Italy

U.S. billionaire Dan Friedkin has signed a deal worth more than $700 million to purchase the Italian Serie A soccer club AS Roma, the club said on Thursday.

Roma said in statement that formal contracts with the Houston, Texas-based Friedkin Group were signed on Wednesday for a transaction valued at 591 million euros.

"We look forward to closing the purchase as soon as possible and immersing ourselves in the AS Roma family," Friedkin said in a statement on the club website.

Three players were sent off as Genoa, Italy's oldest professional club, beat Hellas Verona 3-0 to guarantee their Serie A survival on Sunday while Lecce became the final team to be relegated after losing 4-3 at home to Parma.

Genoa, whose coach Davide Nicola pulled off one of Serie A's great escapes with Crotone three years ago, finished 17th in the 20-team table with 39 points after ensuring their survival on the last day of the season for the second year running.

When Inter Milan coach Antonio Conte faces the cameras after a match, it is a case of lighting the blue touch paper and standing well back.

In his first season at Inter, the 51-year-old former Juventus, Italy and Chelsea coach has railed against his own club's "poor planning" and an "insane" fixture list, and even blamed one poor performance on the opposition playing the wrong kind of football.

His latest outburst, however, after a 2-0 win at Atalanta on Saturday that clinched second place for Inter in Serie A, has led to all sorts of intrigue.

TURIN, Italy — Serie A champions Juventus suffered their first home league defeat for over two years when they finished the season by losing 3-1 against AS Roma on Saturday.

The Turin side, last beaten on their own ground in a Serie A match by Napoli in April 2018, have lost both their games since clinching the title one week ago and finished the campaign with 83 points, one ahead of Inter Milan.

Lazio forward Ciro Immobile equaled the Serie A scoring record for a single season when he was on target in his side's 3-1 loss at Napoli in their final game of the season on Saturday.

The 30-year-old took his tally to 36 goals, equalling the record set by Gonzalo Higuain for Napoli in the 2015-16 season. He also finished the season five goals clear of the next leading scorer, Cristiano Ronaldo of Juventus, who did not play Saturday.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic must’ve been watching Major League Soccer on Friday night (into Saturday morning in Italy). He accomplished what this weekend we’ll call “doing a Nani.”

On Friday, Nani missed a penalty kick in regulation but converted the final attempt in the shootout as Orlando City upset LAFC in the MLS Is Back quarterfinals. A fellow former Manchester United player who spent the two years prior in MLS, Zlatan followed a similar pattern in AC Milan’s final Serie A match of the season.

American forward Andrija Novakovich and Serie B side Frosinone have it all to play for on Friday. 

While Frosinone has spent much of the season comfortably within the playoff positions, it now finds itself in need of a positive result on the final match day to secure a playoff spot, unless results elsewhere go in its favor. Alessandro Nesta's side sat as high as second place at one point, but since the resumption of play post-lockdown, results have seen Frosinone drop down to eighth. 

To say it’s been a bad season for SPAL would be a massive understatement. Still, I’m not sure they deserved to wake up to a severed pig head.

SPAL announced a severed pig head was found outside the club’s training ground on Thursday alongside a banner reading “Pigs of Ferrara out.” SPAL is located in the northern Italy town of Ferrara. 

It's no secret that Italy is home to some of the most famous soccer stadiums in Europe. 

From Milan's world-renowned San Siro and Turin's aesthetically-pleasing new Juventus Stadium in the north, to the historic Olimpico of Rome and Napoli's intimidating Stadio San Paolo in the south, famous footballing grounds can be found seemingly anywhere on the peninsula. 

Roberto De Zerbi's Sassuolo strolled to a 5-0 win against Genoa on Wednesday, in large part thanks to winger Domenico Berardi. 

Berardi, who joined Sassuolo as a 16-year old in 2010, has been one of Serie A's standout players in 2019-20. After his man-of-the-match performance Wednesday, he has 14 goals and 10 assists this season. After providing the assist for the opener, Berardi scored Sassuolo's second with a beautiful curling effort from outside the box.