By Chris Wright

"WAKE UP!!!"

A 12-year old girl from Crotone in Italy has been woken from a 15-day coma by the soothing voice of her idol, one Alessandro Del Piero. That's a sentence that doesn't tend to get used very often.

Jade fell ill and reportedly slipped into a coma while watching the goals from Juventus' 2-0 win over Atalanta on January 22nd.

It's only mid-February but we're already perilously close to what The Flight of the Concords would call 'Business Time'. By that, I don't mean Arsenal football club are going to wine and dine our opponents, and then take them back to the Emirates for some 'business' - I apologise if this is getting a little weird - I mean that we're coming up to the real make-or-break period of the season.

As the old cliché goes, history repeats itself. And this could not be truer come every February for Milan striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Whether at Barcelona or in the blue or red half of Milan, the ‘big' Swede's scoring record often leaves something to be desired at this time of the year. Goals, to be precise.

By FRANCO PANIZO

Luis Suarez's spell on the sidelines has come to a close.

Having served his eight-match ban for racially abusing Patrice Evra and a one-game suspension for a gesture to Fulham fans, Suarez is set to return for Liverpool on Monday in its game against Tottenham.

By Chris Wright

In which, an hour or so into Milan's slumber-inducing goalless draw with Napoli yesterday, Almighty Zlatan provides the game's sole 'highlight' by unfurling an arm around Antonio Nocerino's shoulder in order to expertly disguise an elaborate 'round the houses' slap to Salvatore Aronica's face.

Edinson Cavani. Forcing us to rethink our oppression of t-shirt/suit jacket combos since 9.30am this morning. Image: Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images.

If someone else is going to go to the trouble of picking out and rewarding their favourite Serie A players, it would be remiss of us not to use the photo opportunity for a random post.

Benvenuto amici! Here's a perfect photo demonstrating the unglamorous side of football when you're on the pitch and it starts to rain. Believe us, it's absolutely horrible. Poor Claudio Ranieri had to stay on and watch as his Inter boys fought and sunk 0-1 to lowly Lecce at the Via del Mare stadium last night.

No one kicks the football like the one, Zlatan, Zlatan!

No explanation necessary. Even though it's six years old, this (ahem... "Who's Da Man?" by "Elias featuring Frans") remains the undisputed best Swedish reggae tune about Zlatan Ee-bra-heem-oh-vic to have ever been recorded.

10.01.2012 - Neymar (Santos) se llevó el premio Puskas 2011 (mejor gol) por sobre Lionel Messi, Wayne Rooney y otros siete nominados (Benjamin De Ceulaer (Bélgica), Giovani Dos Santos (México), Julio Gómez (México), Zlatan Ibrahimović (Suecia), Lisandro López (Argentina) y Dejan Stanković (Serbia).

The Christmas break is over. This can only mean one thing: it's now time to put down the panettone and get back to calcio! The Serie A season resumed this weekend – and no holiday hangovers here; there was no shortage of action!

Perhaps still recovering from jet-setting-induced jet lag, Milan and Juventus, the league's joint leaders, both seemed to be struggling to get back into the swing of things with difficult wins against Atalanta and Lecce, respectively, on Sunday.

Antonio Nocerino and Zlatan Ibrahimović were on target as AC Milan went top of Serie A by beating Siena 2-0 at San Siro.

Nocerino drove the Rossoneri in front with a low shot through a crowded penalty area nine minutes into the second half. Ibrahimović confirmed victory with a powerfully-struck penalty, awarded after goalkeeper Željko Brkić brought down Kevin-Prince Boateng.

In late November, Nike released a first look at the Zlatan Ibrahimovic Nike Crafted for Destruction Jacket via a Youtube video. Now the American sportswear giant has issued a press release accompanied by a series of high resolution images of the top. Here are the details and best look yet at this much sought after [.

By Chris Wright

AC Milan moved top of Serie A by beating Genoa 2-0 last night thanks to goals from Zlatan and Nocerino, but that's by the by really what we're really interested in here is Robinho's little one-yard whoopsie early in the second half.

Something tells me Aquilani wasn't best pleased to see his efforts spunked over the bar from about 5cm out by a Brazilian berk with Toblerone-shaped feet.

