All penalty takers with the penalties of others

Penalty is when the referee blows the whistle. And he blows the whistle more and more often, according to the canons of the new regulation : beyond the concept of penalty kick, the species of “never penalty” is born, invoked by Vincenzo Italiano in Parma and others before him, to describe certain non-handballs. If technicians and footballers say so, the first among the insiders, what does it take for the eggheads of the Federation to change the regulation and return the maximum punishment to its original meaning, that is, compensation for the voluntary and unregular stop to a markedly offensive action?

It stands to reason that with fewer discs (and fewer mechanical, unnatural, decimal offsides), some attackers would lose the desire to go against their own team and coach, in the mania of updating the top scorers' rankings in a way that is only apparently easy. For every Lorenzo Lucca who challenges everything and everyone by scoring in the top corner - and then disappearing, he had done his part - there is an Ademola Lookman who contravenes and makes a mistake, when the goal becomes smaller and smaller for the one taking the penalty, as much as it becomes larger for the one who should save. So much so that he cares, he will go away.

This is "La nota stonata", Enrico Veronese's column on the Serie A weekend, which tells what breaks and disturbs the narrative of the beauty of our championship which is increasingly distant from being the most beautiful in the world.

The penalty can also be missed, indeed: it is necessary to let those who celebrate in advance for its award know. Especially if Vanja Milinković-Savić is between the posts, who hypnotizes Christian Pulisic and saves his fourth penalty of the season: the first team leader, if there is one, as goalkeepers often were in the past. In a tournament that could become Lautaro Martínez's personal garden again, if only he wanted, the granata's meticulousness is the same as Giacomo Raspadori's: if he plays he scores, and he would be a starter in any team at the center of the attack, it is not a given that the way to goal is for the physically strong paintbrushes.

Inter wins, Napoli loses, Atalanta doesn't give up: the three-card monte says this this time , and extending the consideration to the lack of victories for Napoli in the last month does not allow us to draw definitive indications from the mere results. Because the Nerazzurri team suffered and risked in order to get the better of Genoa, and Antonio Conte's men paid for an unrepeatable error in addition to the brazen talent of the Como forwards. The situation could soon be reversed, with Inter still in contention in the Champions League round of 16, while their rivals are not.

Europe Europe, another world: we saw it with the elimination of three quarters of the Italian contingent at the hands of the old Benelux. Among the many reasons for the joint flop, it does not seem far-fetched that it is also attributed to a decline in physical condition, after the superfluous efforts at the beginning of the year for the Super Cup in Arabia. The fact is that outside the borders football runs fast, even too fast, and becomes a pinball machine in the handkerchief of clods, where tiki-taka implied a surplus of fast reasoning for the superfine Xavi González and Andrés Iniesta, without crowding the area.

In the meantime, the new formula of the Champions League before the Super League has reshuffled the cards , and given new centrality to Dutch football, as it was in 1988: two teams in the eighth-finals of the main competition, as many in the increasingly less gregarious Europa League. And it could have been a plein, without the late defeat of Twente. Far from the spotlight, with a National team that is perennially underestimated after the years of glory, a new ancient football is emerging among the polders, always capable of combining strength and imagination, ubiquity above the pitch and quick adaptation: the football of Tijjani Reijnders.

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