Catenaccio N/A

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 ...

According to the Corriere di Bologna, the felsinei will make a move on Montreal Impact youngster Jérémy Gagnon-Laparé. The 19 year old has been followed closely by Canada's senior team coach Benito Floro. The axis Montreal-Bologna begins to take shape, leveraging Joey Saputo's ownership of both clubs.

The final match of my Serie A roadtrip saw my Juventus face Parma. Juventus-Parma has seldom been a bore. In fact, this encounter decided the scudetto, UEFA cup and Italian Cup final in the early to mid 1990s, was the official opening match in September 2011, and often ended in high scorelines like 3-0, 4-0, 3-1, and 5-0. This encounter stayed true to the trend. The match got off to a hot start, with Juventus coach Allegri proposing a 4-man defence (featuring Lichtsteiner, Chiellini, Bonucci, and Padoin) once again after the forced experiment 4 days before, against Olympiacos in Champions League. The starting formation also featured 3 midfielders (Romulo, Pogba, Marchisio), 2 attacking midfielders (Tevez, Pereyra) and one striker (Llorente) up top. The match had very little to say, except for one-way traffic from Juventus whose continuous attacks produced three goals in the first 30 minutes, featuring a brace by Llorente and a goal by Lichtsteiner. Juventus would add ...

As a Juventino who is not from Turin it's difficult to fully appreciate the rivalry with crosstown rivals AC Torino. Perhaps this one is the least balanced crosstown derbies in Italy: Hellas-Chievo in Verona, Inter-Milan in Milan, Genoa-Sampdoria in Genoa, Roma-Lazio in Rome, can go either way in any given year. For the better part of the last 20 years Juventus-Torino is a derby that has gone one way: the bianconeri 's.  In fact, Torino hasn't even scored a goal in a derby in the last decade. This hasn't made a difference, however, with respect to the historical rivalry that exists between the two factions. As soon as you identify yourself as a Juventus fan, some  granata  fans will turn away or simply call you a " Gobbo di Merda " (shitty juventus fan - gobbo , hunchback, is a nickname for Juventus fans).  I did attend the last derby in February 2014, and was able to gain an appreciation for the rivalry between the two sides. This time aroun...