Ac Milan extend their lead at the top over second place Juventus after the Rossoneri ease passed Lecce on Sunday with two goals from Antonio Nocerino and Zlatan Ibrahimovic, while their rival picked up another draw on the road.
The results still puts those two teams ahead of the others especially after Lazio missed out on the chance to catch up with Juve after getting beaten by Bologna, leaving the third place spot under siege.
Is the pressure of the title race starting to get to Juventus? It appears so as last night’s 1-1 draw with Bologna was Juve’s third success draw, the third 1-1 result. If Juve does not win the title this season they will look back at the 13 draws this season as they reason they are not champions.
This was a poor Juventus performance, especially in the first-half when Bologna went ahead through a Marco Di Vaio goal in the 17th minute. They were slightly better in the second half and when Mirko Vucinic scored in the 59th minute to tie things up I expected the Bianconeri to go on an win the match.
As one unbeaten run came to a close in England, another ws sustained in Italy as the magic hands of Italy and Juventus keeper Gianluigi Buffon earned the Bianconeri a 1-1 draw with Roma.
It’s been interesting to see how the Italian Serie A is playing out these past couples of weeks. Many did not expect the likes of Lazio, Napoli and Udinese to put up such a stiff fight for such a long time.
Juve’s latest result sees them take their unbeaten run in the league to 14 games. Folowing their result, Juve moved back to the top of the league level on 30 points with Udinese. Defending Champions Milan are in third place just 2 points of the lead.
The poor performance by Italian clubs in Europe last season has caused the Italia football federation (IFF) to change the rules. Effectively immediately, each club in Serie A will be allowed to sign a second non-EU player.
A year ago, after Italy’s first-round exit at the World Cup, the federation reduced the number of non-EU players from two to one with the goal of giving more Italian players playing time.
But the move to help the national team backfired as no Italian club made it past the quarterfinals of the Champions League and the Round of 32 in the Europa League last season.
Juventus became the latest footballing giant to announce a loss, as the club’s board announced on Monday that Juve lost 39.5 million euros during the first half of the 2010-11 season. Over the same period of the previous season, the club recorded profits of 14.2 million euros.
Revenue for the period was 88.8 million euros, a fall of 29% on the previous year (125 million euros). One big reason for the 29% drop in revenues was that Juve was in the Europa League this season instead of the more lucrative Champions League. There were also changes to the way money from television rights is shared between Italian clubs, which contributed to the shortfall.
It looks like 2010 won’t be a year that Juventus’ number one keeper, Gianluigi Buffon, would like to remember as his recurring back injury has forced him not only to take an early exit at the world cup but also to miss out on the first part of the upcoming season. The Italian shot stopper, has confirmed that he most likely won’t be playing in remaining of this year because he will do a surgery to resolve his injury, the 32-years-old revealed that he won’t be back until next year.
I have decided. I’ve had enough of living with this uncertainty, so I will have surgery,The operation won’t be immediately, but in 2011 I’ll be back as good as new. I might even return earlier, but I won’t kid myself. Let’s just say I am focusing on January for my comeback. I intend to take all the time I need,” He said to the press.
Real Madrid has once again regained the top spot the Deloitte Football Money League, but that is only because of the continuing decline of the pound against the euro.
The Deloitte Football Money League list is based on clubs’ revenue excluding transfer fees
Dan Jones, partner in the sports business group at Deloitte, said:
“All the English clubs were impacted by the continuing depreciation of the pound against the euro and the scale of this is shown by the fact that if exchange rates remained at their June 2007 level, United would be top of the money league table.”