Roma

The Premier League opener between Manchester United and Leicester City failed to live up to the high-flying opener of last season. But the Friday night lights didn’t fail to elicit fantastic banter — from clubs outside of England.

The AS Roma Malcom transfer failed miserably as Barcelona FC hijacked the Brazilian for $48 million. Adding insult to injury, Swedish furniture company IKEA trolled Roma with a subtle kick to the Italian club’s fallen body.

Roma announced Swedish goalkeeper Robin Olsen’s signing via an IKEA-inspired tweet:

A Malcom Barcelona transfer has shocked the market.

A day after AS Roma announced it had signed Malcom on social media, Barcelona officially confirmed the Brazilian star as its brand new signing coming from Ligue 1’s Girondins de Bourdeaux on Tuesday.

Roma's tweet has since been taken down.

On May 2, after a Champions League semifinal match between AS Roma and Liverpool, Roma owner James Pallotta blasted the referees with accusations of bias. The American billionaire called the officials embarrassing and claimed they had cost him and Roma a place to face Real Madrid in the final. Roma won 4-2, but Liverpool went to the final on a 7-6 aggregate victory.

Brazilian goalkeeper Alisson is on his way to England for a medical after agreeing to a transfer to Liverpool. Three months ago, AS Roma president James Pallotta said that Alisson would not be sold, even for a massive “sack of money.” But when that sack of money turned out to be $87.4 million — shattering the previous most expensive goalkeeper transfer — the Italian club just couldn’t refuse. 

Netherlands international Justin Kluivert has joined Champions League semifinalists Roma for a reported fee of around $24 million after a breakthrough season with Ajax. Supporters of the Amsterdam club will be livid with Kluivert after the 19-year-old spurned the advice of his father, Barcelona legend Patrick Kluivert, to join the Serie A giants.

The curtain has come down on club football for the season and the World Cup is just around the corner. But football never ends. Not really. Now, we get to start speculating about transfers.

Serie A has always attracted envious glances. Clubs in Italy have players of the highest calibre and, with certain teams not able to measure up financially to their Spanish and English counterparts, selling these assets is an essential part of balancing the books.

So which potential Serie A transfers should you be following closely this summer?

Alisson (AS Roma)

Juventus is officially the champion of Italy.

That’s seven in a row, for those who are counting.

For Massimiliano Allegri, this is a period of astonishing success. Coupled with the Coppa Italia they won last week, that makes it four domestic doubles on the bounce for the Old Lady. Following on from the foundations laid by Antonio Conte, Juventus has become a winning machine.

No more talk of the title. Technically, the scudetto is not quite in the bag for Juventus, though it will almost assuredly head back to Turin for the seventh season in a row.

But after a few weeks of a Ross-and-Rachel style, will-they-won’t-they spluttering finale from Napoli, results have brought the title race to a close with two games left to play.

In these last few weeks of the season, however, there is still plenty to play for. The most interesting (and lucrative) prize on offer is the race for the Serie A Champions League spots.