Europa League

2011: A New Start For Italian Football

by Niccolo Conte on December 31, 2010 · 3 comments

2010 was a bad year for Ital­ian foot­ball. I tried to think of the pos­i­tives, but very few came to mind. A dis­as­trous World Cup in South Africa, a bad show­ing in the Europa League, and only a Cham­pi­ons League vic­tory (guided by a Por­tuguese mas­ter­mind) which retains some dig­nity for Ital­ian foot­ball. While 2010 […]

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Tough Draw In Europe For Italian Teams

by Niccolo Conte on December 18, 2010 · 2 comments

With the Cham­pi­ons League and Europa League draws hav­ing taken place, the rest of the sea­son is slowly drift­ing into a more pre­dictable mush. There’s just one last week­end of Serie A action (this week­end), and then there’s a solid two weeks and a bit of break from the Serie A. I cer­tainly find it […]

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Napoli Qualify For Europa League Knockout Stages

by Niccolo Conte on December 17, 2010 · 0 comments

While in the Cham­pi­ons League all Ital­ian sides made it through to the knock­out stages, there was a fear that in the Europa League there would be no Serie A teams. Luck­ily, Napoli man­aged to qual­ify with a 1–0 win over Steaua Bucharest, thanks to a very late goal by Cavani. And there was more […]

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Only Napoli Left In The Europa League

by Niccolo Conte on December 3, 2010 · 2 comments

While it was a great Cham­pi­ons League group stage for the Ital­ian sides, the Europa League group stages are prov­ing to be more dif­fi­cult for the Ital­ian sides in the Europa League. In fact, all of the Ital­ian sides have been elim­i­nated except for Napoli, who might be able to pull off a good result […]

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Like most soc­cer fans, I am a soc­cer league polyg­a­mist.  Because I live less than 20 min­utes from an MLS club, I root for and fol­low Major League Soc­cer in the U.S.  How­ever, I am also a pas­sion­ate Arse­nal fan who lives and dies in every match they play through­out the year.  And of course, […]

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Italian teams stumble in Europe

by Niccolo Conte on September 17, 2010 · 4 comments

The Cham­pi­ons League and the Europa League are now pri­or­i­ties, now that the Bun­desliga has sur­passed the Serie A, Ital­ian teams need to pull their weight in Euro­pean com­pe­ti­tion. The first match­day of the group stages of the Cham­pi­ons League and the Europa League didn’t play out too well for the Ital­ian clubs involved. Out […]

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Udi­nese have been under­achiev­ers, this was espe­cially seen last sea­son, when the club only arrived in 15th place. While it could seem strange that I define them as under­achiev­ers, I know the tal­ent in the team is incred­i­ble, espe­cially going for­ward. Maybe they’ve never had the right coach, or maybe the team never gelled together […]

2 comments