Serie A

So maybe VAR doesn’t get every single little call right. Nor does it turn referees into infallible robots. But we think every soccer fan can get on board with the VAR decision during the Roma-Genoa match on Sunday. The VAR spotted this pathetic Daniele De Rossi slap on Gianluca Lapadula, which resulted in both players rolling around on the ground like they had just been shot. 

After a review, the referee brandished red for De Rossi. Lapadula miraculously recovered from his injuries and scored the ensuing penalty to equalize and the match ended in a 1-1 draw.

Vincenzo Montella has been fired as AC Milan coach.

Finally, Milan has initiated the “Unsworth protocol” — sack an underachieving manager after he’s overseen a summer of massive spending and dismal football, only to replace him with a vastly unqualified club legend. In many ways, Everton and Milan are exactly alike.

But whereas Everton is currently fighting an unlikely relegation battle, Milan sits seventh place in the table. Surely, after such a huge overhaul, they should be allowed time to gel together, time to fail together and time to come together as a team?

Inter Milan can return to the top of the Serie A table on Saturday with a victory over Cagliari, an achievement heading into December that even the most impassioned of Nerazzurri supporters couldn’t have predicted. The hiring of Luciano Spalletti has been a masterstroke, and an absence of European competition has allowed the side to flourish domestically with largely unchanged personnel in a 4-2-3-1 formation.

At what point do you give up?

At what point, after months of being utterly abject, do you finally snap and say to yourself, “You know what, maybe football isn’t the sport for me?” At what point — if you’re a Benevento player or fan — do you decide rugby, darts or bobsledding is actually your calling in life? Right about now, we should be approaching this point. It goes without saying: Benevento is historically, catastrophically, fantastically abject.

Benevento, promoted to Serie A following last season, is experiencing an historic run of bad form. Following a 2-1 defeat to Juventus, the club has lost all 12 of its Serie A matches, a feat not equaled in top-flight European football since Manchester United lost 12 straight to start the 1929-30 campaign. That was 88 years ago, the year Benevento Calcio was originally founded.