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SERIE A

Osimhen’s Napoli on verge of first Serie A title in 33 years

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Serie A - Juventus v Napoli - Allianz Stadium, Turin, Italy - April 23, 2023 Napoli players celebrate after the match REUTERS/Massimo Pinca/File Photo

Runaway Serie A leaders Napoli could seal their third Scudetto in record fashion this weekend if they beat lowly visitors Salernitana and second-placed Lazio drop points at Inter Milan.

Victory on Saturday would move Luciano Spalletti’s side to 81 points and they will become the first team to win the title with six matches remaining unless Lazio earn their first win away to Inter in more than four years on Sunday.

Spalletti urged his Napoli players not to get ahead of themselves despite being tantalisingly close to ending the city’s 33-year wait for the Serie A title since Diego Maradona led the team to two championships in 1987 and 1990.

“I don’t like to celebrate in advance,” he said. “If we all do it together there will be twice as much joy.”

It would be unthinkable for Napoli to blow their 17-point lead at this stage but Spalletti’s caution is understandable given a tough April in which his team managed two wins in six games in all competitions.

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With no other silverware to play for after Napoli were knocked out of the Champions League by AC Milan in the quarter-finals this month, Spalletti can focus on landing the domestic crown, though he will be without injured defender Mario Rui.

Salernitana have improved dramatically since Paulo Sousa took over from Davide Nicola in mid-February and have pulled well clear of the relegation scrap. They are up to 14th in the table after an eight-game unbeaten run.

INTER SLUMP

Simone Inzaghi’s Inter have slipped to sixth place after Juventus won an appeal against a 15-point deduction that sent the Turin club back up to third in the standings.

Inter are only two points off the top four but have one win in their last six Serie A games with the distraction of a Coppa Italia final and Champions League semi-final with Milan ahead.

Lazio have not lost on the road in the league since the start of January, a run of five wins and two draws in which they have scored 11 goals and conceded one, although they suffered a dispiriting 1-0 home defeat by Torino last week.

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Ciro Immobile played 36 minutes against Torino days after fracturing a rib and hurting his back in a car crash, but Lazio have shown they are not dependent on the Italy forward’s goals, so manager Maurizio Sarri is almost certain not to start him.

Injury-ravaged AS Roma, who are fifth, host fourth-placed Milan on Saturday in another key match in the race for the top four with both teams on 56 points.

Defender Diego Llorente and forward Paulo Dybala are doubtful while Rick Karsdorp, Chris Smalling and Gini Wijnaldum have all been ruled out for Jose Mourinho’s Roma side, who were pushed out of the Champions League places by the Juve decision, despite winning three of their last four league games.

Gian Piero Gasperini’s seventh-placed Atalanta, who have 52 points, travel to Torino on Saturday while Juve, with 59 points, visit another mid-table side in Bologna on Sunday.

-Reuters

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Kunle Solaja is the author of landmark books on sports and journalism as well as being a multiple award-winning journalist and editor of long standing. He is easily Nigeria’s foremost soccer diarist and Africa's most capped FIFA World Cup journalist, having attended all FIFA World Cup finals from Italia ’90 to Qatar 2022. He was honoured at the Qatar 2022 World Cup by FIFA and AIPS.

SERIE A

Pope Leo meets Italian Serie A champions Napoli

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Pope Leo XIV meets with SSC Napoli players and managers after Serie A title victory, at the Vatican, May 27, 2025. Simone Risoluti/Vatican Media/­Handout via REUTERS

 Pope Leo XIV welcomed Italy’s newly crowned Serie A champions Napoli to the Vatican on Tuesday, joking about his own soccer allegiances.

Napoli won their fourth “Scudetto” on Friday with a 2-0 home victory over Cagliari, edging out Inter Milan by one point in a nail-biting end to the season.

The team, captained by Italian international Giovanni Di Lorenzo, arrived for their papal audience a day after a triumphant open-top bus parade through central Naples.

“The press says I am an AS Roma fan, but you are welcome! This is what the press says. Not everything you read in the press is true,” the pope said, according to a transcript.

Leo, the first pope to come from the U.S., follows and practices sports, including tennis. People who know him have described him to the media as an AS Roma supporter.

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Napoli chairman Aurelio De Laurentiis gave him a blue Napoli jersey signed by players, bearing the number 10 and his name in Italian, “Papa Leone XIV”.

“You are a number 10, so you are a great striker”, De Laurentiis said. Leo replied with a chuckle and a simple “thank you”.

Coach Antonio Conte, whom De Laurentiis introduced as “deeply Catholic”, knelt down and kissed the pope’s hand, before Leo told him he had seen him many times on TV.

In a short speech, the pontiff stressed the importance of team spirit and collaboration, and sport’s educational value, especially for young people.

Winning comes “at the end of a long journey, where what matters the most is not a one-time exploit or the extraordinary performance of one champion”, he said.

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“The championship is won by the team, and when I say ‘team’ I mean the players, the coach with the whole squad, and the club,” he added.

Leo ended his remarks giving his blessings to players and club officials, and offering congratulations, also on behalf of his personal cook.

“She is from Naples and she says: best wishes! She would like to be here too, Mrs Rosa, (she is) a big fan”, the pope said.

