Italy

When Paris Saint-Germain midfielder Marco Verratti was caught smoking while on vacation in Ibiza, the same alarm bells were ringing in everyone’s heads. As a professional footballer, it’s unhealthy, unprofessional and detrimental to both your career and your club. 

As we all know, smoking is detrimental to footballers in every way imaginable, but it’s incredible to see how the perception of this habit has rapidly changed over the last three or four decades in the professional game.

As we traverse the long, hot and boring summer, we find ourselves lost amid a desert of dullness — a boring expanse of time in which no football is actually played. No club football. No proper international tournament. Even the youth football has finished. Teams are barely beginning their preseason. Quite literally, there is no football to talk about. But the machine never ceases. Which brings us to the transfer market.

These days, the match-day experience is pretty swell. You can buy all the merch you want, stuff your face with high-cholesterol food and drink beer until you’re sick.

But you can’t get a lap dance — for now.

Carlo Tavecchio, president of the Italian Football Federation, wants to change that. He said he’d like to see stadiums fulfill other “social activities” outside of hosting matches once every other week.

He’s got a point, and many modern stadiums in America are being built with that in mind. 

Last campaign, Roma set a club record in Serie A for most points in a season. They had never reached 87 points before, even when winning the Scudetto. So, obviously, the summer has consisted of parting ways with the manager, the sporting director, the legendary club captain, their most productive attacker and at least one of their coveted center backs. Of course, looking at the departures on an individual basis, they sort of make sense. But it’s still a weird summer for Roma.

Writing about Donnarumma is getting too easy. It’s not only hilarious, but the player, agent, and club are managing to handle events in the worst way possible. It’s also moving at a ridiculous pace.

The "will he/won’t he" saga has long since passed Ross and Rachel levels of intrigue. We have newspaper headlines, press conferences, social media posts, and social media posts that have been retracted, allegedly as the result of a hack. Honestly, it’s too hot to keep track of all of this. But it’s the summer and there’s not much else to get excited about in Italian football.

Two-time Europa League winner Parma Calcio 1913 sold to Jiang Lizhang on Wednesday, adding to the growing trend of Chinese businessmen buying European socer clubs.

The following first and second division teams in Europe are now all principally owned by Chinese investors.

No disrespect to Carlos Bacca, but the Colombian forward's status as AC Milan’s premier forward has somewhat come to symbolize the seven-time European champion's fall from grace. More industrious than stardust, Bacca simply isn’t cut from the same cloth of Andriy Shevhenko, Filippo Inzaghi or Marco van Basten.

The final of Florence’s Calcio Storico goes down tomorrow between the districts of Santa Maria Novella (the Reds) and Santo Spirito (the Whites), and the road to the championship, as you might’ve guessed, has been paved with blood, guts and fisticuffs. If you haven’t heard of Calcio Storico, here’s a quick introduction to the most hardcore sport outside of Razor Scooters.

Father’s Day just passed and one Juventus player’s father is not pleased with his lack of a gift.

Bianconeri youngster Moise Kean’s dad says Juventus was supposed to pay him in tractors in addition to his son’s €700,000-per-year contract.