Serie A Thread - 2014/15 Season

Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

Spurs' Champions League run is pretty similar to Leeds back in 2000/01. IIRC, they beat Milan at home and drew with them at the San Siro, as well as managing to qualify from the same group as them, thus relegating Barcelona to the UEFA Cup.

New team in the CL, tactically unknown, no pressure on them to be successful so they've got nothing to lose etc. If they get a good draw, they could easily replicate Leeds' run to the semi-finals that year.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

You're acting pretty biased Ben. The Italian in you feels 'insulted' for an insult that we don't even know happened and you're jumping in to defendGattuso who acted like a complete thug and worse yet (the CAPTAIN of Milan representing them as a team and as a city) and making a criminal out of Joe Jordan.

You've twisted a lot of things as well and made it seem worse/better than it was in favour of Gattuso. It wasn't 90 mins of frustration, the first altercation where he shoved him in the face was in the first half i think! wasn't it?

And how do you know about this "Italian Bastard" comment? Where you there by pitch side? Did you hear it? any real proof? Redknapp said Gennaro is playing the 'race' card to cover up the fact that he lost his temper and that might well be the case.

Joe Jordan who lived in Italy, has many Italian friends, used to play for Milan, suddenly HATEs Italians and their culture and is racists that way to say such thing? Why? Just cuz Gattuso's agent said that... suddenly we're supposed to believe in agents or a temperamental man who as expected lost his cool while losing and was punching the ground moments before for a yellow card?

Bottom line is, we don't exactly know what was said or not to condemn Joe Jordan or celebrate him, what we do know is the CAPTAIN, the representative of Milan completely lost it and not just on one occasion that night but many. For me, he proved he's not captain material and if I were Allegri or Galliani, I'd strip him of the captaincy and give it to a much better role model so when Ambrosini is not there, somebody like Nesta wears it.

Gattuso looked like a pathetic sad old frustrated player and for such a legendary player and a World Cup winner, you'd expect a little more class. But I lost nearly all my respect for him that night and it is him I blame, not Joe Jordan for what he may or may not have said.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

I don't know Sina. At the end of the game, Rino was walking around shaking people's hands normally, then when he got to Jordan, it all kicked off again. I think Gattuso deserves the ban etc, but I still think Jordan deserves something as well, maybe at least a 1 or 2 game touchline ban.

Gattuso is a very passionate player, it's frequent that he goes mental when he gets a yellow card. If you also watch, he does it to himself to the side, and not at the official. The only reason he's captain is because of his loyalty and his passion. About class - that's where Ambrosini steps in.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

His loyalty and passion as well as his ability as a footballer, I respect my friend. In fact I think he had a pretty good game overall. The fact that he was SO on the EDGE ever since the start though just tells you about his maturity. Being passionate is one thing, being a 33 year old who's been through it all but can't control his emotions at all, is another and is a weakness.

And he was virtually screaming at the ref for EVERY single decision that went against them and pushing people, committing fouls etc. (Tho on the occassion that he did get the yellow card, he actually didn't even commit a foul! in my opinion lol, poor guy! But he deserved more than a yellow for everything else anyway)

For me, he embarassed and made a fool of himself and unfortunately Milan to some extent as a whole being the captain on the night.

I don't think Joe Jordan should get any punishment because first of all we don't know what he said or not said (Sure if it gets proven that he made a racial slur, then I say ban that bastard for 10 matches!) and unlike Gattuso, he DID control/restrain himself. When Gattuso was in his face not once but twice and shoved him in the face, you could see just how BADLY he wanted to punch him! How BAD he wanted to fight! But he kept his cool and didn't because had he done it, the two benches would've got in a fight and it'd be mayhem and police would have to get involved... group fight! And a real mess of a situation. But unlike Gennaro, he contained himself otherwise scenes would've been MUCH uglier.

Also, if Joe Jordan had something uncharacteristically like the Italian bastard racist comment, don't you guys think he would've faced a much bigger backlash from other players and opposing bench than JUST Gattuso? Because it's not like he whispered it, I'm sure there were other players/coaches/Allegri nearby and suddenly it's not about Gennaro anymore, it's about Italy being insulted and I can't imagine, all the other players and Allegri and coaches being OKAY with hearing that...

EDIT: And also again I reiterate, this doesn't exempt him from it but the fact that he used to play for Milan and live in Italy and has friends/connections in Italy makes me even less reluctant to believe, he just came out of nowhere and called Gattuso an Italian bastard and supposedly STARTED everything and so he's the real problem.
 
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Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

PLF, you are right when you say that we don't know what Jordan said.
I've read in English papers (and maybe also on this forum) that Jordan provokes Spurs' opponents all the time. In fact quite a lot of people think it's the only thing he really does for Spurs...but of course we don't know that.
But if this is true, it explains why Jordan kept his cool. He never meant what he said, it was just a wind-up, it's all part of the game and the way Redknapp and he wants to play it. Would this make any difference, would this make his (alledged) behaviour less shocking? I don't think so...in fact to me (as a Spurs fan) it would make it even more shocking. I know a couple of (former) professional football players and hence know that things are said all the time during a match. IMO there a limits. You can never ever stereotype people: all Italians are maffiosi, all Iranians are mollah's, all the Jewish people are imposters, blacks are stupid, your sister is a whore, your wife cheats you with your manager...all wrong and to me each and all of them deserves a red card (also for Napolitan ways of saying things, you are speaking to players from another culture...).