-Reuters

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SERIE A

Ademola Lookman’s Atalanta secure Champions League spot with Roma win

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Atalanta v AS Roma - Gewiss Stadium, Bergamo, Italy - May 12, 2025 Atalanta's Ibrahim Sulemana scores their second goal past AS Roma's Mile Svilar REUTERS/Daniele Mascolo

A second-half goal by substitute Ibrahim Sulemana earned Atalanta a 2-1 home win over AS Roma in Serie A on Monday, securing Champions League qualification for Gian Piero Gasperini’s side.

Sulemana sealed the three points for Atalanta in the 76th minute, scoring with a low strike from just outside the area, after Roma midfielder Bryan Cristante cancelled out an early opener by Ademola Lookman.

Atalanta, who fell behind in the title race, sit third in the standings on 71 points and have a seven-point cushion over fourth-placed Juventus and Lazio in fifth with two games left to play.

Roma, who failed to capitalise on Lazio and Juventus dropping points in a 1-1 stalemate on Saturday, are sixth with 63 points.

Atalanta snapped the visitors’ impressive unbeaten league run of 19 games, with Claudio Ranieri’s side previously having been defeated mid-December at Como.

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Things started off brightly for Atalanta as Lookman stroked in past Roma goalkeeper Mile Svilar to put them in front after nine minutes.

Charles De Ketelaere dribbled past the Roma defence to set the Nigerian up with a precise low cross inside the box and the striker controlled the ball to score inside the right post.

It was Atalanta’s 100th goal this season across all competitions.

De Ketelaere had two good chances to double the advantage but Roma midfielder Cristante levelled for the visitors instead, netting with a flicked header after the half-hour mark.

Things slowed down significantly after a lively first half until Roma were awarded a penalty after an hour of play, following a clash between Atalanta’s Mario Pasalic and Manu Kone.

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The referee, however, overturned his decision after consulting VAR.

Sulemana eventually restored the lead for Atalanta in the 76th minute, scoring with a low strike from just outside the area — a goal that stood after a VAR check for a potential offside.

Roma host AC Milan next weekend before visiting mid-table Torino in their bid to qualify for Europe’s elite club competition for the first time since the 2018-19 campaign.

Atalanta travel to Genoa on Sunday before welcoming lowly Parma in their final fixture.

-Reuters

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SERIE A

After 3 years of suspension, Paul Pogba sees the light again

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Paul Pogba can return to competition with the end of his 18-month doping ban on Tuesday, with the 2018 world champion hoping to leave behind three cataclysmic years also marked by injuries and a kidnapping case of which he was the victim.

The long penance of the French international (91 caps), one of the biggest stars in the world of football, is coming to an end and the midfielder will be able to draw a line under what seems like a slow descent into hell.

Suspended for four years after testing positive for non-endogenous testosterone metabolites (DHEA) at the end of the Juventus-Udinese match on August 20, 2023, Pogba saw his sanction reduced to 18 months by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, the CAS considering that the “ingestion” of the substance “was not intentional and resulted from taking a food supplement prescribed by a doctor in Florida.”

Based in Miami, the native of Lagny-sur-Marne, east of Paris, is now ready to bounce back, his Instagram account still very popular (62.7 million followers) multiplies photos of intensive training, with a few fashion shots, another of his passions. Sign of his return, at least in the media, while waiting to be able to resume the thread of his prestigious career.

His ultimate dream remains the 2026 World Cup, but he would first have to find a club. La Pioche (32 years old on March 15), whose contract with Juventus Turin that ran until 2026 was terminated last November, “is training 1000%, he is in good spirits, he has received many offers”, assures a member of his entourage. He is also in regular contact with the coach of the Blues Didier Deschamps, “one of his advisors for sporting decisions”, according to one of his close friends.

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But who could be interested in a player whose last match was on September 3, 2023 with Juve?

During one of his rare public appearances, on AmineMaTue’s Twitch channel in January, he explained that he had received ” proposals, not very interesting stuff”, such as “going to play in Russia, but that’s not the goal “.

A contract, he admitted, ” doesn’t depend on me, but on many other things.”

– Strength of character –

David Beckham’s Inter Miami could be a solution. Pogba lives in the Florida metropolis where he bought a house, he was in the stands for the Roses’ first MLS match of the season, against New York City (2-2), on February 23, and he is fine-tuning his fitness with the fitness coach of Lionel Messi, the team’s star.

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Olympique de Marseille also sounded him out, and football director Medhi Benatia played with him at Juventus. But OM did not want to take the risk of signing a player whose fitness is surrounded by too many questions.

In any case, morale seems to be at its highest, with Pogba having always maintained his legendary strength of character even in the worst of storms.

“I ‘ve had a difficult year, so I have this rage, this desire to play football and enjoy it until the end of my career,” he said on Al Jazeera channel, just before his positive test.

Also badly affected by the kidnapping case of which he was the victim in 2022, he can now also try to forget this sordid episode with the end of the trial of his attackers at the end of 2024, his brother Mathias and five of his childhood friends having been sentenced to terms of up to eight years in prison.

“I can finally turn the page on this extremely difficult period. This conclusion is an opportunity for everyone to focus on the future. Now that the judgment has been delivered, I can fully concentrate on my return to professional football ,” he wrote to AFP after the verdict.

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” That he can rediscover the pleasure of playing on the pitch, that’s all I wish for him because humanly he’s really a good person ,” said Didier Deschamps in 2024.

Le360/AFP


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