One day after that of the Champions League, the draw for the First Round of the UEFA Cup 2008-09 took place in Monaco Friday. Lots of teams involved, but of course right now we're only concerned with the Serie A clubs, which didn't fare too badly to be quite honest. .   2008/09 UEFA CupFirst Roundto be played [. Click to continue reading...

For the first time in 3 years, the Italian Serie A managed to get 4 Clubs to the UEFA Champions League Group Stage. With the DRAW taking place yesterday, "someone came out smiling" and others not so much. "Four Italian teams and four levels of satisfaction" as Gazzetta would say. Let's have a look. . Click to continue reading...

14 years. Believe or not, that's how long Napoli supporters had to wait before seeing their team in Europe again. As the French would say, c'est maintenant chose faite (it's a done deal): after a whopping win over an invisible Vllaznia, the Azzurri have qualified for the UEFA Cup And what better way to celebrate [. Click to continue reading...

The draw for the Group Stage of the UEFA Champions League 2008-09 took place in Monaco today, at 18:00 CET. (I LIVEBLOGGED the event over at Soccerlens by the way, for anyone interested) Inter Milan got the best draw of the lot, Juventus and Roma will be facing tough opponents such as Real Madrid and Chelsea [. Click to continue reading...

Ladies & gentlemen, Serie A has four out of four this year!!!! After Juventus on Tuesday, Fiorentina cleared the UEFA Champions League Preliminary Round as well, joining Inter Milan and AS Roma in the "Fantastic 4 Quartet" -something which Italian clubs had not achieved since the 2005-06 season (Chievo and Lazio failing to clear the [. Click to continue reading...

Artmedia 1-1 Juventus. Two years after the dark clouds of Calciopoli and Serie B tainted their glorious European history, the Bianconeri are back into the club elite of the world, ready once again to contend the "Cup with the big ears". Or in other words "Champions League, here we come" might be saying Claudio Ranieri's [. Click to continue reading...

In today's Gazzetta dello Sport, there's a great article by Antonino Morici that makes a preliminary analysis on José's Inter, at least based on their first-competitive-match performance in Sunday's Supercoppa. It's still early for season assessments, but given that Gazzetta are generally experts in all things Inter and AC Milan, this one's a pretty good read: MILAN, 25 [. Click to continue reading...

Ladies & gentlemen, the new Serie A season has been launched! Yes, Day 1 only begins on August 31 "officially", but Sunday night's Supercoppa appetizer provided enough excitement and entertainment, it almost looks like we're in it already. Indeed, the traditional pre-season clash between Scudetto champions and Coppa Italia winners resulted in 4 goals and 120 [. Click to continue reading...

Four years after the gold in Athens, another 1-0 scoreline confirmed Argentina as Olympic football champions. In 2004, the match-winning goal had been scored by a certain Carlos Tevez; this year in Beijing, salvation came from above. "Little Angel" Di María flapped his celestial wings and delivered a fatal blow to finalists Nigeria, exploiting an [. Click to continue reading...

Completing the Italian "Triangolare" August bonanza, the Trofeo Birra Moretti took place on Thursday evening, featuring past and present Serie A contenders such as Juventus, AC Milan, and Napoli. Following the Trofeo TIM, this was the last "big" pre-season tournament before the beginning (finally!) of Serie A. Click to continue reading...

Don't let the above picture fool you. Despite the "friendly" intentions of Austria's nº16 on Gennaro Gattuso (sorry, couldn't resist...), Italy vs. Austria seemed, at times, anything but friendly. In fact as soon as they were up by two goals, the Austrians thought this could very well be exploit-day for them. Click to continue reading...

Goalkeepers: Buffon (Juventus), Amelia (Palermo) Defenders: Barzagli (Wolfsburg), Bonera (Milan), Cassetti (Roma), Dossena (Liverpool), Grosso (Lyon), Legrottaglie (Juventus), Zambrotta (Milan) Midfielders: Aquilani (Roma), Camoranesi (Juventus), De Rossi (Roma), Gattuso (Milan), Palombo (Sampdoria), Perrotta (Roma), Pirlo (Milan) Forwards: Del Piero (Juventus), Di Natale (Udinese), Gilardino (Fiorentina), Iaquinta (Juventus) . Click to continue reading...

Just like a sheet of paper from a page-a-day-calendar, Argentina ripped Brazil out of the stack, crunched it up, made a little paper ball, did a few juggles and then backheeled it into the trash. Everyone was anticipating this game as the final-before-the final in these 2008 Beijing Football Olympics, and boy did we not [. Click to continue reading...

Ever since Cesc Fabregas took all the plaudits with his very own TV show, fans across Europe have been wondering who'll be next to hit the silver screen. Now the wait is over, as the lovely Giorgia Surina and Italian comic group Trio Medusa kick off The Fabio Cannavaro Show. Note that unlike Fabregas', this show was a one-night [. Click to continue reading...

Not so long ago, I was contacted by a certain Travis from SoccerPro.com, offering me to test their products for free and then post a short review on the site. At first I was suspicious. Like... "where's the catch"? Do I have to pay hidden fees somewhere? Will they send me some obscure, itchy training [. Click to continue reading...