Italian women demonstrate the art of getting noticed

While the girls of England and Wales have to dress up all pretty, iron their hair, and then sit patiently in bars before footballers take notice of them, out in sunny Italy, potential WAGs have a much more in-your-face method for attracting their men.

Christian Vieri’s Ex is responsible for lightening Sven’s squad

In 2006/07, striker Bernardo Corradi mustered only three goals for Manchester City, so it’s no surprise that Sven put him on a plane back to Italy earlier this season. It turns out that Corradi had been pushing for a move back to his home nation for some time, as he wished to be closer to his girlfriend Elena Santarelli. Looking at the way she scrubs up, it’s hard to blame him…

Another weapon in Brescia’s sexy arsenal

Last Tuesday, The Spoiler’s WAG of the Day was the impossibly-good looking Alessia Fabiani, the better half of Brescia’s Alessio Tacchinardi. One week later, and the femme du jour is also an Italian named Alessia, whose husband also happens to play for the same Serie B outfit. And if by sheer coincidence, she has also earned a living following the exact same career path as every other Italian WAG (dancer on ropey TV show, nudie calendar, a few shoddy B Movies etc). Unless I have become confused by similar sounding names and circumstances, today’s WAG is Alessia Merz, the wife of striker Fabio Bazzani.

Further proof that Italians are far too good looking

Most self-respecting glamour models (oxymoron alert) in the UK wouldn’t focus their attentions on anything other than the finest Premier League players to fall out of Chinawhite. In Italy, however, it seems that playing for a lower league club does not decrease your chances of scoring with a woman who bares her breasts for a living. The lovely lady above is Alessia Fabiani, who has dated (and may still be dating) the alarmingly-similar sounding Alessio Tacchinardi. He plays for Brescia, a team who hover between the top two flights (like an Italian Bolton, if you will) and who are currently pushing for a place in Serie A.

Italy, you’ve done it again

As the well-travelled among you will know, every single Italian woman in her twenties looks like this. And as if the gents in the boot-shaped nation aren’t treated to enough aesthetic pleasure when they leave their homes, they get to see twenty-five-year-old Giorgia Palmas in racy magazine shoots and on Striscia la notizia, the Italian equivalent of The Daily Show that satirises government corruption. Presumably, irt is a show that never runs out of material.

England’s stern new gaffer has run into a little tax difficulty

The Italian tax detectives have been pointing their magnifying glasses at the bank accounts of Fabio Capello recently, reports Milan’s Il Giornale. Mr Capello, a one-time employee of Juventus, a club whose enthusiasm for football took a back seat to their love of corruption for many years, is being looked at for “suspected tax evasion.”

The manager’s lawyer son Pierfilippo said,

He obviously wasn’t invited to the Manchester United Christmas party

In an audience with Giancarlo Abete, head of the Italian Football League, and a delegation of Serie D clubs (that’s Italian for Blue Square conference north), Pope Benedict XVI claimed that football can teach young people important lessons in life.

Sir Alex Ferguson’s counterpart in the Catholic church claimed that

Local criminal settles training ground argument with a chair

From the website 100% Injury Rate, a story of two Italian players who no longer like each other much. Instead of settling their differences properly, though, such as in a car park or by drinking alone deep into the night, the young men involved seem to have confused real life with the way arguments are settled in Italian-themed movies. And not Il Postino.

Davide Marchini and Pasquale Foggia, who