Re: Serie A Thread - 2009/10 Season
roma will loan okaka just if they will get another striker... wich seems pretty unlikely at the moment. and the same goes for andreolli. yeah perrotta and taddei are probably past their prime... but it's not like they became junk. probably they're not those "monsters" they used to be but theyre definitely not old (taddei isn't even 30). they're still high class players.
as for the uefa cup (i'm not gonna call it europa league!.... ever!!), u have to understand italian clubs really don't give a damn about it. that cup is considered just a waste of time and money here in italy, so roma is not gonna make other moves on the market, because of that competition, they will rather deploy their youth team.... hell even palermo did it a few years ago.
yes, they lack depth but the starting 11 is pretty complete (i like huntelaar... but with all the respect, vucinic belongs to a different class.... at least at the moment).
the lack of backups will cost them the scudetto race (infact i said i don't think they'll challenge inter this season)... but i'm sure they'll reach a champions league spot eventually (even though the competition will be terrific).
Regarding Napoli, consider how many games Hamsik played last season, and note how he had suddenly had a dip in form in the second half of the season.
that huge collapse napoli faced last season was due to 2 reasons.
the first reason is background-related. the pressure a football player experiences in napoli is something absolutely unbelievable. a napoli player can't even go out to buy some bread... as soon as he's out of his home he's assalted by the fans. the unbelievable love and passion of the napoletani (napoli citizens) for their club generates an unbearable pressure. and it's not something that concerns just the fans... it involves the whole city. in napoli everyone cares about the club: the schoolboys, and their mothers, the street artists and the laywers, homeless people and companies ceo...
last season napoli had an amazing first half of the season. it was an endless crescendo and this boosted the expectations and the joy of the city... wich means even more pressure for hamsik and co.
seriously it was just a matter of time... an experienced player couldn't handle so much "love" let alone a team formed mainly by young players.
the second reason was the intertoto cup, wich forced reja to begin the preseason training session in july! u can't start so early in the preseason, with some italian style (heavy) fitness programs and expect not to pay the consequences of this choice by the end of the winter\beginning of spring.
football players are not machines. that's why italian clubs organise their summer training schedule to bring the players in the best form by october.... because otherwise they would be tired in the most crucial moment of the season(febbruary\march).
so napoli's collapse was more than expected. actually i predicted it. i remember when udinese faced its bad form period (december) i wrote on here that i was surprised that udinese felt down and that i expected napoli to fall instead.
a replacement for hamsik, as good as hamsik would cost about 25 millions. a more than decent replacement would still cost 10\15 millions.... marino is not gonna spend so much money on a backup. he'd rather get a starting leftback (wich is the only waekness in the team).
besides, i feel u're underestimating bogliacino. sure he's no hamsik, but he's good enough for the job... besides a better player would never accept a backup role in a mid class club like napoli (by mid class i mean non top class, i know it's pretty insulting to define napoli a "mid class team")..... i mean do u think a player like, say, rakitic would sign for napoli, knowing he won't be anyhting more than hamsik's replacement?
rfu said:
you're right here. Also, not only are Everton and Aston Villa better teams, but they also have smaller squads. But I think when you consider the tempo at which the premiership sides play, it should also become a fitness issue. WOuld Palermo manage a 5th placed finish if they played in the premiership? I wouldn't be so sure. I'm not writing Palermo off, but they're not used to doing so much running and chasing (most Italian sides aren't) that is required in premiership games.
i'm not saying we would definitely get the 5th place, mate, i was just saying that we would be 5th place "contender" (along with the teams i mentioned before) in the epl, while in serie a we are 8th place contender
however fitness can't become an issue, because it's something that can be fixed. u just have to change your work out program. serie a and epl have to completely different schools in terms if fitness trainings... they can't go heavy as we do on training sessions as they play way too often..... so epl players have a higher stamina (it's not about pace mate, it's about stamina) but also (coz of the light trainings) much bigger chances to face muscular injuries (wich are usually the longests).
if palermo were an epl team we would have to follow their fitness programs, hence there would be no difference. it's not like english players are faster "by nature"...also because the 70% percent of epl players aren't even english.... and it's not like a foreign player moves to an epl club and suddenly becomes faster... it's all because of the athletic preparation.
however, since u're giving me the chance to do it....
let's just try to dismantle, once for all, all the wrong clicheès about pace in football.
it's the pace of the game related to the pace of the players?
no. because the tell-tale of the rhythm of the game is not the movement of the players, it's the movement of the ball. it doesn't matter how fast u are. the only thing that counts is how quickly the ball goes.
so what makes a game more "pacey"
quick and accurate ball distribution. it doesn't matter how fast ronaldo is... he won't ever be faster than a pass. so that means that a player like liverani (who is remarkably slow) can raise the pace more than ronaldo himself. and sticking to manchester, carrick is much more important than ronaldo, when it's about raising the pace (for the same reason i explained before).
