Serie A Briefing: Kean's mea culpa, Pulisic's beard, and Juve's emotional tribute to Manninger

AtalantaInternazionaleJuventusMilanNapoliScores & ScheduleStandingsPodcastsAnalysisSerie A Briefing: Kean’s mea culpa, Pulisic’s beard, and Juve’s emotional tribute to ManningerGianluigi Buffon, right, Leonardo Bonucci, left, and other former Juventus stars carry a wreath for ex team-mate Alex Manninger Image Photo Agency/Getty Images Share article“You seen this?” Antoine Griezmann laughed. Matteo Ruggeri tried to push the camera away. The staples in his splattered forehead stuck out. Blood continued to gush. “El Tigre’s gonna look better now,” his Atletico team-mate, Koke, joked. Even the club’s social media admin got in on the act. “Call an ambulance!” Ruggeri did not emerge unscathed from playing one-on-one with arguably the best player on the planet. Lamine Yamal skipped past him. He nutmegged and eluded him. Atletico’s coach, Diego Simeone, shouted at him. “Matteo! Matteo!” Back in the dressing room at the Metropolitano, Ruggeri raised a fist and smiled. It was worth it. Atletico were through to the Champions League semi-finals and their 23-year-old Italian, one of three ex-Atalanta players in the Atleti team, looked like a warrior. His continued presence this deep into Europe’s elite club competition was of consolation to his compatriots back home, who, unlike last year, do not have a Serie A representative to cheer on. Straws were clutched instead. Simeone began his coaching career in Europe with Catania. Paris Saint-Germain boss Luis Enrique, it was acknowledged, got his first job in men’s football at Roma. In the Sky Italia studio, Paolo Di Canio sensed the desperation. When presenter Federica Masolin turned to him and asked, more in lament than curiosity, when we might see a Serie A team back at this stage, he, in jest, took it as a provocation and began banging his head on the desk. “Mister, I’ve hurt myself,” Di Canio said, as his head opened, Ruggeri-style. Luckily for him, fellow-pundit-turned-first-aid-responder Fabio Capello was on hand with a handkerchief. Italian football continues to beat itself up about this year’s performances in the Champions League and, particularly, missing out on the World Cup for a third time in a row. Moise Kean hasn’t taken it lightly. “You can shove your tongue up your arse or I’ll do it for you,” the Fiorentina striker DM-ed the tipster and influencer Pengwin after his criticism for Italy’s defeat to Bosnia in the play-offs. When Pengwin and a camera crew from satirical comedy show Le Iene took him at his word to resolve the matter in person, provocatively turning up outside Kean’s house to make content out of it, things got heated. “We’re human. We all make mistakes,” Kean said about Italy’s loss in Zenica and the one-on-one he missed that might have put the tie to bed. The former Everton player then apologised for, among other things, falling into the trap of engaging with an attention-seeker. Antonio Conte, meanwhile, paid a visit to the Poggioreale prison in Naples, where he gave a talk to 100 inmates as part of a rehabilitation project. “Making mistakes is part of everyone’s journey,” he said. “There is always the chance to make amends and get back on the right track.” His Napoli players took no notice. After drawing 1-1 with Parma last weekend, a 2-0 defeat to Lazio snuffed out the faint hopes they nurtured of retaining their title. Kevin De Bruyne, uncharacteristically, had the worst pass-completion rate on the Napoli team. “We were really drained today,” Leonardo Spinazzola said. “It wasn’t physical. We were lacking mental energy. Personally, I think it was down to a setback we had against Parma. We’ve been pushing and chasing all year. There was this little flame.” A chance of catching Inter? “It’s gone out.” Milan experienced something similar a week ago. They lost heavily to Udinese after Napoli had ended their title ambitions by beating them 1-0 at the Maradona on April 6. Coming to terms with it has not been easy for either. They dared to dream. Old objectives, fleetingly taken for granted, have since become new ones, although Como’s sudden bout of vertigo has, perhaps, made Champions League qualification less stressful. “We can’t be so presumptuous as to have been thinking about Tuesday’s Coppa Italia semi-final second leg,” Cesc Fabregas said. “We’re Como, so we need to stay calm. It wasn’t long ago we were in Serie B. Sassuolo could have beaten us 5-1 today and no one would have said nothing.” Except, these days, Como, as was the case with Atalanta in the Gian Piero Gasperini era, are now considered a big club disguised as a small club. While a disappointment, their 2-1 defeat at the Mapei was not a capitulation. Sassuolo needed their goalkeeper, Stefano Turati, to produce one of the saves of the season from Nico Paz in order to protect the result. Magia di Nico Paz ✨ Turati risponde così🚫 pic.twitter.com/bkzAg9PjR5 — Lega Serie A (@SerieA) April 18, 2026 If Como’s breath is no longer making the hairs on the back of Napoli and Milan’s necks stand up, whispers about their coaches’ futures have pricked ears. Conte clarified that he wasn’t putting himself in the frame for the Italy job when he said the next FIGC president should definitely include