Italy

Atalanta's Serie A title challenge all but faded away on Friday after they were held to a 1-1 draw at AC Milan, leaving them five points adrift of leaders Juventus.

Second-placed Atalanta moved up to 75 points with two games left to play, while Juventus can win the Scudetto for the ninth successive season if they beat Sampdoria at home on Sunday. Juve also have a game in hand.

Atalanta fell behind to a superb free kick from Hakan Calhanoglu, who sent a vicious dipping effort sailing over keeper Pierluigi Gollini in the 14th minute.

Veteran forward Zlatan Ibrahimovic scored twice in the first half to give AC Milan a 2-1 win at 10-man Sassuolo on Tuesday as they remained unbeaten since the restart of the season and guaranteed a place in the Europa League.

The 38-year-old Swede got in front of his marker to head in from Hakan Calhanoglu's cross in the 19th minute and latched on to a through ball before rounding Andrea Consigli to add the second in first-half injury time.

Cristiano Ronaldo reached the landmark of 30 goals this Serie A season during Juventus’ 2-1 victory over Lazio on Monday. Only two players had ever reached the 30-goal milestone in Italy’s top division since 1960 — Luca Toni and Gonzalo Higuaín — but, remarkably, Monday’s match saw both Ronaldo and Lazio's Ciro Immobile hit that mark.

Ronaldo scored goal number 29 from the spot (his 12th successful penalty of the campaign) before adding number 30 after Paulo Dybala set him up for a tap-in. 

The Ballon d'Or will not be awarded this year for the first time in its 64-year history after the COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on the football calendar, organizers France Football magazine said on Monday.

The prestigious award, voted for by journalists, is an annual prize given to the best male footballer in the world since 1956. The women's Ballon d'Or was first awarded in 2018.

Napoli forward Matteo Politano scored deep into stoppage time to give them a 2-1 win at home to Udinese on Sunday, minutes after defender Kalidou Koulibaly had rescued the hosts with a dramatic goal-line clearance.

Udinese forward Rodrigo De Paul looked set to score in the 85th minute when the ball ran loose to him with only goalkeeper David Ospina to beat. He dinked it over the Colombian but Koulibaly managed to get his knee to it and deflect it onto the crossbar.

Instead, Politano curled in the winner for Napoli, his first goal for the club, in the 95th minute.

Players and coaches around Europe are becoming increasingly perplexed by the current handball rule which one has said is best suited to foosball. 

Forwards have seen goals chalked off for almost imperceptible handballs while defenders have conceded penalties for unintentional ones in innocuous situations because their arm was seen as making the body "unnaturally bigger."

The number of COVID-19 cases per football league is a question on everyone’s mind these days. The ebb and flow of the virus around the world has left our leagues in different states of recovery.

Here we’ve made a list of the number of COVID-19 cases per football league and the number of COVID-19 cases in their respective regions of the world. 

The list of the number of COVID-19 cases per football league comes in no particular order, but we will save the best for last, so be ready.

Born in Rome on Nov. 10, 1928, legendary composer Ennio Morricone died in Rome on July 6, 2020, at the age of 91. Morricone composed over 400 scores for cinema and TV, but it’s his score for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly that’s considered “one of the greatest and most original” in film history.

For our younger readers, you’ll likely recognize one of the tracks — “The Ecstasy of Gold” — from the introduction to Jackass Number Two.

A second-half goal from Hirving Lozano gave Napoli a 2-1 win at struggling Genoa in Serie A on Wednesday after they had earlier become the latest victims of the controversial new handball rule.

Chucky Lozano Goal vs Genoa

Fifth-placed Napoli thought they had gone ahead in the sixth minute when Eljif Elmas scored from close range after Genoa had repeatedly failed to clear a corner.