Serie A Thread - 2014/15 Season

Re: Serie A Thread - 2009/10 Season

lo zio said:
to be fair it's the club (namely berlusca and galliani) that sets up the club's friendlies schedule.... while the coach is usually the one who moans with the club and asks the president to let him do his preseason training.........;)
that's quite normal, money are very important in football today, infact most of the clubs have this issue during august.... but what milan is doing this season is just ridiculous..... 25.000 kilometers in 1 week?!! 5 matches already played and we're not talking about silly matches against amateurs team as sparring partners, we're talking about top class teams like bayern and chelsea, wich are even way more fit (epl and bundi start much earlier than serie a so those teams are already close to the end of their fitness programs).... and all of this for a few millions more (5/10)... for fuck sake they already got 65 millions euros for kakà.... and they didn't even spend a cent of those momey, as they didn't buy anyone yet!!! isn't that enough money?.... can't u let your NEW coach spend some time with the team, trying to figure out how he should make them play and allow him to follow a fitness\stamina building schedule?
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I was 100% joking when I said Leonardo :SMUG: Of course the club is to blame, especially the 2 you mentioned.

I just got another slap in the face now as I read that Pirlo is very close to join Chelsea(20 mill wtf? he is worth much more) :RANT: What the hell is going on??????
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2009/10 Season

Pirlo to Chelsea?!!!! Stupid, stupid move by Milan.

Essien + Pirlo would be the best midfield in Europe.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2009/10 Season

every match pirlo has been properly pressured, such as holland in euro last year, and brazil earlier this year, champions league last year against arsenal etc.. pirlo hasnt been effective enough in that role, so if ancelotti was to play pirlo as a deep lyin playmaker i just dont think he'll succeed in england
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2009/10 Season

Pirlo, Essien and Lampard in the same midfield would be ridiculously good.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2009/10 Season

Can someone shed some light on the international TV rights for the league, it looks like I'm going to miss another season at the moment.

Are those in control asking for too much money?
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2009/10 Season

Yah Milan is disappointing me and I wouldn't blame Leonardo yet either. Right now the best coach in the world would struggle in that organization.

I don't see Mario joining Zola at West Ham. Not even on loan. Inter need him and I don't think he'd be interested either.

As for Aquilani's supposed imminent move to Liverpool should Xabi Alonso leave, I doubt Alberto wants to. But of course if club accepts a great offer for you then you will leave... you're not left with much of a choice staying where the board have decided they could better use the $ or in Roma's case, reduce the debt.

That is not to say joining Liverpool isn't a great option, it is for most footballers and it would be for myself if I were one, but I think given the choice, Alberto, like Daniele and like Totti would PREFER to stay right where he is. But players don't always get to choose and sometimes have to 'accept' new challenges and situations and I suspect that might happen soon with Alberto if he really is Benitez' 1st choice to replace the supposedly soon departing Alonso.

lo zio said:
holy crap! he didn't even face yet a single training session with his new team.... and he's already causing troubles! LOL!

poor rosina, not the best way to begin a new adventure in such a different country... talking about feeling rejected! :LOL:
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Lol yah not the best way to start but I think Advocaat leaves in Novermber anyway.. so thats only a few months more and as we all know... nothing is for certain or forever in football, everything can change... plus this must mean while the coach doesn't like him, the club president or people high up who'll most likely be there for long after do support him and believe in him since they brought him over despite the manager's wishes.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2009/10 Season

http://goal.com/en/news/10/italy/20...fiorentina-in-the-race-to-sign-lazios-lorenzo

http://goal.com/en/news/12/spain/20...rid-giving-ac-milan-preference-over-huntelaar

good news for milan fans, as milan are after de silvestri, ledesma, and huntelaar. eventually milan will buy i think it is an enivitability and these could prove 3 good signings. additonally, ledesma and de silvestri want to leave lazio, and huntelaar is being forced out, so milan will probably get them fairly cheap should they get them
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2009/10 Season

Well guys, I'm back from vacation in Liguria - got a nice tan and have probably gained some weight.