his name on the shortlist to replace Rino Gattuso. As for Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis telling The Athletic “he will kill his baby” if he leaves (the baby being the team Conte has assembled), he said: “I’m not going to respond, and if I do so it’ll be in private, not in public.” Conte is fed up with his words being misinterpreted. “The less you say, the better,” he insisted. As for Max Allegri, he is aware of the chatter around him and the national team. “The only people not talking about it are my mates back home in Livorno,” he said. While the timing for him to step into international football feels right, Allegri denied getting a phone call from the candidates vying to succeed Gabriele Gravina as FIGC president. As much as his unflappable character seems to be exactly what this group of Italian players need in order to deliver under pressure, Allegri is committed to Milan. “My track record speaks for itself. I was at Milan for four years. I was at Juventus for eight years. Now I’m back at Milan…” Which means that fans of Milan have years of the football they played against Verona to look forward to. Milan were woeful. Whether Christian Pulisic is refusing to shave until he next scores a goal remains unclear, but the beard growth is indicative of how long it’s been since he was last decisive. Their 1-0 win and nearing a Champions League return was all that mattered to Allegri, along, that is, with calling out the racist abuse goalkeeper Mike Maignan once again suffered at the Bentegodi. Eight points inside the Champions League places, the threat from within the top four, at least to Milan and Napoli, comes from Juventus. Jonathan David’s goal inside the first 90 seconds of Bologna’s visit to the Allianz Stadium set the tone for one of the best performances of the season under Luciano Spalletti. Juventus used Bologna’s high line against them, repeatedly releasing Francisco Conceicao in behind. It was frankly a surprise, at half-time, that they weren’t more than one goal to the good. Juventus now have a five-point cushion on fifth place with five games to go. Gradually, things have begun falling into place in Turin; Yildiz’s new contract, then Spalletti’s extension, now Manuel Locatelli’s renewal. As Juventus made a step closer to Champions League football, they bid farewell to Alex Manninger, who died aged 48 last week. In a moving tribute, his former team-mates Gigi Buffon, Claudio Marchisio, Giorgio Chiellini, and Antonio Chimenti laid a wreath in his memory by the goal nearest where the ultras stand. A minute’s silence turned into a call and response of “Alex” and “Manninger”. “Dear Alex,” Buffon posted on Instagram. “Every word is superfluous. Every tear I cry is for the loss of a friend I always admired.” Those tears welled up when Buffon settled the wreath down in the six-yard box on Sunday evening. On the eve of Roma’s game against his former club, Atalanta, Gasperini was so overcome with emotion from reminiscing about his time in Bergamo that he abruptly ended his pre-match press conference. His voice had started to break. His eyes had filled like a bathtub. And so he pushed the desk away and cut a quivering dash for the door. It had been a week in which Gasp perhaps wondered if he had made the right call in leaving Atalanta. Public criticism by Roma’s senior advisor and Gasperini’s predecessor in the dugout, Claudio Ranieri, stung. “It really came as a huge surprise to me, because there was never — and I mean never — any tension between Ranieri and me; whether that was in press conferences, the meetings we held with other people at the club, or in our relationship with each other.” Gasperini si emoziona ricordando la “sua” Atalanta 🥹❤️#Gasperini #Roma #DAZN pic.twitter.com/OO88ckjkZg — DAZN Italia (@DAZN_IT) April 17, 2026 The fans came down, not on Ranieri’s side, but on Gasperini’s. A big cheer greeted his name when it was read out on the tannoy at the Olimpico. A banner in the Curva Sud read: “Whatever role one plays in the name of this club, we are all duty-bound to uphold the spirit of Roma, with dedication and integrity. AS Roma is a serious matter.” Roma did not put it behind them. They fell behind to Atalanta, came back, drew 1-1, and presented Juventus with an opportunity to get away from them again. The players were whistled off the pitch as another year without Champions League football comes into view. And to think Roma won five of their first six league games this season. As with Milan and Napoli, they were just another title pretender to fall by the wayside. Inter’s 3-0 win against Cagliari at the weekend stretched their lead to 12 points at the top of the table. Asked if his players had the look of champions in the dressing room afterwards, Cristian Chivu said: “I didn’t get much of a look at their faces. They’ve always got their heads down looking at their phone. I call this the ‘one-hand generation’ because the lads always have their phones in one hand and use the other hand to do other things.” Thankfully, he didn’t elaborate further, although, if results go Inter’s way next weekend, they could be using it to raise three fingers and make the gesture that they have won a third title in five years. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms