Italian soccer used to be seen as dull but these days it is anything but. This weekend’s opening set of matches had great goals, intriguing results and wacky touchline antics.

David Trezeguet grabbed a hat-trick as Juventus returned to the top flight after their match-fixing demotion with a 5-1 home win over Livorno. But as Martha notes on The Offside, Claudio Ranieri’s team were not as good as the scoreline suggests with three goals coming in the last five minutes. New signings have yet to gel fully and apart from Gianluigi Buffon, the defence looks shaky.

Roberto Mancini blamed the summer heat for Ivan Cordoba scoring a stoppage time own goal and keeper Julio Cesar being sent off in Inter’s 1-1 home draw with Udinese while Kaka inspired AC Milan to a 3-0 win at promoted Genoa, where Milan fans were banned because of fears of crowd violence.

After the match, Milan vice-president Adriano Galliani showed he will be as colourful as ever this season when he suggested that referees should spray paint a line 10 yards from a freekick to stop encroachment.
 
But the real excitement came at Parma where new Catania coach Silvio Baldini kicked his opposite number Domenico Di Carlo up the backside as he was sent to the stands for arguing with the officials.

If the next 37 rounds of matches are anything like this, we are in for a vintage season.

Mark Meadows, Milan