France boss Didier Deschamps hopes his old side Juventus can win the Champions League this season. “They’ve had this objective for many years now.”
Deschamps played for The Old Lady from 1994 to 1999, and was a part of the squad the last time they won the competition in 1996.
The former Monaco coach is in Dubai at the Globe Soccer Awards and says he would like the Bianconeri to finally win it again.
Agent Jorge Mendes claims Lionel Messi shouldn’t have won the Ballon d’Or this year. “It was an injustice. Cristiano Ronaldo would've won if he was at Real Madrid.”
The Argentine superstar collected his sixth gong earlier this month, going one ahead of the Portuguese striker in the career Ballon d’Or race, with Ronaldo finishing third on the podium.
Mendes, speaking at the Golden Boy awards in Turin, says it wasn’t the correct decision to award the prize to Messi.
Antonio Conte confirms he didn’t want to leave Italy for Chelsea in 2016. “We were all crying, because we knew we’d no longer see each other every day.”
The current Inter Coach spoke on stage at the Festival dello Sport event in Trento this afternoon.
“I feel that wearing the Azzurri jersey is a dream come true and when you stand there listening to the national anthem, it’s a unique sensation, because it means you have reached that level,” said the former Nazionale boss.
Italy have a 100 per cent record after five Euro qualifiers for the first time in their history, but it’s nine wins on the trot going back to Euro 2016 too.
This evening’s 3-1 victory away to Armenia maintains the perfect start to Euro 2020 Group J, with the Nazionale scoring 16 goals and conceding only two.
More importantly, Roberto Mancini becomes the first Italy Coach to win five consecutive European Championship qualifiers in the same group.
Italy are out of the World Cup for the first time in 60 years and Adam Digby lays the blame squarely at the feet of Coach Giampiero Ventura.
For the first time since 1958, Italy will not be at the World Cup finals. After a qualification campaign that never saw them look confident or cohesive, the Azzurri will spend next summer watching the tournament on television. As they do so, the players will reflect on their part in what has undoubtedly been one of the worst two-year stints in the history of a proud national team of one of the game’s most prominent footballing countries.
Following the defeat in Sweden with an inexplicable team selection, Giampiero Ventura has no more Italy advocates, writes Susy Campanale.
Is there anyone left willing to defend Giampiero Ventura? We tried, we really did, but his decisions both before and during the defeat to Sweden just proved he has reached the end of the road and his advocates the end of their tethers.
Valencia striker Simone Zaza called the Euro 2016 penalty miss for Italy “the worst moment of my career. I didn’t ask to take it.”
The forward was widely mocked for his spot-kick in a quarter-final shoot-out against Germany, above all for the stuttering run-up and finish well off target.
“That damn penalty…” he told Fox Sports in Italy.
Italy’s World Cup qualifying campaign may not seem too bad on paper, but it has raised major question marks over their Coach, writes Chloe Beresford.
The tally reads six wins, two draws and one defeat. In a World Cup qualifying group that also contains Spain, some might say that Italy haven’t fared too badly, as they have now secured a play-off berth after La Roja expectedly secured an automatic place into the summer 2018 tournament. The Azzurri probably will eventually qualify, even though it will have taken Coach Giampiero Ventura longer than he would’ve hoped.
On this day 12 months ago, Italy beat Spain 2-0 to advance to the quarter-finals at Euro 2016.
The Under-21 side face the Spanish at the Under-21 European Championships tonight, and the Azzurrini can take inspiration from the senior side’s exploits last year.
Italy hadn’t beaten Spain at a major tournament since 1994, and had been heavily beaten by La Roja in the final of Euro 2012.
Antonio Conte’s side showed no fear of the back-to-back European champions though, immediately going on the offensive in the Saint-Denis rain.
Graziano Pellè confessed he “obviously would never have come to China if it wasn’t for all that money” after joining Shandong Luneng.
He spoke to Italia 1 show Emigratis from his new home in China.
“Obviously I would never have come here if it wasn’t for all that money,” said Pellè.
The Italy international made the transfer from Southampton just weeks after his Euro 2016 adventure concluded with a botched penalty in the shoot-out with Germany.