Anyway... my dear Milan... we seem to have no spine, but maybe a season of hell is needed to reboot this club.

First off - like the rest of last season, I have little faith in the management. Huntelaar is clearly available - for much less than Luis Fabiano and he has a great record.... but we wont spend more than £8 million. Lucio was listed, but we didn't do anything. We are still lacking a pacey fullback(s) and it seems unlikely that we will invest in any in the near future.

Pirlo has become too predictable and seems to have lost motivation - I think his mind is on Chelsea, so I'm not surprised if he goes, but I want to get a hefty fee. I am a believer of letting him go, simply because he is part of the old Milan tactical lineup.

Flamini has shown that he has too much energy and commitment to be cover for Gattuso - Gattuso looks tired , therefore should be benched behind Flamini. Now it seems we might ship Abate out even though I think we should hold on to him. He will be useful this season.

Like Dutty said, I think we will buy eventually... but even if we do, our pre-season is too relaxed. We need to be focused and working more on fitness so that when the season starts we can start with a bang rather than towards the end of the season.

My biggest disappointment so far is letting Cissokho and Dzeko slip through our hands - i really believe if we signed those two, our preseason would be completely different. Leonardo clearly wanted them but our stupid management are focusing on saving money - which might actually be a good thing if we knew the actual financial situation of the club... for all we know we might actually be in the super red...
 
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Re: Serie A Thread - 2009/10 Season

lo zio said:
i believe the best thing for milan, long term, is to go through a humiliating season....
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I agree. I think Inter needs one also... Well, maybe we've already been through enough humilation over the last decade, but what I mean is starting from scratch...Check this out... Even Roma are in a better financial situation than Inter... all i got to say is thank God for Moratti, with him pumping his own persnal money into the club, we're financially OK, but we have to turn things around (Moratti won't be around forever), run the club like a proper business, that means we must curb spending, no more crazy contractual agreements (12 mil a season for Ibra :SHOCK:), no more crazy money in the mercato, a new stadium, and we need to improve marketing and branding of the club (its a shame we don't play exciting attacking football like Barca and Arsenal... we would do better in these preseason tours overseas). I heard that we have more season ticket holders this season. That's certainly a step in the right direction
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2009/10 Season

I think the depressing mood in this great thread has to be turned around. There's a new season of exciting football waiting afterall.

Instead of watching those poor friendly matches (I tried too, but the milan derby was so anti-entertaining I :YAWN:) I seriously recommend to surf right here:

http://www.nazionaleitalianacalcio.it/engitalia.html

and watch some of the GOOD and TENSE matches in the videos section.

After watching a part of Italy's 2006 campaign here in Germany (Ghana, USA, Germany :CRY:) I came to the conclusion that Pirlo's right foot is definately alien material. If they scientifically examined it (after he stopped playing of course) they would certainly gather knowledge of extra-terrestial life forms (which could lead mankind into a football related inferiority complex).

and by the way: Hi all.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2009/10 Season

zeem said:
I was 100% joking when I said Leonardo Of course the club is to blame, especially the 2 you mentioned.
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:BLUSH: sorry bro... i've been more slow witted than usual lately... it must be the sicilian summer.... too many girls in bikini around me to focus :P

PLF said:
That is not to say joining Liverpool isn't a great option, it is for most footballers and it would be for myself if I were one, but I think given the choice, Alberto, like Daniele and like Totti would PREFER to stay right where he is. But players don't always get to choose and sometimes have to 'accept' new challenges and situations and I suspect that might happen soon with Alberto if he really is Benitez' 1st choice to replace the supposedly soon departing Alonso.
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u're 100% right Sina. liverpool is one of the greatest clubs in the world and every player would sell his mother to wear that shirt, but there's a special bond between roma and the romanisti (like de rossi, aquilani and totti). however, even though that's not what aquilani wanted, he'll sign for liverpool coz he's aware the club needs those money.
besides, leaving apart his love for roma, from a professional point of view, joining liverpool will be a step up for his carreer, as he will have more chances to win some silverware and to get that attention from the media and the fans, that only playing for a spanish or an englis top club can give u theese days..........
that assuming he will be lined up in his natural position.... and also assuming he will finally get rid of his injury troubles (both are pretty big "ifs").

