Italy

Back in January, it appeared as though the writing was on the wall with regards to Francesco Totti’s professional career. His wife, Ilary Blasi, confirmed that Totti’s thoughts had turned away from football.

Graziano Pelle, who scored 11 Premier League goals in 30 appearances for Southampton last season, is about to make as much money as Zlatan Ibrahimovic after accepting a transfer to Chinese side Shandong Luneng. 

The Italian international had been wanted by the likes of Chelsea and Everton, but he’s decided to leave Southampton in a £13 million transfer while signing a contract that will pay him £13.6 million per year for two years.

After playing in nearly 400 matches for Barcelona with the numbers two, six or 22 on his back, Dani Alves has elected to wear the number 23 at Juventus in honor of NBA star LeBron James.

LeBron just recently captured his third NBA championship, and his first since returning to play with the Cleveland Cavaliers. Alves is hoping to emulate LeBron’s ability to accept a challenge in a new environment and lead his team to glory.

The Brazilian defender completed his move to Juve from Barcelona on Monday and spoke at his introductory news conference regarding the new number.

In the southeastern Roman neighborhood of Quadraro, Atletico Diritti play their home matches under the shadow of the Felice Aqueduct. The aqueduct was completed in 1586 by Pope Sixtus V, bringing water back to the hills of Rome, which had been waterless and sparsely inhabited since the sixth century.

By 1589, the aqueduct was filling no less than twenty-seven public fountains. As the aqueduct provided for the people of Rome, so Atletico Diritti hopes to provide for the migrants, refugees, prisoners and former prisoners in the area. 

If you're going to attack a referee, make sure he isn't a terrifying badass first.

Otherwise, you might end up like this dude in the Italian ninth division, who picked the wrong referee to mess with.

The ref's rection reminded us of this scene in the movie Wild Wild West, starring Will Smith. He became that much scarier and tougher by not reacting.

Dries Mertens is having a fantastic year, and now he can check “perform heartwarming celebration off of his list.” The Belgian winger is currently one of the best attackers in Italy, and while his goal-scoring record (8 in 22 across all competitions) might not not convince you of this, he has played a large roll in putting Napoli at the top of Serie A.

He and his teammates have scored a league leading 45 goals so far. That’s 6 more than the second leading scoring team, Fiorentina, and firmly establishes Napoli as the most potent attack in Italy.

AC Milan and new coach Sinisa Mihajlovic are currently struggling for form. With just three wins in their first eight Serie A matches, questions about the manager’s future are already being asked at the San Siro. Rightly or wrongly, much more was expected from this team, which spent well over 86 million Euros in the summer.

Mario Balotelli is moving from Liverpool to AC Milan on a season-long loan. This seems like a good deal for the striker, who gets a chance to redeem himself after an awful year in the Premiership. 

Balotelli has a reputation for being a bit of a headcase, and AC Milan were well aware of this when they agreed to take him on. As such, they've included some extra special provisions in Balotelli's contract that probably won't be found anywhere else.

Sometimes, you just need to know when to quit while you’re on top. 

For Ashley Cole, this could have been valuable advice when he was entering his last year with Chelsea before signing to Roma. After a long season of awkwardly fitting in with his new Italian club, Roma has decided to terminate Cole’s contract a year early.