Telling the story of Fabio Quagliarella’s career through the medium of polyester… Sampdoria 2006/07 After coming through the ranks with Torino and serving his apprenticeship with Fiorentina, Chieti and Ascoli, Quagliarella rose to prominence in Serie A with Sampdoria. A haul of 13 goals in 35 games helped the Blucerchiati to a top-ten finish, placing Quagliarella on the radar of Nazionale coach, Roberto Donadoni. The forward donned Samp’s Kappa shirt; one of the early generations of tight-fitting jerseys, complete with iconic ERG sponsor. His first spell at Sampdoria was also where Quagliarell ..read more

For many years, experts have pondered whether traditional jobs will eventually be replaced by robots and artificial intelligence. With the emergence of ChatGPT, that debate is becoming more relevant than ever. So, what is ChatGPT? In simple terms, it’s a powerful tool that can generate human-like text. The tool has been ‘trained’ on a massive dataset of written content from the internet. All of that data is digested and rules are deciphered (the clever AI bit…) which allow the tool to replicate, imitate and summarise what it has previously seen. ChatGPT can write emails and essays, poetry or a ..read more

Unsuspecting groundhoppers might encounter some difficulty in pinpointing SPAL on a map. Societa Polisportiva Ars et Labor is one of Europe’s only acronymic football clubs and is unusual in that none of the initials reference the historic city of Ferrara from which they hail.  The origins of the football club can be traced back to a cultural and religious order founded by a priest in the early 20th century. Over time, an independent sporting arm broke away, but those ecclesiastic roots are still evident today in the club’s blue and white colours taken from the coat of arms ..read more

Gianluca Vialli was one of the finest centre forwards of his generation, he won almost every trophy on offer during a glittering playing career. Those footballing accolades are only surpassed by the testimonies of those who knew him as a kind, amiable and intelligent man. We take a look back at the defining images of Luca’s career Luca first made a name for himself with his home town club, Cremonese, in the early 1980s A young Luca Vialli in the grey and red pinstripes of @USCremonese From the pages of Guerin Sportivo pic.twitter.com/yCvYO8x1BE — Calcio England (@CalcioEngland) February 1 ..read more

Each week, the Serie B authorities dish out a series of fines relating to events that occurred during the previous matchday. These sanctions typically relate to the behaviour of supporters, such as firecrackers and bottles thrown towards the pitch or opposition supporters. We’ve analysed the data published on legab.it (up to matchday 16) to find out who’s been misbehaving and how. Before we begin, it’s worth noting that every week a handful of clubs are cited but not fined for the presence of illicit materials (usually pyrotechnics) in the curva. So long as these don’t end up on the pitch or i ..read more

Join us as we venture a few stops east of Milan to see what happens when a billionaire former Prime Minister throws his considerable means behind a provincial minnow… The Backstory The arrival of the Berlusconi family in 2018 heralded a new dawn for AC Monza. Before this, the club had endured over a century of mediocrity, existing in the shadows of their more illustrious Milanese neighbours. Now, backed by the financial might of Berlusconi and the wisdom of former-Milan CEO Adriano Galliani, Monza find themselves in Serie A for the first time in their history.  I Biancorossi ha ..read more