it's pretty much the same for pirlo. 1 month ago he said he wasn't about to leave milano, that he wanted to stay in milan..... but of course, as u said, once the president decides u have to leave, u have no options.

talking about pirlo.....
neoexodus said:
Pirlo is a shadow, that penalty summed it all up. No figure, no concentration......
.....Even if it is pre-season, if you watch a Milan game you will see that he never tries anything creative, instead he just keeps making short passes that won't take the team anywhere
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milanista said:
Pirlo has become too predictable and seems to have lost motivation
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neoexodus post was in the milan thread, but since he also follows this thread i'm sure he won't mind if i reply in here (so i won't have to repeat the same things in both this thread and the milan thread). :))

a deep lying playmaker is a great asset to any team. but the thing is the "regista" depends on his teammates as much as his teammates rely on him. so if his teammates do nothing to get rid of the markings and offer him a decent passing target, then there's nothing he can do, no matter how good he is.

what happens to pirlo at milan (it happened last season too) is very similar to what happened to xavi 2 seasons ago..... 2 years ago, there was no movement without the ball in barcelona's gameplan... xavi's teammates were just wandering around the pitch with their markers glued to their asses, so, since there wasn't any good deep target, xavi's only option was to go for a flat, predictable, horizontal short passing game.....
but sure u can't blame the playmaker for this.... it's not his fault if his teammates don't do their part of the job.

also the matches satty mentioned (against holland and arsenal)... it was the whole team that failed (italy against holland and milan against arsenal)... there weren't any good targets in front of pirlo, so he couldn't just pass the ball to nobody.
handling the pressure is one of the most important features for a regista, and pirlo is a maestro in that ;)

besides, considering the specific current situation of pirlo, there are also many other factors to consider. milan spent the last 2 weeks playing silly friendlies, instead of working on the players fitness and pirlo's legs are of course heavy....and we all know fitness\stamina issues have a killer effect on coolness and on the ability to "see the passing line" (wich people usually call "vision").

and then there's the most important factor. after proving himself as the greatest deep lying playmaker in the world for the last 6 years (and 6 years are really a lot of time, just consider ronaldo is seen as a world class player since 2 seasons... and yet it seems a lifetime... just to put things in perspective), the club is now getting rid of him as if he was "damaged goods". they're basically selling him against his will. sure we can understand if he doesn't have any motivation, after such a disappointment. :))

Chenghis.Khan said:
After watching a part of Italy's 2006 campaign here in Germany (Ghana, USA, Germany ) I came to the conclusion that Pirlo's right foot is definately alien material. If they scientifically examined it (after he stopped playing of course) they would certainly gather knowledge of extra-terrestial life forms (which could lead mankind into a football related inferiority complex).
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yep, i can agree with that... actually what's even more impressive than his foot it's his brain... that's what really makes the difference between him and anyone else.
just give him a good deep target, and he will put the ball right on his foot, no matter how far that target his or how fast is that target running.
and infact, even in the last 2 years, playing with the slow lazy milan we saw, every time his teammates tried to get rid of their markings (it happened a few times) he made the difference....
to make it short, the problem is not pirlo, the problems are the players who stroll around him.

but once again, milan's board can't see what's good in their project and what's not, so once again, instead of getting rid of those part of the project which don't work properly, they're getting rid of a key asset.... as they did with ancelotti.
usually when a project falls apart, we try to figure out wich are the good parts of that project, thos parts which should be preserved, the core u should rebuild your new project around...
milan instead is throwing away that good core and keeping everything else.... oh dear.

