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DeutschAC Milan Vs Inter Milan – Italy Prodigy Set For Maiden Derby Della Madonnina Start: No Stranger To Scoring Vs Rossoneri
Inter Milan starlet Francesco Pio Esposito could make his inaugural Derby della Madonnina start when the Nerazzurri take on AC Milan on Sunday.
According to Tuttosport via FCInterNews, the 20-year-old is no stranger to scoring against the Rossoneri, though he has yet to do so at senior level.
With ten points separating the sides ahead of Sunday’s kickoff, Inter could land a knockout blow on Milan’s Scudetto hopes this weekend.
However, the Nerazzurri will have to achieve that without Lautaro Martinez, who remains in the pits with a calf injury.
Inter Milan Ace Pio Esposito Set to Make First Derby Start vs AC Milan
MILAN, ITALY – JANUARY 23: Francesco Pio Esposito of FC Internazionale Milano celebrates scoring his team’s third goal during the Serie A match between FC Internazionale and Pisa SC at Giuseppe Meazza Stadium on January 23, 2026 in Milan, Italy. (Photo by Marco Luzzani/Getty Images)
Lautaro’s absence leaves a significant hole in Inter’s attack, handing Pio Esposito a golden opportunity to shine on the grandest stage.
Indeed, the Italian prodigy is likely to get the nod in attack ahead of French star Ange-Yoan Bonny, who has just recovered from injury.
Esposito has been in far better form than Marcus Thuram lately, and he will shoulder the burden of expectations on Sunday.
However, if there’s anyone capable of scoring against the Rossoneri, it’s Esposito, who had frequently found the net against them at youth level.
🚨 Laporta and Font in the running to lead Barça, Ciria misses out
The elections for the presidency of FC Barcelona will be a duel between two. After the validation of signatures, the Electoral Board of FC Barcelona officially announced the presidential candidates for the upcoming elections.
In the end, only former president Joan Laporta and the leader of the Nosaltres candidacy, Victor Font, will take part in the blaugrana elections.
Both candidates secured the necessary support to run on March 15, unlike Marc Ciria. The third contender in the race for the presidency submitted 2,844 signatures on Monday but did not reach the 2,337 valid ones required to run.
Laporta submitted 8,169 signatures on Monday (7,226 valid), while the leader of 'Nosaltres' handed in a total of 5,144 (4,440 approved).
The next step in the electoral process will be the start of the campaign for both candidates tomorrow, Friday, during a period that will last until March 13. The elections will take place two days later.
This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇪🇸 here.
No surprise that this is where Notre Dame basketball is at with one game to go
SOUTH BEND – You could see this coming.
It was there on the horizon and getting closer out the front window as the days and the games ticked by. As January and its 65 days unfolded with so few wins and too many losses, you could see this coming. As February arrived and Notre Dame basketball still seemed stuck in neutral in Atlantic Coast Conference play, you could see this coming.
It was bound to be this.
One game. One final conference game. One game to decide whether Notre Dame goes home for the rest of the month or goes on to Charlotte as the 15th and final team in the conference tournament. That’s where this season hangs for this Irish basketball team.
Even then, even if Notre Dame does something that it hasn’t done since the first game of league play in late December– win away from home - there’s no guarantee that it will get to Charlotte. That’s where we are. That’s where this Notre Dame basketball team is.
The Irish are here because they couldn’t do something that they’ve been unable to do all season. League play. Non-league play. It doesn’t matter. Slide even a sliver of success in front of this program, turn on the feel-good vibes and it turns its back on the slight chance that it might turn one win into two, turn opportunity into something more than something missed.
Here we are again with Notre Dame, which did little right all night in a game against Stanford that it trailed for nearly 30 minutes. It couldn’t build off an impressive overtime win over North Carolina State, a win that left everyone around the Irish program feeling good and feeling something they haven’t felt much of in the last three seasons under head coach Micah Shrewsberry.
That would be optimistic. That the Irish had found something. That better days were imminent. That that one league win might morph into two in a row. Maybe three. That this season of struggles was finally in the rearview.
Instead, on an unseasonably warm, drizzly night outside, inside a cold, drafty, and empty Purcell Pavilion, it was more of the lethargic/lackluster same from this program, from this roster that, for whatever reasons, prefers to play Peter Pan.
As in, they refuse to grow up. They prefer to stay forever young. In this league, that means forever bad.
Unable to take a step toward Charlotte, Notre Dame (13-17; 4-13 ACC) finds itself forced to go to Boston College this weekend and win. Win, and then hop back on the charter, head back home, and pray as they’ve never prayed before that Syracuse beats Pittsburgh later that afternoon in whatever the Carrier Dome is now called.
Syracuse does that, and Notre Dame extends its season, if only for a few days. Syracuse doesn’t do that, and Notre Dame, for the first time since conference affiliation began in 1995-96, will be forced to watch the league tournament from home.
