Football is a passionate game. That is like saying cliff-walking is a dangerous one. Plenty of sports have their passion, but to me, football's remains the most tribalistic. How many people do you know who can transform from run-of-the-mill Mr. Average to vein-through-the-head Mr. Angry, and all because of a contentious penalty decision.

According to La Gazzetta dello Sport, Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis has rebuffed a €22 million bid from Premier League giants Liverpool for Argentine star Ezequiel Lavezzi.
The 24-year-old has been frequently associated with a move away from the San Paolo in recent weeks, with the Italian press suggesting that his agent, Alejandro Manzoni, has been in talks with Juventus.

This is the new Nike ball that you will see being kicked around next season. It's called the Nike Total 90 Ascente and will also be used in the EPL and in Spain's La Liga. The ball will be used in all Serie A, Serie B, and Coppa Italia matches as well as the SuperCoppa this August and in all Primavera matches.

Yesterday the Lega Calcio announced the dates for the 2009/2010 Serie A season. Serie A begins the weekend of August 23rd and will end on May 16th to give the national team enough time to prepare for the World Cup. There will be 4 midweek rounds (September 23, October 28, January 6, and March 24).

The first part to the Serie A season is enough for us to nominate candidates for the flop of the season if we take into account the summer signings. The unsuccessful transfers are known as ‘bidoni' in Italy. There have been plenty of candidates for this list as the Italian clubs are experiencing financial problems [.

Before we dive into Serie A transfer news, I just want to report on a transfer from Serie B that as fairly important, which was Torino's Alessandro Rosina signing for Zenit St. Petersburg. Nobody expected a player with Rosina's talent to stay in Serie B, but the move to Russia seemed a little surprising, however it makes sense.

Often we see a young player explode onto the calcio scene and everyone turns heads and says "Where did this kid come from?". Well, now is your chance to gain some knowledge about some promising Italian young players and maybe in a year or two when one of these players starts to do some good things on the pitch you'll know who they are.

Today the list of 35 players was announced that will play in a friendly on June 6th in Pisa vs. Northern Ireland and the upcoming FIFA Confederations Cup. 22 players were called up for the Northern Ireland game, while 13 will skip that match and go straight to South Africa. Lippi said in recent weeks that the roster for the Northern Ireland match would be mainly experimental and would give national team experience to the players that merited a call-up based on their play throughout the Serie A season.

Last week I posted the first edition of Transfer Tuesdays, where every week we round up what every Serie A club is doing on the transfer market. Today is the last day of June, which means tomorrow the transfer window is officially open and you'll see all the transfers made in the past few weeks become "official".

While Italian football provides excellent quality and entertainment on the pitch, we all know that it equally provides excellent quality and entertainment off the pitch. The crazy owners, the fights in the media between opposing managers and directors, the outbursts in press conferences, and all that other great stuff that keeps us entertained during the week.

In circumstances like these it might be easy to repeat the Bianconeri adage, "Juventus never give up". It's one that fits. "Character" is one of the single most marking characteristics of this team, and the way Juve achieved their victory over Catania today can only reinforce that image (just like their Coppa Italia match did [.

So when I was a little kid watching calcio back in the '90's, my idol was none other than Roberto Baggio. Everything about him amazed me: his technique and skill, his perfect free kicks, the way he just slipped past defenders like they were practice cones, the amazing goals he scored, everything.

Ever since 17 year old Manchester United striker Federico Macheda has scored those two goals in the last two league games, the Italian media has been publishing articles about how Italy doesn't put faith in young players. On the one hand, it is true, Italy is a traditional society and most managers have the traditional view that players have to mature first and if you play them regularly too early you will "burn" them.

Let me just start out by saying that I have never liked Goal.com (the English version at least. The Italian version is actually pretty good because it just posts articles from Italian newspapers, so at least you know you're reading from a source). The English version always seems to have stories without sources that look like they were just thought up at that instant and posted, and I have never liked their opinions on Italian calcio.

Inter Milan coach Jose Mourinho wants to leave a controversial week behind him and guide his team to victory at home against Lazio this weekend. Elsewhere, Juventus coach Ciro Ferrara will be under enormous pressure to take a positive result at home against rock-bottom Catania on Sunday.

How great it was to have Serie A back after the winter break. I missed my weekly calcio fix. Roma-Milan highlighted the return of Serie A. Both teams desperate for the 3 points, as Roma wanted to inch closer to the top half of the table and Milan wanted to get closer to Juventus and Inter.

After a day full of tension, Berlusconi announced late today that Kaka will be staying at Milan and that he closed the deal himself. So Milan fans everywhere can now breathe a sigh of relief (unless you were in favor of him leaving). We'll see what happens over the next few days though. Regarding Serie A, we are now officially at the half-way point.

Funny sign caught in the stands this week. It says "To the Sheik, if you want Kaka now you'll have to eat prunes." I thought that was pretty clever and funny. The midweek round was supposed to be Milan and Juventus' chance to catch Inter as they had a difficult away tie in Catania.

Once again, the January transfer window (and the associated interacting between scouts, player agents, club investors, sporting directors and presidents) comes to an end, freezing the current European club rosters all the way until Summer and making us wonder who won the prize for "bargain buy" or "overpriced fatty" of the month.

I haven't been blogging quite enough lately in lately, in part because of the dark mood which seems to have taken hold here in Naples. The home team, Napoli, had a strong start to the season and was hovering around 3rd to 4th place in Serie A when "the streak" started - seven games without a win.
In fact, the town's beloved blue has earned just two points in seven matches and has slid down to mid-table, a place cemented by today's 1-0 loss to Genoa.

