James Horncastle
Having lived in Rome for much of his life, James decided to pick up his pen and write about Italian and European Football in 2007. He has written for the Guardian, Observer Sports Monthly, Four Four Two and Champions magazine as well as Calcio Italia.
Milan have lost that winning feeling
Spare a thought for Amantino Mancini. The 29-year-old Brazilian became the surprise protagonist of the January transfer window, leaving Italian champions Inter for their cousins Milan on Monday. He had been flaunted on the market throughout the winter with Marseille even agreeing a deal to take him on loan until the end of the season….
From one excess to another: The story of Mutu and Cassano
Christmas is a time of excess when people tend to indulge, pouring that extra drink, eating that extra slice of turkey. It has been calculated that your average Christmas reveler puts on a stone during the holidays, making it harvest time for the Fitness clubs. However, it’s not something that we usually associate with professional…
Sympathy for the devil not enough for Milan
It was billed as a contest between strength and beauty, substance versus style and whenever that’s the case the public generally side with the latter. And that’s why you should never trust the wisdom of crowds as Inter showed absolutely no difficulty in dispatching Milan, the overwhelming people’s favourites. In the week leading up to…
Rhinestone Ranieri wins Juventus showdown
Anyone visiting Italy last week could be forgiven for mistaking the land of La Dolce Vita for the Wild West, such was the manner in which the country’s press played fast and loose with words like ‘showdown’ and ‘revenge’. Roma boss Claudio Ranieri was back in Turin for the first time since Juventus fired him…
Patchwork Bari knit better together than Inter
Giampiero Ventura doesn’t take kindly to being called the grandfather of Serie A, but having just turned 62 the journeyman Bari manager has to go that little bit further in proving himself otherwise. Speaking ahead of Inter’s visit to the San Nicola on Saturday, Ventura offered a veritable master class in machismo. “Change the record,…
Milan’s forgotten heroes give Juve nightmares
Two players supposedly very close to hanging up their boots in the summer helped put Italy’s Old Lady in a retirement home last night. Alessandro Nesta, the 33-year-old with the bad back, and Ronaldinho, the two-time former World Player of the Year said to be now well past his best, were simply inspirational in Milan’s…
Serie A’s return full of Panto villainy
Much like one of the festive season’s now ubiquitous pantomimes, Serie A’s return from a winter break had everything; villains, heroes, a dose of magic, the absurd and some inexplicable stupidity doled out by the usual suspects. Set on the public holiday that is the Epiphany when a mystical broom-wielding witch known as La Befana…
Snow leads to Serie A meltdown
Christmas came early for Serie A, although not as Italy’s football fraternity would have wanted. The Italian FA were forced to postpone 10 matches up and down the country on Saturday as snow created conditions that Il Corriere della Sera described as ‘Siberian’. While some just shrugged their shoulders in the quintessential Italian way, taking…
Ciro goes from hero to zero at Juventus
A week is a ridiculously long time in football, no more so than in Italy. Last Sunday, the Ferrara household woke to headlines like, “It’s all true”, and, “The championship starts again”, after Juventus fought hard to record a gutsy 2-1 win over Inter in the Derby d’Italia. Flash forward seven days and the sports…
Milan are the real winners after Derby d’Italia
Alberto Cerruti, La Gazzetta dello Sport’s chief football writer, was unsparing in his analysis of Saturday evening’s much-anticipated Derby d’Italia. “Juventus win with a splendid goal and Inter lose, seeing their lead reduced to four points over Milan and five over the Bianconeri. But above all Italian football loses: for the low level of play,…
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