As painful as it was to watch Notre Dame drift through this one, where the Irish allowed Stanford to get comfortable from 3 (.522 percent), get comfortable at the rim (34 points in the paint), and play with a nice pace, it was more excruciating to sit through the post-game presser of Stanford coach Kyle Smith.
Smith talked of how the Cardinal refused to be all happy and high about beating SMU late last week in Northern California. It was a big win. It was a statement win. From the head coach to freshman sensation Ebuka Okorie (game-high 24 points) right down the team text chain, the Cardinal talked of handling success, talked of building on that success, talked of not being satisfied with success.
In other words, doing everything that this Notre Dame program still cannot do.
What traits does a team that can handle success own? Smith rattled off four, each one cutting a bit deeper if you follow/believe in Irish basketball. He talked of culture. He talked of attitude. He talked of pride. He talked of work ethic.
“We’ve got a pretty special group,” Smith said.
Notre Dame is still woefully deficient in all. Culture? Attitude? Work ethic? Pride? All of that’s a foreign language around this Irish program that will go a full calendar year without winning consecutive league games. How is Notre Dame ever going to go and win double-digit games in the ACC when the best it can do is one in a row? A question/concern for another day.
On a night when we needed culture and attitude, work ethic and pride, what did Notre Dame offer?
“I thought our focus sucked. I thought our discipline sucked. I thought our awareness sucked,” Shrewsberry said. “When your back’s against the wall, you gotta come out and better than that.”
Instead ...
“You get what you deserve,” Shrewsberry said.
Why?
“I don’t know,” Shrewsberry said. “I’ve tried a bunch of different things. At some point in time, it shouldn’t matter what happened the game before. We won a game and we’ll take our foot completely off the gas. You can’t. If you want to be a good team, you’ve got to be more mature.”
As bad as it all felt stepping back out into the soft rain early Thursday morning, a sliver of optimism remains. Win and Notre Dame just might see Charlotte. It might get in as the No. 15 seed. It might have a trick or two up its shooting sleeve. Why Notre Dame? Why not Notre Dame?
Before answering those questions, let’s ask a third: given how this season has gone, given how this week has gone, given what’s required this weekend in Boston.
Do you trust Notre Dame?
To compete, to deliver, to win.
Thought so.
Follow South Bend Tribune and NDInsider columnist Tom Noie on X (formerly Twitter): @tnoieNDI. Contact Noie at [email protected]
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Notre Dame basketball needs help to get to Charlotte for ACC tournament
Arne Slot offers Florian Wirtz injury update as he addresses Liverpool’s attacking struggles
Liverpool manager Arne Slot claimed that Florian Wirtz “could be available for a few minutes” during the FA Cup tie against Wolves on Friday, while suggesting that the Germany international is key to the team’s overall “balance”.
Wirtz has been out of the squad since picking up an injury in the warm-up ahead of the win over Nottingham Forest on 22 February, and the 22-year-old has missed three games in that time, including the 2-1 loss to Wolves in the league earlier this week.
However, he could feature against Wolves in the FA Cup fifth-round tie this week, in what would be a welcome boost to Liverpool’s attacking options.
“He trained half and half with the team yesterday. He made the next step in rehab. Let's see where he is today. He could be available for a few minutes tomorrow in the best scenario,” explained Slot, before adding that “everyone else [is] fine”.
The absence of Wirtz has coincided with Liverpool struggling in attack at times, and while the Reds did beat West Ham 5-2 over that spell, there are still questions over the attacking output and chance creation, with Cody Gakpo and Mohamed Salah coming under criticism for not offering enough from the wings.
And while Slot highlighted that “attacking isn't just down to Cody [Gakpo] and Mo [Salah],” the Dutchman did seem to admit that Wirtz is a key cog in his side’s attack.
“One of the players who creates is Florian Wirtz. He got injured three games ago. Before that the team had a certain balance and we've had to adjust again. That's happened a lot this season,” explained the Liverpool boss.
“Not all the games have improved in terms of creating chances. But we're not the only team that finds it hard to create from open play. It's the qualify of the league that makes it more complicated.
“We are not in terms of chance creation last in the league. We're not doing that bad. We're also the team with most ball possession so you'd expect us to create more.
“Cody and Mo we expect and they expect from themselves to score more. But attacking isn't just down to Cody and Mo,” he added.
Liverpool will book a place in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup with a win at Molineux, in what is the first of an important string of games that includes a Champions League last-16 tie against Galatasaray and a Premier League match against Tottenham at Anfield on 15 March.
The OG of Paralympic curling is from Connecticut. He will compete this week in Italy
Steve Emt was a three-sport athlete at RHAM High School in Hebron. He played basketball at West Point, then came home to end his college career as a walk-on at UConn under coach Jim Calhoun.