22.11.2011 - Benjamin De Ceulaer (Bélgica), Giovani Dos Santos (México), Julio Gómez (México), Zlatan Ibrahimović (Suecia), Lisandro López (Argentina), Lionel Messi (Argentina), Neymar (Brasil), Wayne Rooney (Inglaterra) y Dejan Stanković (Serbia) compiten por el Premio Puskas (FIFA) 2011.

Nike has released a special Zlatan Ibrahimovic edition of its Destroyer Jacket. Similar in design to the Arsenal 125th Anniversary NSW Destroyer Jacket, the new piece of outerwear features stitched designs of the Sweden and AC Milan striker's many tattoos. The brand new Nike video spot below gives a good look at what the sportswear [.

Ya están los 10 goles seleccionados por la Comisión del Fútbol disponibles en vídeo. Hay que votar y participar así en la elección oficial del ganador del Premio Puskás de la FIFA 2011.
Hay dos golazos mexicanos entre el top 10 son el de Giovani Dos Santos que le anoto a los Estados Unidos en la fina de la copa Oro y mas importante aun el de Julio Gomez que lo ascendió a leyenda en el mundial sub 17 contra Alemania de ultimo minuto y de chilena.

Clear the bookshelves, Zlatan and Pepe (and others), Chelsea's Fernando Torres has (another?) literary masterpiece of his own coming out (again?): 'Fernando Torres: Number 9′.

Let us put aside the stupid non-highlighted-because-I'm-growing-out-my-roots look Fernando is trying to bring back into favour and talk about the levels of hotness that were sizing us up (yeah right) at today's autobiography presentation in Madrid.

By Chris Wright

In which, during an interview ahead of Sweden's run-out against England at Wembley tonight, Sweden coach Erik Hamren is interrupted by a distant siren song...

That Zlatan, eh? What a scamp!

Video: 101GG

There are or were, in a few cases -certain possibilities when it comes to international and the misbehavior of its participants: Gabriel Tamas might get drunk, Adrian Mutu might hit someone, Zlatan might care, the Czech national team may be found in the general vicinity of ladies of the night and someone somewhere in South America is going to get suspended for a party.

Denmark and Sweden meet again on Friday night in an International Friendly Match, the two Scandinavian rivals met last time in late 09′ for the World Cup South Africa 10′ Qualifiers, in a decider to see who will qualify out of the group. Denmark came out victorious that night, with Bendtner squaring it to Jakob Poulsen, who hit a hard low powerful shot past the keeper from 20 yards, Which saw them qualify.

By Chris Wright

I know it's hardly a new look for Senor Palacio but the fact that he's now shaved the rest of his noggin to fully emphasise that horrendous, erroneous braided 'Jedi bog chain' of hair means his barnet is up for reassessment and yep it's still rubbish.

Wednesday's Champions League action saw wins for Europe's elite clubs with Barcelona, AC Milan and Arsenal all securing wins with Chelsea being the only exception.

The Blues settled for a 1-1 draw in Valencia after taking the lead early in the second half thanks to a Frank Lampard goal.

Barcelona and Arsenal picked up their first Champions League victories of the season while Marseille made it two wins out of two after thrashing Dortmund.

Winners of the competition in three of the last six seasons, Barcelona were held to a 2-2 draw by AC Milan on matchday one, but turned in a clinical performance to win 5-0 at BATE.

Hamren has called up the troops for action and its time for a little analysis of what is coming our way on the 7th of October. Here is the full squad:

Andreas Isaksson, Johan Wiland

Mikael Lustig, Pierre Bengtsson, Andreas Granqvist, Daniel Majstorovic, Olof Mellberg, Jonas Olsson, Martin Olsson

Emir Bajrami, Christian Wilhelmsson, Rasmus Elm, Johan Elmander, Alexander Gerndt, Samuel Holmen, Tobias Hysen, Kim Källström, Sebastian Larsson, Anders Svensson, Ola Toivonen, Pontus Wernbloom, Zlatan Ibrahimovic

So these are the guys who are going to go toe to toe with the Finns.

Images: Getty Images, Reuters/Daylife.

Good heavens above, Kickettes! We know that in Fernando Torres and Zlatan Ibrahimovic we have two serious bitchface heavyweights, but these are some killer blows, even by their standards.

Whaddya reckon, lads and lasses? Does 'Nando get the edge in last weekend's contest by mobilising his back-up freckles?

Images: Getty Images, Reuters/Daylife.