btw Chenghis.Khan, wellcome to the thread :))

rfu brought in a very good topic.... but i'm out of time now, so i'll try to drop my thoughts on it next time :))

@tobi: sorry mate, but i have no infos on that.... hopefully someone will shed some light on your question :))
 
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Re: Serie A Thread - 2009/10 Season

Aquilani's done it seems. Very very excited about this. Interesting to see how Rafa sees him fitting in our team.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2009/10 Season

So is Xabi......He was better of at Juve then at that football ruining club that is Madrid, but so be it....
Hope Pool will be strong contenders this years, the are very similar to Juve in terms of play, physical, never say die attitude...
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2009/10 Season

lo zio said:
yep, i can agree with that... actually what's even more impressive than his foot it's his brain... that's what really makes the difference between him and anyone else.
just give him a good deep target, and he will put the ball right on his foot, no matter how far that target his or how fast is that target running.
and infact, even in the last 2 years, playing with the slow lazy milan we saw, every time his teammates tried to get rid of their markings (it happened a few times) he made the difference....
to make it short, the problem is not pirlo, the problems are the players who stroll around him.

but once again, milan's board can't see what's good in their project and what's not, so once again, instead of getting rid of those part of the project which don't work properly, they're getting rid of a key asset.... as they did with ancelotti.
usually when a project falls apart, we try to figure out wich are the good parts of that project, thos parts which should be preserved, the core u should rebuild your new project around...
milan instead is throwing away that good core and keeping everything else.... oh dear.
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I agree, but as a fan, I want him to be in a better situation then he is in at milan right now. Therefore I would really like him to move to england, I can then see ancelotti's chelsea playing the same formation (maybe even the same football) italy played in the first games of the world cup '06 when they put gilardino next to toni and totti, perrotta, de rossi and pirlo behind them.
What I might even more like would be a move to liverpool, he'd be a perfect replacement for xabi and pool might even save some of the money they get from selling him as pirlo (ridiculously) seems to be cheaper. I can't see why rafa would prefer aquilani as I don't think he is so much into the age factor (...wenger...).
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2009/10 Season

I'm the only who thinks 23mln € for Aquilani are too much?
IMO his value is probably the middle, he's always injured and didn't proved to become a big player like Xabi Alonso is now.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2009/10 Season

Well he's a very talented player and with the market currently so high I think its a fair price. Thing is he's very similar to Saha, Hargreaves and Rosicky that he spends most of his time in the treatment room.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2009/10 Season

Leo Messi said:
I'm the only who thinks 23mln € for Aquilani are too much?
IMO his value is probably the middle, he's always injured and didn't proved to become a big player like Xabi Alonso is now.
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the price of a player doesn't depend on his quality. it's the market itself that makes the price. if it was just a matter of quality then pirlo should cost about twice xabi alonso's price tag... melo should cost as much as nocerino (or even less).... eto'o should cost almost as much as ibra.....

pirlo instead had a pretty low valutation because milan wanted him out (but there are some good news on this topic)....melo costed juve as much as diego because he has been the most hyped midfielder on the market this summer..... and eto'o was "underevaluated" because this was his last year of contract and in a few months he could have gone away from barcelona for free...

establishing a proper "quality related" valutation for aquilani is pretty much impossible right now. coz if that last surgery he went through months ago really solved his problems, then those 23 millions would definitely be well spent... otherwise it would be a huge waste of money.

besides there's also another factor to consider. wich is the club that wants him? because, for instance, a club like inter could easily spend even 30 millions for a fit aquilani, as they could really use a player like him. alberto would suit immediately in inter's gaming system.
liverpool instead, doesn't really need a player like aquilani, imo. i just can't see how aquilani could fit in liverpool's gaming system (and that assuming he will be fit).... that brings me to believe rafa is going to rebuild a new system from scratch (wich would not be a good idea imo, as they seemed to be on the right path)....and even in this case.... i can't see how rafa could line up a balanced team... u don't spend 23 millions on a backup, wich means alberto is gonna be a starter.... gerrard of course will be a starter... this means mascherano will be left alone on the midfield line..... :THINK:... and that doesn't sound good to me.

