Catenaccio N/A

In the midst of a European trip, I returned to Turin for the third time in a year and a half. The purpose? To fulfill the dream of covering a Serie A match. As I checked into Hotel Orchidea I was yet to receive confirmation from Juventus Press Office on my request for media accreditation on behalf of Italian Football Daily in occasion of Juventus-Frosinone. After a few failed attempts at calling the press office the hotel notified me that phone calls, even local calls, could not be made from the hotel's room (!?!). The receptionist suggested that I purchase a calling card and use a public phone instead (?!?) With little else to do, I took the bull by the horns and simply walked 20 minutes to Juventus headquarters in Corso Galileo Ferraris. I walked through the glass doors and spoke to the receptionist, and asked for the Press Office. The receptionist told me to wait, and dialled up the Press Office and explained why I was there and who I was. "Si... Si. Va bene...

Walk into any bar of any Italian town, and you'll see a copy of the local newspaper, one or two sports dailies, and a gentleman speaking to the bar owner about the officiating injustice that is condemning his favourite team. It seems everyone, except top sporting brass - including Blatter - are against ending this scene. Except Italian FA's top boss, Carlo Tavecchio. In October, he wrote an open letter to FIFA asking them to use the Italian top flight as a testing ground for new technology.  Today, Tavecchio took cue from yesterday's goal-line clearance at the San Siro to restate his case: "the debate that has arisen on the in-field use of technology shows how appropriate our request to FIFA was on October 9" . "On that day, we stated our availability to use goal-line technology and to experiment instruments that indicate with certainty and immediacy the positioning of the football in boarderline fouls near the big box" , reports t...

Antonio Conte and Carlo Tavecchio Days after Antonio Conte's public intimation of feeling abandoned from the Italian footballing world as national team coach, the FIGC introduced measures to spur growth of available talent for the nazionale . To recapitulate, the measures will mirror Champions/Europa League roster limits (25 players of which 4 must be home grown, and another 4 must be grown in Italy), and place conditions (such as national team appearances) on a second incoming non-EU player from a foreign league. Ostensibly, these reforms are meant to bolster playing time for Italian talent, thereby expanding the universe of players available to the national team. In my opinion, these reforms will not have the intended effect, are feeble at best, and ascribe to a small-minded defeatist philosophy.  Specifically, the reforms by Tavecchio will likely have: 1. a small, positive effect on improving the breadth (quantity) of Italian national team players, but unlikely to have a ...