Good heavens above, Kickettes! We know that in Fernando Torres and Zlatan Ibrahimovic we have two serious bitchface heavyweights, but these are some killer blows, even by their standards.

Whaddya reckon, lads and lasses? Does 'Nando get the edge in last weekend's contest by mobilising his back-up freckles?

Better late than never I guess, my review of last season...
Five myths about where it went wrong...
1) 'Arsene's management of the team is completely inept'
You know, I might have some time for people who say this - or similar things - if they'd been saying this in January and February.

The always exciting Swedish international has announced to the world that he plans to leave professional football for good in the fall of 2014 when his contract with Milan runs out.

Although Ibra has set the date for his retirement, he has also set the bar high for his achievements with AC Milan over next few years as to not let down his supporters too much.

AC Milan celebrate their sixth Super Cup title

The weekend played host to two of the world's most intense local derbies as the teams involved fought for the honours in their respective national Super Cup tournaments. Whereas the Italian Super Cup saw two clubs who are virtually equal in all respects face up to each other in the shape of league champions AC Milan and cup winners Internazionale, the same couldn't be said in its English equivalent which saw record champions Manchester United meet up once again with local foes Manchester City with the latter finally demanding more respect from their more illustrious neighbours having won the FA Cup last season.

By Chris Wright

He may well be a black-belt, but put the Mighty Zlatan on a rollercoaster and he's mush...

Via Caught Offside

Zlatan Ibrahimovic hit for a hat trick yesterday in Sweden's 5-0 win but it was Fantasy Premier League stud Clint Dempsey who picked up all the plaudits in the United States as he led the U.S. to a 2-0 ... Continue reading →

Hark! Whose stray chin strands go there? Image Credit: REUTERS/Giorgio Perottino.

Saturday

- We had harsh words for the owl-kicking Colombian player after we caught wind of the incident, but they weren't nearly as bad as his court-mandated punishment. Luis Moreno must pay an undisclosed fine, foot the bird's treatment bill and perform community service at the local zoo.

Image Credits: Tullio M. Puglia/Getty Images Europe; AP Photo/Antonio Calanni.

Three wise footballers a pictorial maxim make. As Abel Hernandez of Palermo and Neymar of Brazilian side, Santos, teach us, we should hear no evil, see no evil...

...nor should we speak no evil about Zlatan Ibrahimović's pornstache.

C'est fini for Philippe but is Mexes the man for Milan? is a post from: Just Football

by David Swan

The cruciate ligament injury Philippe Mexès suffered against Juventus last weekend did not just signal the end of his participation in the current campaign, it signalled the end of his Roma career.

The title races in both France and Germany took another turn this weekend, while AC Milan and Manchester United took anther step towards winning their respective championships.

France
The Ligue 1 title race tightened as leaders Lille were upset 1-0 by Monaco. Luckily for Lille, there other title contenders failed to take full advantage of Lille's defeat.

Asamoah Gyan & Derek Boeteng of Ghana share a tender moment during a friendly (ish) 1-1 draw with England at Wembley. Image: Reuters/Daylife

If our confusion over which games were friendlies and which meaningful at the weekend was bad, imagine our horror when confronted with last night's maddening fixture schedule.

No Zlatan no party: AC Milan need a Plan B is a post from: Just Football

Zlatan Ibrahimović's act of stupidity during Milan's game against Bari on Sunday – striking Marco Rossi in the stomach – has cost his team the luxury of his services for three games, including the all-important Milan derby clash.

March ninth marks the next chapter in the Champions League career of Sweden captain Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Up till now it's been a steady tale of loss and failure to get to the ever-elusive Champions League Final. It isn't looking especially rosy this year either. Tottenham beat Milan at the San Siro with 1-0, meaning that only a victory at White Hart Lane will carry AC Milan through to the quarterfinals.

The Joy of good Lavezzi is a post from: Just Football

In this week's Serie A column David Swan assesses the understated importance of one of Napoli's key men:

Edinson Cavani has scored an incredible 20 league goals in 28 games for Napoli this season, just under half of the total scored by the club in Serie A.

MOSCOW, Russia — Sergei Ignashevich scored a late equalizer to give CSKA Moscow a 1-1 draw against PAOK Thessaloniki on Tuesday which put the Russian club through to the last 16 of the Europa League. CSKA won the first leg 1-0 away, and advanced 2-1 on aggregate. Zlatan Muslimovic put PAOK in the lead in [.