SERIE A
EMPTY STADIUM OVER CORONAVIRUS AS SERIE A GIANTS, JUVENTUS INTER CLASH ON SUNDAY
A ghostly atmosphere awaits the biggest game of the Serie A season on Sunday (March 8) as Juventus and Inter Milan prepare for a title tussle behind closed doors while Italy grapples with the deadly coronavirus outbreak.
Just 500 people will witness Antonio Conte return to Juve, where he won three Serie A titles as a coach and the Champions League as a player.
The loudest noise at a game that would have attracted a raucous sell-out 40,000 crowd at the Allianz Stadium in Turin will be the voices of screaming players as the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo and Romelu Lukaku battle it out for Italy’s two best-supported clubs.
The coronavirus has now killed at least 148 people in Italy, the highest number of deaths in any European country.
Serie A on Friday listed a host of new rules that clubs must abide by, including the installation of scanners to check the temperature of the restricted number of authorised people entering the stadium.
Journalists at games will have to keep at least 2m apart, while on Sunday there will be no mixed zone or press conferences before or after the match.
The Juventus v Inter match, known in Italy as the Derby d’Italia for its historic importance, was supposed to be played last weekend but was postponed as the Covid-19 disease caused havoc across the country.
That decision sparked a row between Serie A and Inter, who were livid at what they saw as completely random scheduling decisions – leading to Inter’s Chinese chairman Steven Zhang calling the league’s president Paolo Dal Pino a “clown”.
Zhang’s outburst irritated the other clubs, who were fed up of Inter criticising any decision the league made in a chaotic situation, with Napoli among those praising Dal Pino’s work.
“First Inter demanded to play behind closed doors, then with fans, and then they wanted to play their match with Sampdoria (postponed the previous week) before Juventus,” said Roma CEO Guido Fienga.
“What we all want is to protect people’s health but also ensure the season progresses.”
The league had put the game at Turin’s Allianz Stadium back over concerns of broadcasting a marquee match – originally set to be played at the same time as La Liga’s El Clasico – against the backdrop of an empty stadium, hoping that virus-related restrictions would be lifted.
However, Wednesday’s government decree which forced all sporting events in Italy behind closed doors until at least April 3 meant that the matches had to be played with no fans or risk the season not finishing.
The clash is one of six postponed matches being played this weekend as Serie A tries to put some order to a schedule that has been thrown into chaos by the spread of the virus.
After this weekend Inter will still have to play Sampdoria at San Siro in order to recover their fixtures and that game is yet to be assigned a date due to the difficulty of finding a space in Inter’s schedule.
They still have the second leg of their Italian Cup semi-final against Napoli to play after both last four clashes were postponed this week and are one of the favourites for the Europa League, leaving them potentially with another eight fixtures to fulfil on top of the 14 league matches they have left to play between now and May 24.
All this confusion has left Inter’s title challenge in limbo. They are eight points behind leaders Lazio, who up to now have been unaffected by the calendar changes and so are not in action this weekend, and six points behind Juventus.
Maurizio Sarri’s Juve side will be at a disadvantage without their home fans at a ground that has been a fortress in an otherwise underwhelming season, with 11 wins and one draw from 12 matches in Turin.
They have looked far from convincing in recent weeks, with defeats at Napoli and Hellas Verona and poor displays in beating relegation fodder Brescia and SPAL.
However Inter last won away at Juve in 2012, their only win at the Allianz Stadium since their rivals moved there in 2011, and the eerie atmosphere is likely to leave fans with an underwhelming spectacle.
“There’s a risk that the minds of the players automatically switch into training ground mode,” sports psychologist Alberto Cei told the Gazzetta Dello Sport.
“I’d forget about home and away and look more towards which players think autonomously, (and which) aren’t affected by the surrounding environment.”
-AFP
Pope Leo XIV welcomed Italy’s newly crowned Serie A champions Napoli to the Vatican on Tuesday, joking about his own soccer allegiances.
Napoli won their fourth “Scudetto” on Friday with a 2-0 home victory over Cagliari, edging out Inter Milan by one point in a nail-biting end to the season.
The team, captained by Italian international Giovanni Di Lorenzo, arrived for their papal audience a day after a triumphant open-top bus parade through central Naples.
“The press says I am an AS Roma fan, but you are welcome! This is what the press says. Not everything you read in the press is true,” the pope said, according to a transcript.
Leo, the first pope to come from the U.S., follows and practices sports, including tennis. People who know him have described him to the media as an AS Roma supporter.
Napoli chairman Aurelio De Laurentiis gave him a blue Napoli jersey signed by players, bearing the number 10 and his name in Italian, “Papa Leone XIV”.
“You are a number 10, so you are a great striker”, De Laurentiis said. Leo replied with a chuckle and a simple “thank you”.
Coach Antonio Conte, whom De Laurentiis introduced as “deeply Catholic”, knelt down and kissed the pope’s hand, before Leo told him he had seen him many times on TV.
In a short speech, the pontiff stressed the importance of team spirit and collaboration, and sport’s educational value, especially for young people.
Winning comes “at the end of a long journey, where what matters the most is not a one-time exploit or the extraordinary performance of one champion”, he said.
“The championship is won by the team, and when I say ‘team’ I mean the players, the coach with the whole squad, and the club,” he added.
