assess whether there’s any chance they’ll happen before deadline day.

Paulo Dybala

Clubs: Juventus to Barcelona

One of the best parts of the beginning of the European club season is CUP MAGIC. CUP MAGIC occurs when SMALL CLUBS DO BIG THINGS. The most common example of CUP MAGIC is a small club taking down a big club, but CUP MAGIC can happen in any cup match in which a small club happens to be playing.

In the Coppa Italia yesterday, Serie B clubs Bari and Parma faced off, and Bari's Cristian Galano demonstrated CUP MAGIC with an outrageous 90th minute bicycle kick winner.

Fiorentina is having a terrible summer. While many of Italy’s top teams have reinforced considerably, the Florentines have managed to decimate their own squad and infuriate their supporters in equal measure. To look at the summer as a whole, it’s awful. Dreadful. Rotten. But when you closely examine each wretched piece of business individually, things look even worse. So, let’s do exactly that.