Laura Dwyer was also a college athlete, playing volleyball. She played softball in high school in Wisconsin.
Emt was injured in a drunk driving accident in 1995 and became paralyzed. In 2012, Dwyer had a 1,000-pound tree branch fall on her while she was working as a landscaper, causing a spinal cord injury.
They both found their way into wheelchair curling and eventually, to the U.S. Paralympic team, and then to each other, as a team. Emt and Dwyer will compete in mixed doubles, which will be offered for the first time, at the Paralympics in Italy. The Opening Ceremonies are Friday but their first competition is Wednesday.
“We are very similar,” Dwyer said. “We both come from athletic backgrounds. Early on when I first met him, and we didn’t really know each other, we caught on that both of us had this athlete mentality, along with drive and push and we clicked.
“I’m not out there just for fun. Am I going to have fun? Absolutely. But I’m out there to perfect this discipline, in whatever I’m doing, I’m going to work extra hard to make it just right. That’s where we really clicked.”
Emt, 56, is a two-time Paralympic curler. His team finished 12th in 2018 and fifth in the 2022 Games. He and Dwyer, who made the national team in 2022, became a mixed doubles team two years ago and won the national championship last year.
“We doubled down since we got together to learn this new discipline,” Dwyer said. “The strategy is different than the four person team.
“I’m a sponge and I love to learn. He’s the OG who’s been there forever.”
The major difference between wheelchair curling and able-bodied curling is that there is no sweeping.
“You have to be that much more precise and accurate because you don’t have the sweeping as a backup to correct any minor inconsistencies,” said Jon Barbagallo, the ice technician at the Norfolk club who practiced often with Emt, in 2021. “For the wheelchair guys, curling is more difficult than for us able-bodied folk.
“People do enjoy curling with him typically because he shoots better than most of us. No one else practices more hours a week than he does.”
Emt was a walk-on at UConn from 1992-94, playing for the team after returning home from West Point after his father had a heart attack.
In 1995, he was at a bar in Hartford when it was discovered that he had played for the Huskies and drinks were on the house. He passed out while driving his truck about 85 mph on I-84 and crashed. The truck flipped over multiple times. Emt wasn’t wearing a seat belt and was thrown clear of the truck. He broke most of his ribs, his back in three places, had a head injury and massive internal bleeding. The crash severed his spinal cord and he was paralyzed from the waist down.
After his rehabilitation, he was looking for new athletic pursuits. He had played wheelchair basketball and tennis and competed in the New York City Marathon but nothing felt right until he discovered curling.
That was in 2013, when he was pushing his wheelchair up a hill in Woods Hole, Mass. and a volunteer assistant coach for the national wheelchair curling team drove by and saw him and then spent 40 minutes trying to find him.
“I got stalked 12 years ago,” Emt said. “I was just minding my own business. The guy said, ‘Hey, I can make you into an Olympian in a year,’ and I said, ‘Where do I sign up? And what the hell’s curling?’”
Emt, who was a middle school math teacher and coached the RHAM boys basketball team, drove from Connecticut to a curling club in Cape Cod before he decided to do curling full time. He quit his job and spent a lot of time at the Norfolk Curling Club but even that was an 1 1/2 hour drive from where he lived in Hebron.
In 2021, he said that curling made him a better person.
“You go to a basketball game, I’m sitting on the bench, Ray Allen’s running up and down the court, Scott Burrell and Donyell Marshall and Kevin Ollie, in front of 20,000 people and it’s nuts,” he said before the 2022 Games. “Now you’re on the ice all by yourself and it’s you and the stones and the ice. It took me a bit of time to manage my emotions.”
He made the Paralympic team in 2018 but his team finished 12th out of 12. That motivated him to train harder and in 2022, the U.S. team finished fifth.
Because he was spending a lot of time training in Wisconsin, he decided to move there 2 ½ years ago. Dwyer, who is married with two children, lives there and the two practice almost daily.
“About two years ago, we were playing with other teammates and things just weren’t clicking,” he said. “So we broke up with our teammates.
“When you’re out there with three other people, there’s personalities and you got to manage all that. When there’s just two people, two less people, it makes it easier. Laura and I are like twins. She played college (softball) before her accident. She’s very competitive like I am. We’re cut from the same cloth.
“We know we are capable of some great things. We’re going to go to Italy and take care of business.”
Emt, who is a motivational speaker and author, is the oldest Paralympian on the U.S. team.
“I’m not a spring chicken,” he said. “This is my third Games so this makes me the most decorated wheelchair curler in the history of our country.
“Twelve years ago, when I started, I said I wanted to do three Games to get that record but now Utah is hosting in 2034.”
He laughed.
“I got to compete on my own soil. I’ll be like 90 years old.”