9 August 2011 - Doni Is Done

On 9 August 2011, Atalanta captain Cristiano Doni received a 3.5-year ban for match fixing, effectively ending his career.

The Italian Football Federation announced the penalty after a lengthy investigation into alleged fixes in eighteen matches, mostly in Italy's lower leagues. A total of nineteen people and fifteen different clubs were implicated, including the 38-year old Doni, who had made 151 league appearances for Atalanta over the previous five years and had just helped them win promotion to the top flight for the 2011-12 season (it was his second stint with the club after making 145 league appearances between 1998 and 2003) .

Investigators determined that several of the suspects had ties to a global gambling syndicate. The individual punishments ranged from five-year bans for eight players to one player who was given a warning only. Doni and ex-Fiorentina striker Mauro Bressan received the second-highest bans of three and a half years each. Bressan had retired in 2009, while the ban ended Doni's career.

Atalanta received a six-point penalty to start the season, but still managed to finish comfortably in twelfth place.

12 July 1973 - He Must Have Lived In An RV

On 12 July 1973, Italian striker Christian Vieri--who set a world transfer fee record in 1999--was born in Bologna.

In a career that spanned from 1991 to 2009, Vieri played for thirteen different teams in Italy, Spain, and France (technically, Monaco, but in the French league), generally staying no more than a single season at each one. The lone exceptions were Torino, where he made nine appearances in his first two seasons as a professional, and Inter, where he remained for an unprecedented six seasons, making 190 appearances and scoring 123 goals.

After winning the La Liga scoring title with Atlético Madrid in 1997-98, he moved to Lazio and won the 1999 Cup Winners' Cup. That attracted the interest of Inter president Massimo Moratti, who paid a then-record £32MM for his services. (Coincidentally, it was Lazio who broke the record in 2000 by giving £35.5 MM to Parma for Hernán Crespo).

He left Inter for Milan in 2005, but suffered a knee injury shortly afterward and made only 14 appearances before moving to Monaco in early 2006. He finished his career with Atalanta in 2009, having played there before in two different spells.

13 May 2012 - Invincibles In Italy

On 13 May 2012, Juventus completed the Serie A season as undefeated champions with a 3-1 win over Atalanta.

They had finished the previous season in disappointing fashion, taking seventh place in the final table. That prompted the sacking of manager Luigi Delneri, who had held on to the post for a little over a year. The club replaced him with former Juventus midfielder Antonio Conte, who had played there from 1991 to 2003 and who had ended the 2010-11 season by guiding Serie B side Siena back to the top flight.

Juve made one other significant change over the summer, signing former Milan midfielder Andrea Pirlo as a free agent.

Led by the combination of Conte on the touchline and Pirlo on the pitch, Juventus battled with Milan in a tight race for the Scudetto and finally claimed the title with an away win over Cagliari on 6 May. By that point, they had won 22 and drawn 15 of their 37 matches over the course of the season. One week later, with the championship firmly in hand, they completed their unbeaten season with the home win over Atalanta. It was the first time any team went undefeated over the course of a 38-game season and only the third undefeated Serie A season overall (Perugia did it over the course of 30 games in 1978-79 and Milan did it over the course of 34 games in 1991-92).

Counting a draw on the last day of the 2010-11 season, the win stretched Juve's overall unbeaten league streak to 39. They extended it to 49 through the first 10 games of the 2012-13 season before finally losing to Inter on 3 November. Though impressive, it still fell short of the overall Italian league record of 58, set by Milan over the course of the 1990-91 to 1992-93 seasons.

12 May 1985 - Verona Victorious

On 12 May 1985, Hellas Verona won their first and only Serie A title with a 1-1 draw against Atalanta.

Founded in 1903, Verona joined the newly-formed Serie B in 1929 and took almost thirty years to reach the top flight for the first time, joining Serie A in 1957. Even then, it was for only one season, and they returned back to the second division in 1958. From 1968 on, they spent the majority of their time in the top flight, but rarely challenged for honors.

But they began to show signs improvement in the early 1980s, finishing as Coppa Italia runners-up in 1983 and 1984 (added to their previous final appearance in 1976) and a fourth-place league finish in 1984, which was at the time the club's best position in the final table.

That changed in the 1984-85 season. Led by their forward pairing of Preben Elkjær Larsen and Giuseppe Galderisi, Verona rose to the top of the table. By 12 May, they were ahead of Torino by four points with two games left for both teams. Because wins were worth only two points at the time, Verona needed only a draw at mid-table Atalanta to secure the Scudetto.

Atalanta, however, refused to roll over and took the lead after only 16 minutes when defender Eugenio Perico scored a header from a cross. Unshaken, Verona drove forward in search of an equalizer and finally got it in the 51st minute when Elkjær (pictured) scored with a dramatic volley. That proved to be enough, as the game ended 1-1, making Verona the Serie A champions.