and fnally judging a player's price tag, u should also consider who's buying him..... in serie a 23 millions are a huge lot of money... 23 millions in italy means nothing short of top class quality... in england instead the situation is pretty different; their domestic market is "pumped up" there's a huge inflation in theri domestic football market, so they tend to "overpay" every player.

on a different topic, good news for milan, after a berlusconi-galliani-leonardo meeting, berlusconi met leonardo's requests and put pirlo out of the transfer list :))
 
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Re: Serie A Thread - 2009/10 Season

I hope Galliani doesn't brag about keeping Pirlo and say keeping him is like making a signing. We have been used to that.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2009/10 Season

Ben, you seem so convinced Aquilani will play the same role he played at Roma. He has the talent, but I'm sure Rafa has a specific plan for him. Maybe he does want to make him into a regista. He won't be the first attacking midfielder to be converted to a playmaker? ;)

And if it is indeed a change in system, I think you should consider that Gerrard might drop a little deeper, and have a few more defensive responsibilities. Don't forget, he played half his career as a defensive midfielder.

We'll see, but I'm not worried at all. Aquilani is supremely talented, and that's what matters. Rafa has planned a change in system for a long time (since last season when he wanted to sell Xabi), so I'm confident he'll work out something. Important thing is he's getting a talented player to work on.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2009/10 Season

Yay! Alberto is a Liverpool player, and I'm fucking excited.

Let's hope your prediction on Aquilani is just as accurate as yours on Dossena, Ben! No offense :P
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2009/10 Season

Ben, you seem so convinced Aquilani will play the same role he played at Roma. He has the talent, but I'm sure Rafa has a specific plan for him. Maybe he does want to make him into a regista. He won't be the first attacking midfielder to be converted to a playmaker?

And if it is indeed a change in system, I think you should consider that Gerrard might drop a little deeper, and have a few more defensive responsibilities. Don't forget, he played half his career as a defensive midfielder.
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i see your points bro, but i just can't get to like both options.
sure aquilani might even turn out to be a good playmaker.... but he's already a stunning mezz'ala, so why not getting a proper regista, given that's what u need? besides lining up a player with alberto's shot and assisting skills in that position would be a waste.

as for gerrard, yes, he might step back a little (he has done that before afterall), but, even though gerrard is (along with de rossi and essien) probably the most versatile world class midfielder in the world, i think forcing him into a system, depriving him of the freedom to wander around the pitch following his instinct and keeping him far from the box.... it's a blasphemy.

however, given my enourmous admiration for rafa, i tend to believe he perfectly knows what he's doing.... it's just me not getting it yet ;)

Yay! Alberto is a Liverpool player, and I'm fucking excited.

Let's hope your prediction on Aquilani is just as accurate as yours on Dossena, Ben! No offense
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oh crap, u just beated me to it. infact i was about to write something on the line of "however don't give too much credit to my opinions... as i was the one who thought dossena could have done great in england" :))

congrats abhi. i sincerely hope, for liverpool, for u and for alberto aswell, that i'm completely wrong (wich, considering the precedents, it's quite likely :P
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2009/10 Season

In the English press, only the fee has been agreed, not complete yet, I'll be interested to see where Aquilani plays and what he's asked to do in the liverpool team. Not sure it's the best move for club and player
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2009/10 Season

That was my first impression, gib, which is why I thought Pirlo would be a more logical choice as he could easily take Alonso's role in their tactical system.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2009/10 Season

lol just read your post Ben.

Seems like we're in the exact same boat.

I'm excited about this move and HOPE to GOD for Alberto's sake and Liverpool that it works out. But I'm not optimistic either. :(
I think it won't work out well... but then again no one should care too much about what I say either lol...
 
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