It´s the talk at the office, bar & public meeting places today in Italy. The incredible goal by Italian Football player MASCARA for Catania against Palermo. His goal was from near the center of... Read all the news, results, details & comments in English on Spanish Football & Sports

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(Roma-Catania 1-0. Perrotta)
(1-1. Tedesco)
(2-1. Vucinic)
(3-1. Perrotta)
(3-2. Mascara)
(3-3 Morimoto)
(4-3. Panucci)
ROMA (4-3-1-2) - Arthur; Cassetti, Panucci, Mexes, Riise; Brighi (75' Taddei), De Rossi, Perrotta (dall'85' Montella); Pizarro; Vucinic (68' Menez), Totti.

I thought now that the season is over and we've moved into the craziness of the off season where transfer rumors are posted by the minute on every calcio website possible, I would start a new weekly post called "Transfer Tuesdays" where we can sift through all these rumors and see what all 20 Serie A teams are up to during this summer's calciomercato.

The new season is quickly approaching (many teams have started pre-season training) and I realized that I never put up a best goals post for last season. So I searched the internet for videos of that showed the "top 10 goals" but I realized that I didn't agree with any of the videos because I felt that so many good goals were being left out.

We are now at the third volume of Transfer Tuesdays, and now we dig further into the transfer market. Most teams have started training again, and the new season is quickly taking shape. Now with all teams in pre-season training the sporting directors are moving frantically to make deals so that new signings can start pre-season training with the team.

Today the schedule was released for the 2009/2010 season. Lega Calcio finally decided to do the schedule EPL-style, with no seeding for teams, which meant you could have big games on the first day of the season. The first day of the season which starts the weekend of August 22 and 23 has two very interesting encounters, with Genoa-Roma and Palermo-Napoli.

Well, it's that time of the summer again. I'm off to the old country tomorrow, so the blog will be inactive for a couple of weeks. However I will be back right before the start of the Serie A season so I'll be able to maybe get a mega-preview up like last season and we'll wrap up the important news that happened while I was gone.

The Italian Serie A is just about to start as Internazional (Inter Milan) aim for their 5th straight league title. Can they win it again or will AC Milan or Juventus finally stop their streak? Here's a preview of the upcoming season along with predictions.

Who will win the Scudetto this year?

The Weekend Round-up will be up tomorrow since today was the last day of the summer transfer market and teams made last minute deals. Many clubs were scrambling until the very last minute to get contracts deposited into the league offices and some transfers had to be canceled because they weren't completed in time.

The new season saw one of the biggest Italian clubs left without a manager already after first two rounds. Luciano Spalletti obviously had enough after his team was demolished in the derby against Juventus and right after the game he resigned from the post of Roma boss. New coach on Roma bench, Claudio Ranieri stated on his presentation that he will try to shake things up, so his team could contend for the title this season.

After 3 giornate, only 3 clubs are still at full points: Sampdoria, who defeated Atalanta 1-0 in Bergamo with a goal from Daniele Mannini; Juventus, who saw Lazio off with a 2-0 win thanks to Martin Caceres and David Trezeguet; and Genoa, who thumped Napoli 4-1 with Sergio Floccari, Giandomenico Mesto, Hernan Crespo, and Houssine Kharja all scoring their first goals of the season.

Jose Mourinho has rubbished speculation suggesting he could replace Rafa Benitez at Liverpool.
Benitez has come under pressure following a dismal run of four straight defeats in all competitions that has hit their hopes of domestic and European success.
The Reds boss has insisted he feels safe in his job despite the poor results after receiving words of support from co-owner George Gillett.

And so, with Serie A starting up again this weekend, the second half of the season begins (although technically it begins January 25th when the girone di ritorno begins). I thought it would be a good idea to give each team a grade for their efforts so far. Serie A has been very interesting this season and has provided us with some top quality football to gaze our eyes upon.

Inter-Milan yesterday turned out to be one of the better derbies of recent years. It was filled with intensity, exciting play, and featured two star-studded squads. Adriano's goal was subject to much debate, but even a Milan fan like myself has to admit that it was a call that could have gone either way.

While we all know that our favorite calcio stars are all highly skilled athletes with unique, rare talent, we must also remember that they are also, you know, human. Are you shocked? Are you sitting at your computer with your mouth wide open thinking "Human? Really?" Well thankfully there is a video to prove it.

At the winter break, most people had already hypothesized that Chievo would be returning to Serie B next year. But with the arrival of coach Domenico Di Carlo, the Flying Donkeys have played with a reborn spirit in this second half of the season, and have racked up 21 points since the winter break (only Inter, Juve, and Milan have earned more).

Un turno al campo (per i cori razzisti a Balotelli) e uno al centrocampista portoghese della Juventus, Tiago, espulso durante il match dell'Olimpico di Torino per un fallaccio ai danni proprio di Balotelli. Sono nove i giocatori fermati per un turno da Tosel, in relazione alla 32° giornata di campionato in Serie A.

Juventus expected praise for their 10-man fightback against Internazionale, instead the club is being castigated for the abusive chants its support directed at Mario Balotelli.
Racist chants overshadow Juventus's stirring comeback against Inter
Nº Team GP W D L Pts1.

I am once again returning to write after a long long period of going dark.

Just after we started to win some matches after that misarable form, during which we lost 5 matches and equalized 1 (thus dropping even behind roma in the standings) and just when we were facing the weakest team in the league (Chievo), this Lazio team strikes again: they line up 3 more defeats, each more shocking than the other, showing a total lack of spirit and fight for the team.