Paolo Bandini




Beyond The Pitch show

Summary: Anto is joined by Paolo Bandini, football correspondent with The Guardian, to take a deeper look into all the unpredictability inside Serie A with respect to the results over the last three weeks - if not the entire season - while a real battle has opened up for third with no leading character looking ready to grab the slot for Champions League next year. At the fulcrum of this unintended consequence is the continued failures at Inter who have suffered three straight losses and look no more certain to find any consistency in the wake of a number of bad decisions and poor choices that are well beyond just the loss Jose Mourinho and a constant revolving door of managers since he left for Real Madrid. We also preview the midweek Champions League fixtures for Napoli and Inter and where their fortunes appear to lie and how this will impact their reach for the third in Serie A, while also factoring in the threat Roma provides in terms of their plan which finally shows signs of taking root. The we turn our attention to the biggest match this weekend in world football between AC Milan and Juventus which may just be six years in the making where two eternal rivals are going head to head for the spoils at the very top of Serie A. We look at the key variables including a resurgent Gigi Buffon, the emergence of Thiago Silva, a revived Andrea Pirlo and whether the decision to reduce the Zlatan Ibrahimovic suspension might just be the biggest factor going into this match. We also examine the two young managers themselves - Allegri and Conte - to gauge whether these are the kind of managers who can truly take these clubs to places that match lofty ambitions beyond Italy and into the world limelight. Then we close on the big picture for Fiorentina where Montolivo looks gone in the summer and imagine what is left for Delio Rossi should Jovetic cash in on his great season for greener pastures elsewhere in Italy or Europe.