Search: 'Martin Palermo'

It's been 20 years since the island had a team in Serie A, but as Matt Barker writes, it looks as if Palermo and Messina will both be in the top flight next season

 W ith Milan’s 17th Scudetto done and dusted, Italian attention has passed in recent weeks to the promotion chase, or rather marathon, down in Serie B. From next season Italy’s top division will expand to 20, a consequence of last year’s shenanigans that followed threats of legal action when Siena fielded an ineligible player. The Italian football federation re­instated the teams relegated from the second division (and took Fiorentina up from Serie C2 with them). Five sides will now go up from an expanded B, with a sixth playing off against Perugia.

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Even with Ronaldo in one of his funny moods, Brazil rarely needed to break sweat to retain their South American title in Paraguay as Sam Wallace reports

At either end of the Defensores Del Chacos ground in Asunción, the capital of Paraguay, stood enormous models of Budweiser cans which, at set in­tervals, would start to gyrate. Occasionally, a plastic bag thrown from the crowd behind the goal would sail over the cans, jettisoning in flight its cargo of urine. The irony was hard to ignore. No amount of expensive advertising ever quite managed to sanitise a gloriously chaotic Copa America 1999.

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A poor performance while on international duty could have a more worrying effect on a player's domestic club than meets the eye, writes Neil Wills

When Martin Palermo missed three penalties against Colombia he unwittingly wrote him­self into the Copa America record books. What he probably did not realise at the time (hey, he probably had other things on his mind) was that his profligacy from 12 yards would have far-reaching repercussions for British football clubs in this age of the market.

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Thursday 1 The Department of Employment issue new rules on work permits. Players will be given permits for the length of their contracts rather than having their cases reviewed at the end of each season, and the rule stipulating that non-EU players must be among the top five wage earners at their clubs is scrapped. Forest's search for a manager ends with the appointment of the impressively tanned David Platt, who says: "The two months I had at Sampdoria were a massive learning curve." That's just what Sampdoria fans will have been thinking when they went down. The charges against Sol Camp≠bell for assaulting a steward after the Derby v Spurs match last autumn are dropped. Arsenal spend £3.5 million on a Brazilian full back, Silvinho, who says: "I have been following Arsenal ever since I knew they were watching me."

Friday 2 The PFA's Gordon Taylor criticises the changes to work permit rules. "We already have more foreign players than anywhere else in the world. Removing the wages criteria means you are opening the door to players who are not neccesarily top quality". Terry McDermott joins the Barnes-Dalglish dream team at Celtic as "social manager" – a highly specialised position which involves a lot of shouting and laughing plus the collecting of betting slips.

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