Injured Buongiorno to miss Italy's opening World Cup qualifiers
Italy will be without defender Alessandro Buongiorno for the upcoming World Cup qualifiers against Norway and Moldova, the country's football federation said on Sunday.
Napoli centre-back Buongiorno has failed to recover from a thigh injury in time for Italy's opening matches in Group I and has been replaced by Fiorentina's Luca Ranieri, who has never played for the senior national team.
Coach Luciano Spalletti has a 27-man squad for the first two matches of the qualifying campaign, which begins in Oslo against Erling Haaland's Norway on Friday.
Italy, which failed to qualify for the last two World Cups, then hosts Moldova three days later in Reggio Emilia.
Norway leads Group I after winning both its matches against Israel and Moldova in March.

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Time of India
28 minutes ago
- Time of India
IPL 2025 final, RCB vs PBKS: A new champion will be crowned today
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Mint
32 minutes ago
- Mint
RCB look to Josh Hazlewood for success in the IPL 2025 final
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India Today
an hour ago
- India Today
18 for No. 18? Why Virat Kohli deserves to lift the IPL trophy
Not everybody is as blessed as Sachin Tendulkar. Arguably the greatest cricketer of all time, he had to wait 22 years to lift the World Cup. Cristiano Ronaldo, who has dazzled fans the world over, may yet fall short of the ultimate silverware. Johan Cruyff, George Best, Paolo Maldini. Sport has often been unkind to its brightest stars. Talent doesn't guarantee trophies. In sport, you earn everything, and sometimes, even that isn't Lara never lifted a World Cup. Gianluigi Buffon never won the Champions League. In team sport, your individual brilliance can only carry you so Virat Kohli, the IPL has been that elusive white whale. He won the ODI World Cup at 22. The Champions Trophy followed at 24. And finally, in a career-crowning renaissance, Kohli added the T20 World Cup and the Champions Trophy double in the past 12 months. But still, one dream remains unfulfilled. Over 18 years of the Indian Premier League, Kohli has become its undisputed poster boy, its heartbeat and face. Yet, the trophy has evaded him. He's played three finals. He's scored over 8,500 runs. He even notched 973 runs in a single season. And through it all, he has turned up each evening with unmatched energy, playing every IPL game like it's the last of his career. But the silverware? That's never come yet, here he is again. On the Tuesday night in Ahmedabad, Royal Challengers Bengaluru will take on Punjab Kings in the IPL 2025 final. Both franchises are chasing their first title, but for Kohli, it's more than that. It's a chance to fill the one aching void in a career that has defined an 2025 Final: When and where to watch17 YEARS, MANY HEARTBREAKS Few franchises have promised as much and delivered as little as RCB. They've fielded some of the biggest names the game has ever seen. Their fanbase is vast, loyal, and emotional. But their legacy? One built more on turbulence than dreaded "C-word" has followed them for nearly two decades. They've made finals. They've finished top of the table. They've gone on winning streaks. But every time the stage has grown big, they've 2016. Kohli was in the form of his life, scoring an almost mythical 973 runs. Alongside AB de Villiers, he was untouchable. And still, they lost the final from a winning 2020, RCB have been one of the league's most consistent sides, making playoffs year after year. Yet, the gleaming IPL trophy remains absent from the storied shelves of the M Chinnaswamy Stadium. It's a striking paradox that a team from Karnataka, a state famed for champions and champion sides, has endured such a prolonged and painful title season, something feels finished in the top two for the first time in nine years. Their campaign has been built not on individual brilliance alone, but tactical sharpness, smart recruitment, and a calmness that has previously eluded at the heart of it all? Kohli. Again. But this time, not carrying the entire weight on his REIMAGINED Can captain Rajat Patidar help end RCB's IPL drought? (PTI Photo) RCB in 2025 is no longer a one-man show. Virat Kohli has had another stunning season: 614 runs, striking at nearly 150, the only batter to cross 600 runs in five different IPL campaigns. But what's truly transformed this team is how others have risen around opening partner, Phil Salt, was a pre-season masterstroke. During pre-auction planning, Dinesh Karthik, now the team's mentor, was visibly awestruck by Salt's boundary-hitting prowess. RCB went all in, secured the Englishman, and paired him with Kohli to create one of the most complementary duos of the season. Salt has scored 387 runs in 12 games at a strike rate of 175, often allowing Kohli to anchor and explode at other batters have crossed 200 runs for the season in a rare show of middle-order consistency for a franchise long accused of relying on its top bowling, too, has found its teeth. Josh Hazlewood has led the pace attack with composure and class, while Bhuvneshwar Kumar has quietly built pressure with the new ball and in the death. Yash Dayal has chipped in with crucial then there's the spin department. RCB raised eyebrows by picking only Krunal Pandya and young leg-spinner Suyash Sharma. But it's paid off. Suyash, who showed glimpses of his brilliance in the league phase, turned out to be their match-winner in Qualifier 1 against Punjab Kings. When did we last see an uncapped Indian bowler step up when it mattered for RCB?We told you, RCB of 2025 feels DESERVES IT: AB DE VILLIERS is it going to be Virat Kohi's night in Ahmedabad? (PTI Photo) In commentary boxes and cricketing circles, one voice echoes with a blend of admiration and affection when it comes to Kohli: AB de Villiers."You don't deserve anything in sport. But I feel he deserves an IPL trophy," De Villiers told JIoStar before the final."Having been there from the start with RCB. I mean, he is part of the furniture there. And it would be really nice to see him lift the trophy and almost complete a near-perfect career."He has worked hard, he has changed his game, he has changed his habits with regards to nutrition and performance. He leads from the front with his performances and his conduct. He is the ultimate cricketer. He deserves it, man."Few understand what Kohli has given to RCB the way de Villiers does. The two shared a bond on and off the field that defined an RCB generation. If Kohli lifts the trophy in Ahmedabad, you can be sure that AB, who has flown down to the city, will be cheering the NOT FAREWELLThis is probably not the end. Kohli, who has retired from Tests and T20Is, has enough gas in his tank to be the poster boy of RCB for at least another 2-3 opportunities like this don't come often. Getting to the final with such a rounded, in-form squad might not happen again soon. The stars have aligned - form, fitness, depth, leadership. It's not a swan song, but it does feel like a defining chapter in his has already won two ICC trophies in the past year. His white-ball record has been recontextualised. The only thing left is this. An IPL title, with the team he never left, in the tournament he helped 18 RESERVED FOR No. 18?And there's a beautiful irony in all IPL is one of cricket's most radical inventions, a franchise-driven, entertainment-first, billion-dollar spectacle. It redefined how cricket is watched, played, consumed. It is the ultimate expression of modern yet, the man who symbolises that modernity, who built the league's personality year after year, has never held the Kohli has done everything an icon of this age could possibly do. But he remains, oddly, the most celebrated cricketer never to win an IPL. A stat. A meme. A BIG PUSH On Tuesday night in Ahmedabad, two teams will chase their first IPL title. For PBKS, it would be history with Shreyas Iyer, who is singing his own redemption song this RCB, it would be a release from 18 years of heartache. A trophy that has, for too long, remained just out of reach. A career, almost complete, waiting for its one missing page."Season 18 belongs to No. 18". For sure, a marketing dream, but also a poetic reminder that sometimes, destiny and numbers dance in updated on IPL 2025 with India Today! Get match schedules, team squads, live score, and the latest IPL points table for CSK, MI, RCB, KKR, SRH, LSG, DC, GT, PBKS, and RR. Plus, keep track of the top contenders for the IPL Orange Cap and Purple Cap. Don't miss a moment! IN THIS STORY#IPL 2025