so is the british game "highly paced"?
it depends by wich club u're considering. top clubs like chelsea, arsenal, liverpool and man utd definitely play their game to a high tempo. but that's because they can mix the great stamina of their players with an extremely quick and accurate ball distribution. everton and aston villa aren't quite as good as them, but they're still pretty good at that.
but as soon as u consider the rest of the league (newcastle, porthsmouth, wigan, west ham, tottenham, man city, etc...) well, even though the players pace is higher, the pace of their game is a lot slower... it's even slower than some italian sides tempo (like palermo) or some spanish clubs tempo.
and it's not because the players are slower.... it's because their ball distribution isn't accurate at all.
i said that the rhythm of the game depends on the ball movement. so if the pass doesn't reach its target, then it doesn't matter how fast the players are moving neither how fast the ball is moving.... the pace of that play is 0, because the pass didn't reach its target and the team lost posession (wich means that play ended).
most of epl mid table clubs have an awful ball distribution. most of them (actually almost all of them) haven't a proper brain at midfield (a deep-lying playmaker). their passing inaccuracy, their lack of a plot, their tendency to run with the ball (instead of passing it) or to try some long passes which usually don't reach the target make the game more frantic, but less fast. it's like watching a "human pinball".
now let's consider spanish mid table clubs. the spanish league is the slowest of the top leagues, talking about the players (even slower than serie a). the rrhythm of the players is extremely slow..... but, as we established, it's not the player's pace that matters... it's the ball movement. and since the spanish league is the best of them all in terms of passing accuracy, this usually allows some slow mid class spanish clubs to play a more pacey game than their english counterparts.
and finally, is the dominance of the english clubs in europe due to their "high tempo"?
absolutely not.
high tempo has always been a trademark of the english school.... and yet italian and spanish top clubs used to kick the sh... out of them till 10 years ago.....so we can clearely say that the pace is not the reason.
everyone justifies the success of english clubs with their pace... even italian commentators are doing it lately.....
but that is just plain wrong. and i believe we use this as an excuse... because it's hard to admit the thruth: that they play better football.
what turned british top clubs into the best top clubs in europe is not the pace (as their pace has always been high).... actually their pace changed.... but it didn't get faster.... it got slower. because those teams gave themselves a plot.
carrick, xabi alonso, arteta, etc... they don't just get the ball and run like mads with their head on the ball. they get the ball, lift their head, take a look at their teammates and see what's the best thing to do with the ball..... this takes time... it slows down the rhythm of the players.... but it raises up the rhythm of the game, because it increases the accuracy of the plays.
the pace of the players will only allow u to put pressure on the opponent ball carrier, forcing them to make a mistake. but once they commit that mistake and loose possession, then pace won't help u anymore. then it will be up to your brain to tell u what to do with the ball... and it will be up to your passing accuracy to turn your intuition into a real play.
and this is where the "step up" of epl top sides can be found. they're less frantic and more clever... they learned to play football. they learned to look at the pitch and not at the ball.
they learned (and i believe rafa played a big role in this, as ferguson never did that before rafa came in england) to change the tempo of the game, during the game (while the british game has always been famous for being extremely flat in this concern;; no changes of tempo, just run like a mad for the all match)
they're not just faster, the high tempo has nothing to do with their improvement. the thruth is they became better football teams.
we had many proves of this in the last few years. just think about that roma - manchester match, in roma a few years ago (the one manchester won 0-2). that was an amazing display of tactical discipline. or think about the first half of the liverpool - milan CL final that milan won. during that first half liverpool was footballling perfection, football in its most sophisticated expression..... that was sacchi's football performed by an english team.
they showed us they can play our football as well as we can.... even better than we can.
so that's what makes the epl top sides the best in the world today: not the pace, but the quality.
and that's also what makes the rest of their league pretty poor: the lack of quality (wich is also due to the frenzy of their game).
Milanista said:
Speaking of Andreolli, he played the UEFA cup games against Gent... by the way did anyone watch that? Roma were on fire and just raped Gent in Belgium 7-1. Totti was on fire.
well i would be worried if they couldn't walk over gent to be honest
I'm not sure of the reasoning either. Couldn't some of these clubs use the money and prestige (playing in the supercup in moncao for example)
.... i'm amazed by the fact he even just though he could do something like that.... playing against milan.... in san siro!
... But we played decent in the TIM cup which is a good sign, Stanko even did a good job filling in for Cambiasso (who's out injured 
). Still we need a playmaker, BADLY.
)
I was very impressed with their off-season, and like the versitility of their roster. The answer to the "who is Hamsik's back up", is either they go to a MF of Blasi, Gargano & Cigarini...or they put Datolo in that spot. Speaking of which, I saw they loaned Vitale out to Livorno. Does that mean that Zuniga and Datolo will compete for the LWB role?
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