MILAN — On the surface, it’s just another Serie A fixture: Inter versus Sassuolo, the blue-and-black aristocrats against the fluorescent green upstarts from Modena’s concrete hinterland. Yet, from a safe distance—say, a barstool in Lagos or a betting app in Manila—the match becomes a perfect parable for the age: a study in how late-stage capitalism…
Udinese–Milan: A Provincial Derby in the Age of Global Collateral DÜSSELDORF — In a saner universe, a mid-table Serie A fixture on a damp Thursday night would register somewhere between the price of turnips in Tashkent and the new season of whatever Netflix has green-lit to pacify the algorithm. Yet here we are, live-blogging Udinese…
Verona vs Juventus: A Microscopic Opera of Global Delusion By Dave’s Locker International Desk There is, at first glance, nothing cosmic about a mid-table scuffle in Serie A. Verona—city of star-crossed teenagers, overpriced opera tickets, and the faint smell of mildewed romance—hosts Juventus, that Turin-based global hedge fund that occasionally fields a football team. And…
Lecce vs Cagliari: A Mediterranean Derby for the Age of Collapse By Our Man in Purgatory, filing from the Otranto Bar, somewhere between the Adriatic and the abyss There is, of course, no earthly reason why the world’s attention should pivot to a mid-table scuffle in Italy’s deep south. The Arctic is on fire, bond…
Como vs Genoa: A Provincial Derby That Explains Why the World Is Still a Mess by “Il Professore” – Dave’s Locker’s Balkan bureau chief, currently on sabbatical in a lakeside bar tabacchi Lake Como’s Sunday residents—Russian oligarchs in floating villas, German tax exiles in electric speedboats, and a solitary Swiss banker who still thinks fax…
Verona FC: A Provincial Opera with a Global Libretto by Dave’s Locker, International Desk If you stand at the intersection of Via Leoncino and the 21st-century attention economy, you’ll find Hellas Verona FC—an Italian football club whose greatest export is not goals but exquisite, slow-motion tragedy. The world now watches via dodgy streams, half-cut on…
Milan vs Bologna: A Derby of Desperation in the Age of Global Collateral Damage By Our Man in the Mezzogiorno, still coughing up neoliberal dust MILAN—At first glance, tonight’s Serie A fixture between Milan and Bologna is merely the 156th official meeting of two clubs whose combined trophy cabinets could house a modest oligarch’s ego….
Roma vs Torino: A Serie A Sideshow in the Grand Theater of Geopolitical Chaos By Dave’s Locker International Correspondent Somewhere between the Tiber and the Po, two football clubs will kick a ball tonight while the rest of the planet rehearses its usual slow-motion apocalypse. Roma—capital club, eternal city, home to popes, emperors, and the…
Rasmus Højlund to Napoli: A Nordic Tragedy in Three Acts, Starring the Global Transfer Market as Itself The rumour, like a cheap espresso in Naples’ back alleys, is short, bitter, and impossible to ignore: Manchester United’s Viking-in-residence, Rasmus Højlund, is being courted by Napoli. On paper it’s a mere line in the sports pages; in…
Sunday night in Florence and the Arno is doing its best impression of a mirror, reflecting a city that still believes in beauty even when the rest of the planet is busy uglifying itself. Inside the Stadio Artemio Franchi, Fiorentina and Napoli are about to play a football match that, on paper, is just another…
Juventus vs Inter: The Derby That Could Start a Small Trade War By Dave’s Foreign Correspondent Somewhere Between Milan and Turin, Nursing an Overpriced Espresso The Derby d’Italia is back, and for once the Italian government isn’t the most dysfunctional thing on display. Juventus—fresh from accounting classes and a 15-point deduction that vanished like a…
