Jack O’Malley

Il Foglio Sportivo – That wins the best

24 OCT 26

The Pappapero competition

It’s great to beat the Smurfs in Italy. Then you go into the Champions League and ‘talk to God’

The four defeats in four matches suffered by Italian sides in the Champions League are a reflection of mediocre football that, at best, is content to win the prize for the best ‘head-held-high’ performance of the season

Jack O’Malley

16 OCT 26

Bolso vs Re Media

The sadness at CR7 and Messi’s departure from the national team is nothing when you realise they will still be playing

I shall not join the chorus of those comparing the ‘finales’ of the two greatest – and most troubled – footballers of the last twenty years. Not least because neither of them is reaching the end of their careers: Messi will continue to roam the pitches of the MLS, applying to football the saying about the one-eyed man being king in the land of the blind, whilst Ronaldo will persist in scoring goals against the Bedouins in Arabia to keep his tally up.

Jack O’Malley

8 OCT 26

Il Foglio Sportivo – the one that wins the best

Cristiano cannot be taken out by someone called Jesus

They are all (or almost all) capable of winning as Manchester City did. Certain scams must be punished.

Jack O’Malley

3 OCT 26

Mancini’s quiff on the front page

Phenomenal! No, useless! Or rather, champions! The media’s schizophrenic coverage of the Azzurri

Italy’s victory over the only team in a worse state than the national side (Turkey) has sent Italian newspapers and fans back into the usual sporting sugar high that follows and precedes the depressing post-defeat crash in blood sugar levels

Jack O’Malley

30 SEP 26

Il Foglio Sport

It takes just three steps to make sense of this struggling Milan side

The Europa League used to be a decent competition; they’ve stripped it bare and filled it with unwatchable matches

Jack O’Malley

19 SEP 26

Just sport and boobs

Sydney Sweeney shows her breasts and it is a scandal. But wasn’t the problem in the eye of the beholder?

Would the actress, dressed in long trousers, a striped T-shirt and a cap, really have lent more dignity to women’s baseball? The narrative about women’s resilience in sport and the ‘problem’ of a very blonde, not very democratic young woman (in the sense of the Party)

Jack O’Malley

17 SEP 26

Dogs and pigs

Big matches already in the Champions League ‘super group’, Eastern European ‘knockout’ fixtures in Europe and the Conference League

The over-expansion of the ‘new’ Champions League format has drained much of the drama from the matches played during the week. This is true both when results are a foregone conclusion – such as City’s victory in Porto with two goals from Haaland – and when a team like Bødo Glimt ‘pulls off a shock’ at the Metropolitano.

Jack O’Malley

10 SEP 26

Nothing new to report

Good news: Messi is leaving the national team. Bad news: he has not yet retired.

La Pulce is bidding farewell to Argentina, but he will not be giving up football. Consequently, we will continue to encounter discussions about who is more beloved between him and Cristiano Ronaldo and, above all, the never-ending debate over ‘who’s better, him or Maradona?’. A literary genre, rather than a footballing phenomenon

Jack O’Malley

1 SEP 26

Il Foglio Sportivo – the one that wins the best

For the Italian women’s teams in the Champions League, it’s all about taking part

The market is finally winding down, but be warned: there are still loads of parcels to sell

Jack O’Malley

29 AUG 26

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