⚽️🇮🇹 Which American tennis star is a Lazio fan?
In this week’s Italian soccer digest, we're celebrating Juventus' Coppa Italia win, we're welcoming Como back to Serie A, and much more!
🏆 Juventus wins its 15th Coppa Italia title
Juventus is ending its season on a high note, winning the Coppa Italia with a 1-0 victory over Atalanta at Rome’s Stadio Olimpico, courtesy of a Dušan Vlahović strike.
1️⃣5️⃣ Juve have lifted the Italian domestic cup 15 times, which is more than any other side. Roma and Inter come second in the all-time rankings, with nine Coppa Italia victories each.
🇺🇸 Weston McKennie played the full 90 in a central midfield role, while his USMNT teammate Tim Weah made an 81st-minute cameo.
🦓 Coach Massimiliano Allegri has now won five Coppa Italia titles with Juventus, making him the winningest manager in tournament history.
✍️ Allegri, who has won 12 trophies with Juve in total, is under contract in Turin until 2025. The Coppa Italia victory marked Juve’s first win in seven games in all competitions.
🇪🇺 Juventus also qualified for the Champions League over the weekend, following its 1-1 home draw with relegated Salernitana.
🙌 Atalanta reaches its first-ever European Final
Atalanta booked their slot in the Europa League Final last week with an incredible 4-1 aggregate win over Marseille.
🇮🇪 Gian Piero Gasperini's side will face Bayer Leverkusen at Dublin’s Aviva Stadium in Dublin on May 22nd (3pm ET on Paramount+).
🥺 Roma came agonizingly close to joining Atalanta in the final when they levelled the aggregate tie against Leverkusen, only for the Germans to score two late goals to progress.
🇮🇹 Italian coaches will feature in all three major European finals this year: Carlo Ancelotti at Real Madrid in the Champions League Final, Gasperini in the Europa League Final and Vincenzo Italiano in the Europa Conference League Final where his Fiorentina side will face Olympiacos (Wednesday May 29, 3pm ET on Paramount+).
🇪🇺 Bologna reach Champions League for the first time!
Fans were celebrating in the streets of Bologna in the early hours on Sunday as Thiago Motta’s side qualified for the European Cup for the first time in the Champions League era. Bologna last featured in Europe’s top domestic competition in 1959.
💪 Bologna’s fate was sealed in game week 36 with their victory over defending champions Napoli and Atalanta’s win against Roma.
🫨 Suffice to say, Bologna’s top scorer Joshua Zirkzee was happy about the situation.
🥳 Fans and players celebrated in the city center on Sunday night, with Riccardo Orsolini giving an unsuspecting reporter an impromptu ride to the party!
👏 As previously noted, Juventus has also officially qualified for the newly expanded Champions League format, joining Bologna, Milan and Inter.
👀 Atalanta is in the driver’s seat to seal the fifth and final spot up for grabs, with Roma and Lazio vying to sneak into fifth place within the final two game weeks.
🆙 Como return to Serie A after 21-year absence
Como is officially back in the top flight for the first time since 2003, following a 1-1 draw with Cosenza on the final day of the 2023-24 Serie B season.
🤩 Como boasts a star-studded coaching staff and ownership group: World Cup winner Cesc Fabregas was named manager in 2023, and is now serving as an assistant to Welsh coach Osian Roberts while he obtains the UEFA Pro License that is necessary to coach in Italy’s top two tiers. Thierry Henry is part of the ownership group, while former Chelsea star Dennis Wise is credited with shaping much of Como’s success from the front office.
👀 Jamie Vardy, who was promoted back to the top tier in England with Leicester this season, was spotted wearing a Como shirt during the promotion celebrations.
Following their promotion, Cesc gave a post-match team talk - in perfect Italian - in which he promised his players a trip to Ibiza!
👏 Como has been promoted alongside Parma, while the third team to join Italy’s top flight will be determined via playoffs between the sides that finished between third and eighth place.
📈 Since their last appearance in Serie A, Como dropped all the way to the non-professional fourth tier of Italian soccer, following their bankruptcy in 2016. The club was reborn as Como 1907 in the 2017-18 season and have been climbing since.
😮 Como is going to be an essential away trip for Serie A fans next season: they don’t come much more beautiful than the Stadio Giuseppe Sinigaglia.
🇺🇸 American fans will be able to see Como competing for a $1M prize in North Carolina next month at The Soccer Tournament.
⚽️ Christian Pulisic keeps on scoring!
Christian Pulisic’s debut Serie A season just keeps getting better. The American scored his 11th and 12th league goals of the season during Milan’s 5-1 win over Cagliari.
🔥 Per Opta, Pulisic is the first Milan midfielder to score more than 10 goals from open play in a single season since Kaká in 2005-06.
❤️ Pulisic and his Rossoneri teammates wore their mothers’ surnames on the back of their jerseys, as part of an initiative over Mother’s Day weekend in Italy to raise awareness about personal identity rights.
🗣️ “Playing with our mothers' names on our jerseys is a special way to honor the incredible women who have shaped and supported us throughout our lives,” said Pulisic before the game, after which he dedicated his brace to his mom on Instagram.
🩵 Lazio celebrate 50 years since first scudetto win
Before Sunday’s 2-0 win over Empoli, Lazio celebrated the 50th anniversary of its first scudetto win in 1973-74.
👋 In addition to displaying choreography, Lazio’s supporters welcomed several players and family members from the winning squad onto the field before the game.
👕 Lazio also released a commemorative kit for the occasion, which features the names of the 1973-74 squad within its design.
🏆 The Rome team have won Serie A on two occasions, most recently in 1999-2000, when Sven-Göran Eriksson’s side edged out Juventus on the final day of the season.
👀 This week we also learned that Lazio have a famous fan in the world of American tennis…
🎾 Social Post of the Week: Tommy Paul is a Laziale!
In addition to welcoming their legendary squad of 1973-74, Lazio also welcomed a new fan to the Olimpico last weekend: U.S. tennis star Tommy Paul!
🇮🇹 Florida resident Paul has been at the Foro Italico this week for the Italian Open, where he has been thriving on his preferred clay surface: the 26-year-old knocked out reigning Rome champion Daniil Medvedev on Tuesday, before eliminating Hubert Hurkacz to reach the final four this morning.
🦅 To prove his fandom, after beating Hurkacz, Paul wrote “Forza Lazio” on a TV camera!
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With the title wrapped up and the European places all-but decided, perhaps the most thrilling battle left in the remaining two rounds of the Serie A season is for salvezza.
🤷♂️ What does it mean? Salvezza is the Italian word for ‘safety.’ The Italian term for what we might call a relegation battle is a ‘lotta salvezza’ or ‘fight for survival’.
🤔 Who is in the lotta salvezza? Salernitana have already been relegated, but there are still six teams battling to avoid finishing in the final two demotion spots: Sassuolo, Empoli, Frosinone, Cagliari, Udinese and Hellas Verona.
📉 Who is at risk? Sassuolo is 19th with 29 points, but only five points separates them from Verona in 14th. There is a big weekend ahead, with two momentous scontri diretti (‘direct clashes‘, as described in last week’s newsletter) taking place at the bottom on Sunday as Sassuolo host Cagliari (6.30am ET on Paramount+) and Udinese face Empoli (9am ET on Paramount+).
🇺🇸 Olivier Giroud makes LAFC move official
Milan forward Olivier Giroud has officially confirmed he will move to MLS side LAFC on a free transfer after Euro 2024.
🫡 “I’m proud of everything I’ve done here across three seasons,” said the World Cup-winning Frenchman, who has been long-rumored to make a move to California.
🧤 Giroud won Serie A with Milan in 2021-22… and also received the very unexpected honor of Goalkeeper of Game Week 8 this season, when he kept a clean sheet during a spell between the sticks against Genoa!
📺 This weekend on CBS Sports and Paramount+
Friday, May 17th
Fiorentina v Napoli (2.45pm ET)
Saturday, May 18th
Lecce v Atalanta (12pm ET)
Torino v Milan (2.45pm ET)
Sunday, May 19th
Sassuolo v Cagliari (6.30am ET)
Monza v Frosinone (9am ET)
Udinese v Empoli (9am ET)
Inter v Lazio (12pm ET)
Roma v Genoa (2.45pm ET)
Monday, May 20th
Salernitana v Verona (12.30pm ET)
Bologna v Juventus (2.45pm ET)
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