And so it’s over. Another season has drawn to a close. It wasn't a vintage one in Serie A, but that can also be said of the Premier League, La Liga, the Bundesliga and Ligue 1. From spring onward, if not earlier, the title race felt like a foregone conclusion and was wrapped up with three games to play. In the absence of a consistent challenger for the title, it was often remarked that the biggest threat to Juventus were themselves. The Scudetto was theirs to lose. And considering their mental resilience, quite simply, that was never going to happen. Read »

Can a good player bring bad luck? From looking on Theofanis Gekas' impact in the last years, one might easily think that is possible. The veteran striker, once nicknamed "the Greek God" by Bochum fans when he was the Bundesliga's top scorer in 2006=07, found the net at will when given the opportunity in the past three seasons (2009-12). Unfortunately for his clubs, it didn't really help, as each team was relegated. As a matter of fact, until last week, Portsmouth were the last team that had Gekas on their books in May but didn’t go down. Read »

It ended with just another football match and a team selection that glanced to a future in which Manchester United must do without Sir Alex Ferguson. The club existed before him, of course, but Ferguson has made it what it is today and must live up to in future. His final season in charge ended with a title won as relentlessly as any that preceded it, yet without the quality of his finest triumphs. Perhaps diminishing returns are the price of repeated success; the excitement of those first flushes is replaced by the necessity of meeting expectations and avoiding failure. Read »