CIAO BELLO — now wipe that pasta sauce from your mouth and down that Perroni, for we have pies, beer ‘n’ silverware to look forward to at Wembley on Sunday. And after a decade of badmouthing the League Cup, to the extent that many of my crew barely recognised it as a first-class tournament anymore, I confess to a feeling of mild anticipation as the Final hoves into view.

A Milan court today convicted an ally of Italian primer minister Silvio Berlusconi of one corruption charge, sentencing him to five years in prison, but acquitted him of another corruption charge, that of bribing judges.