Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season
Gerd said:
Is there something wrong with Udinese. Are they underachieving or do they have to sell all those great young players because they want to be a financially healthy club?
i wouldn't say they're underachieving. they did pretty bad last season, but that was their only poor season in the last 10 years or so.
the thing is, it really takes nothing to fall from the 5th to the 15th spot in serie a. there's a huge pack of teams which are pretty much on the same level (palermo, fiorentina, napoli, udinese, lazio, genoa, sampdoria)... and right behind them the so called "poor clubs" are actually so much better than the other leagues "poor clubs" that they're almost on par with the midclass clubs (i'm talking about the likes of cagliari, parma, catania and so on).
long story short, the competition is huge, so u can't afford a single false step. on week u're 1 point behind the 4th spot.... a few tough breaks, a few bad injuries or unlucky results and u might well find yourself in the relegation battle.
just look at this season: palermo is doing great at the moment. we're 5th and we're just 1 point behind the 4th spot. everyone is praising the amazing job rossi is doing with such a young and unexperienced team....... but then again, udinese is just 4 points behind us. just a couple of bad weeks and udinese could be ahead of us.
as for their policy, yeah udinese is the tipycal italian midclass team, build a good team on talented youngsters, have them growing and improving and then, in 3 years, sell them for 5 times the money u originally spent on them, so u can start over again.
infact udinese epitomizes this model of club management, as they were the very first club in serie a which developed this financially healthy policy. that allowed them to get some great results (like the partecipation in champions league, just a few years ago), without compromising their balance sheet..... actually their incomes grow each and every season.
they have one of the very best scouting network in europe (arguably the best in italy), and i'm quite sure they developed more talented players than any other italian club in the last decade (perhaps only palermo did better than them in this department).
they also had some great general managers. from the mid 90s to 2004 Pierpaolo Marino was in charge in udine. he's the one who invented this new model of heatly management that is now referred to as "financial fair play" (like i said before, udinese was infact the first club in italy to apply this pennywise financial strategy).
Marino built that amazing udinese side which reached the champions league (felipe, zapata, iaquinta, di natale, fiore, pizarro, pinzi, jankulovski, almiron...)
then when marino left, Pozzo (the owner) hired another great general manager (Leonardi). Leonardi is the one who brought the likes of inler, d'agostino and sanchez. then a few years ago Leonardi left and the General managers who came after him weren't really on the same level of their predecessors. but they're still doing great so far.
Gerd said:
Oh and by the way Ben, i read your reply in the Arsenal thread, yes you are right from what i saw Palermo is also one of the most attractive clubs in Europe...i didn't know that Wenger considers himself a pupil of the great Zeman. Which makes me wonder how Zeman is doing with Foggia at the moment.
a few years ago wenger said that without zeman's influence, he would have never become the coach he is today. he said that zeman's football is the main inspiration in his coaching style.
as for zeman's foggia, they're 9th in lega pro right now. in 19 matches his team scored 39 goals and conceded 37 goals..... good old zdenek!
zeem said:
I don't know if Zeman is able to coach in the Serie A due to trouble with some of his statements in the past, and guess what, he was right in most of his acquisations.
the only reason why zeman was "banned" from serie a was moggi. with his accusations, zeman became moggi's nemesis and serie a club owners didn't wanna hire him coz if they would have done it, then that mafioso piece of shit would have caused em troubles.
now moggi is gone and his influence on serie a is gone with him, so there's no reason to believe zeman couldn't be hired by a serie a club.
the thing is hiring zeman as a coach of your team can be a painfully frustrating experience..... u know your team is going to play some breathetaking football, u know your stadium is gonna be packed with enthusiast fans every week..... but u also know u're gonna loose many "silly points" just because of his religious respect of offensive football.
zeman just can't have a conservative approach..... even just lining up 2 defensive midfielders is a blasphemy for him..... having (at any time) more than 4 players (gk included) behind the midfield line is an outrageous display of defensive football to him.
zamparini once perfectly summed up why serie a club owners tend to think twice before hiring zeman...
zamparini said:
at halftime your team is leading 3-0, your players are playing the best football u've ever seen and you feel on top of the world......but then in the 2nd half zeman team will concede 3 goals because of his intolerance towards any form of conservative football. as a result, at the final whistle, u'll be feeling suicidal, for loosing what was a certain win.
milanista said:
I thought Marilungo was extremely talented and would be perfect to fit Cassano's role out of Macheda or Pozzi. Surprised they loaned him out. Pozzi seems like he could be a 'Pazzini', so maybe they didn't really need those qualities.
i agree with u on marilungo. i really like that kid. i think cassano's departure would have been the perfect chance to give marilungo some playtime. and by holding pozzi they would have had a fantastic backup for pazzini. their offence would have been absolutely fine with those 3. i just can't understand why they let both of them go and signed macheda honestly. it doesn't make much sense to me. but maybe i'm missing something.
who's that crazy man!! 
never heard of him before. i assume he's a commentator for mediaset premium, right?