Leo ended his remarks giving his blessings to players and club officials, and offering congratulations, also on behalf of his personal cook.
“She is from Naples and she says: best wishes! She would like to be here too, Mrs Rosa, (she is) a big fan”, the pope said.
-Reuters
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A second-half goal by substitute Ibrahim Sulemana earned Atalanta a 2-1 home win over AS Roma in Serie A on Monday, securing Champions League qualification for Gian Piero Gasperini’s side.
Sulemana sealed the three points for Atalanta in the 76th minute, scoring with a low strike from just outside the area, after Roma midfielder Bryan Cristante cancelled out an early opener by Ademola Lookman.
Atalanta, who fell behind in the title race, sit third in the standings on 71 points and have a seven-point cushion over fourth-placed Juventus and Lazio in fifth with two games left to play.
Roma, who failed to capitalise on Lazio and Juventus dropping points in a 1-1 stalemate on Saturday, are sixth with 63 points.
Atalanta snapped the visitors’ impressive unbeaten league run of 19 games, with Claudio Ranieri’s side previously having been defeated mid-December at Como.
Things started off brightly for Atalanta as Lookman stroked in past Roma goalkeeper Mile Svilar to put them in front after nine minutes.
Charles De Ketelaere dribbled past the Roma defence to set the Nigerian up with a precise low cross inside the box and the striker controlled the ball to score inside the right post.
It was Atalanta’s 100th goal this season across all competitions.
De Ketelaere had two good chances to double the advantage but Roma midfielder Cristante levelled for the visitors instead, netting with a flicked header after the half-hour mark.
Things slowed down significantly after a lively first half until Roma were awarded a penalty after an hour of play, following a clash between Atalanta’s Mario Pasalic and Manu Kone.
The referee, however, overturned his decision after consulting VAR.
Sulemana eventually restored the lead for Atalanta in the 76th minute, scoring with a low strike from just outside the area — a goal that stood after a VAR check for a potential offside.
Roma host AC Milan next weekend before visiting mid-table Torino in their bid to qualify for Europe’s elite club competition for the first time since the 2018-19 campaign.
Atalanta travel to Genoa on Sunday before welcoming lowly Parma in their final fixture.
-Reuters
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Paul Pogba can return to competition with the end of his 18-month doping ban on Tuesday, with the 2018 world champion hoping to leave behind three cataclysmic years also marked by injuries and a kidnapping case of which he was the victim.
The long penance of the French international (91 caps), one of the biggest stars in the world of football, is coming to an end and the midfielder will be able to draw a line under what seems like a slow descent into hell.
Suspended for four years after testing positive for non-endogenous testosterone metabolites (DHEA) at the end of the Juventus-Udinese match on August 20, 2023, Pogba saw his sanction reduced to 18 months by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, the CAS considering that the “ingestion” of the substance “was not intentional and resulted from taking a food supplement prescribed by a doctor in Florida.”
Based in Miami, the native of Lagny-sur-Marne, east of Paris, is now ready to bounce back, his Instagram account still very popular (62.7 million followers) multiplies photos of intensive training, with a few fashion shots, another of his passions. Sign of his return, at least in the media, while waiting to be able to resume the thread of his prestigious career.
His ultimate dream remains the 2026 World Cup, but he would first have to find a club. La Pioche (32 years old on March 15), whose contract with Juventus Turin that ran until 2026 was terminated last November, “is training 1000%, he is in good spirits, he has received many offers”, assures a member of his entourage. He is also in regular contact with the coach of the Blues Didier Deschamps, “one of his advisors for sporting decisions”, according to one of his close friends.
But who could be interested in a player whose last match was on September 3, 2023 with Juve?
During one of his rare public appearances, on AmineMaTue’s Twitch channel in January, he explained that he had received ” proposals, not very interesting stuff”, such as “going to play in Russia, but that’s not the goal “.
A contract, he admitted, ” doesn’t depend on me, but on many other things.”
– Strength of character –
David Beckham’s Inter Miami could be a solution. Pogba lives in the Florida metropolis where he bought a house, he was in the stands for the Roses’ first MLS match of the season, against New York City (2-2), on February 23, and he is fine-tuning his fitness with the fitness coach of Lionel Messi, the team’s star.
Olympique de Marseille also sounded him out, and football director Medhi Benatia played with him at Juventus. But OM did not want to take the risk of signing a player whose fitness is surrounded by too many questions.
In any case, morale seems to be at its highest, with Pogba having always maintained his legendary strength of character even in the worst of storms.
“I ‘ve had a difficult year, so I have this rage, this desire to play football and enjoy it until the end of my career,” he said on Al Jazeera channel, just before his positive test.
Also badly affected by the kidnapping case of which he was the victim in 2022, he can now also try to forget this sordid episode with the end of the trial of his attackers at the end of 2024, his brother Mathias and five of his childhood friends having been sentenced to terms of up to eight years in prison.
“I can finally turn the page on this extremely difficult period. This conclusion is an opportunity for everyone to focus on the future. Now that the judgment has been delivered, I can fully concentrate on my return to professional football ,” he wrote to AFP after the verdict.
” That he can rediscover the pleasure of playing on the pitch, that’s all I wish for him because humanly he’s really a good person ,” said Didier Deschamps in 2024.
–Le360/AFP
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