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Player Focus: Djordjevic Looking Forwards After Finding Form For Lazio

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Player Focus: Djordjevic Looking Forwards After Finding Form For Lazio One for all and all for one. Lazio’s Serbian players Filip Djordjevic and Dusan Basta put their hands on top of those of their Albanian teammates Erit Berisha, Lorik Cana and Thomas Strakosha to send a message of peace and solidarity following the abandonment of a World Cup qualifier between t...

Player Focus: Honda Reaping the Benefits of His Patience at Milan

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Player Focus: Honda Reaping the Benefits of His Patience at Milan Casa Milan played host to a group of special guests this week. They were Japanese business leaders touring Europe to learn about the diversity management practiced by some of the continent’s best companies and most recognisable brands. The hope, expressed by the club, is that some will go home...

Team Focus: Young Samp Side Defying the Odds with Strong Serie A Start

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Team Focus: Young Samp Side Defying the Odds with Strong Serie A Start No longer in the same state of dishevelment and delirium as at Marassi on Sunday when, with his top button undone and tie unknotted, he hopped, skipped and danced on the pitch, twirling a blue, white and red handkerchief in the air to celebrate Sampdoria’s 1-0 win against Atalanta, their new o...

Player Focus: Ninja Nainggolan Running the Show for Roma

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Player Focus: Ninja Nainggolan Running the Show for Roma When wreathed in the all-consuming black of Roma’s third shirt, Radja Nainggolan’s nickname il Ninja takes on another dimension. Practiced in the arts of sabotage and infiltration, there’s a Stakhanovite stealth to his game. But Nainggolan is no member of the order of the shadows. ...

Player Focus: Serie A Waking Up to Andrea Belotti's Talent

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Player Focus: Serie A Waking Up to Andrea Belotti's Talent Andrea Belotti’s aunt has a chicken factory. Nothing like Los Pollos Hermanos rest assured. As a kid, he would go and visit. “Often I’d stand and stare at the roosters,” he recalled.His best friend Yuri was nicknamed the Rooster at school. Belotti started to go by it too. Rat...

Team Focus: Allegri Making His Mark on Conte's Juventus

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Team Focus: Allegri Making His Mark on Conte's Juventus If it ain’t broke, don’t try to fix it.Massimiliano Allegri has been quite sensible since he replaced Antonio Conte as coach of Juventus this summer. On the surface, it would appear he hasn’t changed much and why would he? The Old Lady has won the Scudetto three years in a row, eac...

Player Focus: Zaza Works His Way to Top Thanks to Sassuolo's Italian Loyalty

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Player Focus: Zaza Works His Way to Top Thanks to Sassuolo's Italian Loyalty Edvard Munch’s Expressionist masterpiece The Scream hangs in Oslo’s National Museum. After Simone Zaza scored his first goal for Italy in Tuesday night’s Euro 2016 qualifier against Norway at the Ullevaal Stadion, Sky Italia’s Alessandro Alciato remarked that the bald striker...

Player Focus: Coman Set to Become the Old Lady's Latest French Fancy

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Player Focus: Coman Set to Become the Old Lady's Latest French Fancy Juventus’ bespectacled general manager Beppe Marotta has a flair for free transfers. Three years ago he didn’t believe the word coming out of Milan that Andrea Pirlo was in decline and that everyone had become wise to his way of playing. Marginalised at San Siro, he was placed at the cen...

Player Focus: Is Falcao an Unnecessary and Impossible Dream for Juventus?

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Player Focus: Is Falcao an Unnecessary and Impossible Dream for Juventus? The Old Lady has been known to show her face in Monaco. Her great patron, the late Gianni Agnelli used to own the Villa Leopolda just up the Cote d’Azur in the seaside town of Beaulieu between Nice and the Principality. She liked to have a flutter at the Casino Royale. Some of her bets didn&rs...

Player Focus: Torino Struggling to Hold on to In-Form and In-Demand Cerci

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Player Focus: Torino Struggling to Hold on to In-Form and In-Demand Cerci At 66, Torino’s Giampiero Ventura is the oldest coach in the Europa League preliminaries. He grew up in the post-war era when times were hard, then through the years of Italy’s economic miracle, before starting out in this profession in the youth sector at Sampdoria in the mid-1970s. Eve...