About Gattuso. He seems to me the type of player "on steroïds"...and i'm not talking drugs here. These are the kind of player who let themselves lead by their temperament. Often that is their strenght but once in a while they can't control themselves. I think it's only fair that these players get punished...other type of players like Gattuso: Davids, Schumacher, Pfaff, Kahn (quite a lot of gk's). If you are a fan of those team you will like those players because they always go for it all the way...as a neutral i don't really like those players. But that is subjective.

I think you are a reasonable guy, but imo you are a litle bit too harsh for Ben, although i see a number of your points.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

Trezeguet said this apparently: "Juventus need to sign three champions who are used to winning trophies, not eight who are used to finishing in fourth place."

That's exactly what I was feeling about them in the last 2 years. They seem to be interested in stars all summer, but have such poor negotiation skills that ends up bringing in players like Poulsen, Candreva, Toni and Matri.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

me acting biased? me trying to defend gattuso? wow, i didn't expect that! Sina i'm inclined to believe u read my posts in a hurry.... infact, reading what u wrote, i'm almost sure of it. however maybe it was me not expressing my point properly, so let me try again.

i am not defending gattuso (like u say). infact if u read again what i wrote in my very last post, u'll notice statements like ".....gattuso's behaviour was absolutely unacceptable, regardless the circumstances or the possible provocation....." or ".....gattuso's punishment sounds pretty fair to me...."
i don't think i left much room for interpretations or misunderstandings there, did i? ;)

also another thing i don't quite understand is why u insist so much on making this some sort ot a racist thing. leaving aside the quite obvious fact that spending a few years in a country doesn't necessarily implies u can't "not like" italy or italians (mate are u seriously suggesting that he can't have said that just because he's played in italy for a few seasons 30 years ago??? i'm sorry mate, but this is quite a silly and very weak argument).
and anyway, that's not even important, because that's not even a racist-related thing. according to gattuso jordan called him a "fucking bastard italian". now mate, if u think the offensive part of this statement is "italian", then there's something wrong with u". :P
Gerd, if i were to call u "fucking basterd belgian", would u be mad at me coz i called u "belgian"??? i don't think so.... as a matter of fact u are a belgian, and last time i checked "belgian" was not an insult.....just like "italian". but i assume u wouldn't like to be called "fucking bastard".
i'm fairly sure gattuso got mad coz that prick called him a "fucking bastard"... and i don't think the "italian" part of the phrase hurted him at all :))

and the race aspect pops out again when u say that "the italian in me feels insulted by that and pushes me to twist facts in order to defend gattuso". i already proved i'm not defending gattuso, so i not gonna repeat myself.
but why would i feel insulted anyway? because a 60 years old man i never met in my life insulted a 30 years old man i never met in my life? that's odd!
u think i would feel insulted coz jordan said "fucking italian bastard"? jordan didn't insult me... and he didn't insult the entire italian population of course. he only insulted gattuso, who just happens to be italian.... he could have said "u bastard midget" , or "bastard bearded man"...... and yet that shouldn't make any short people or bearded man feel insulted. :LOL:
besides, even if racism were somehow involved in this incident (wich is not the case), do u really believe i would feel the urge to defend a guy i don't even know, a football player who doesn't even play for my team, a person i've only seen in tv...... just because he was born the same country i was and speaks the same language i do?
i gotta be honest sina, i don't find anything insulting in jordan's words.... but what u wrote, on the other side, isn't exactly nice.

but the weirdest thing in your post is when u say "u weren't there, therefore u can't tell what happened". this makes absolutely no sense at all. there's a fil rouge wich unites pretty much every culture ever existed on the face of the earth; the judging process. humans have different gods, different laws, different habits, but they all have one thing in common. their judging process is based on the reconstruction of facts by an individual who didn't personally witness the event itself. u may call them judges or shamans, or reigious authorities.... this is what they do. and since we have to reconstruct an event we didn't see with our own eyes, we rely on evidences, testimonies and our personal logic.

and this Sina is exactly what BOTH OF US are doing right now. u're saying i wasn't there so i can't assume a position..... but u're doing exactly the same thing. u're not being neutral, as there's no such thing as assuming a neutral position here.
u either believe gattuso reacted to a provocation.... or u don't. i'm inclined to believe gattuso is telling the truth, while u're inclined to believe he isn't and redknapp is telling the truth..... both of us have no evidences supporting our arguments, and both of us are taking a position, so u can't tell me "u weren't there"...... coz i could very well say the exact same thing to u. ;)

so, like i said, it's about evidences, testimonies and the logic process. now logic process alone won't get u far in a court, unless u sustain it with some evidences or witnesses...... but that's not how FIFA and UEFA work. the zidane-materazzi incident is the most classic example. there were absolutely no evidences materazzi insulted zidane... some lips-readers tried to figure out what materazzi told zidane, but they failed miserably. yet fifa still came to the conclusion that materazzi did provocate zidane, based on mere logic. quite simply there were 2 options:
1 - zidane suddenly had a schizophrenic episode and attacked materazzi.
2 - materazzi said something to stimulate zidane's reaction.
and based on that logic argument ALONE they made up their mind and punished materazzi for something they couldn't prove.

was that the right thing to do? hell yeah! in a court such a decision would be laughable, but football federations don't have the same disciplinary power a judge has (they don't put people in jail) so they can afford to bend some rules and rely on logic assumption alone.
and let's be honest, that's what we all did. we weren't there either, yet we all assumed materazzi tried to provocate zidane's reaction. and we based our assumption on a very basic logic process; that was much more believable than thinking zidane went berserk for no reason.
and that's exactly what we are doing right now. we both weren't there, yet we both made up our mind about what happened.

when fifa punished materazzi, they established a policy, a strategy, they drew a line. they pretty much told us that whenever there's an argument or a fight or a feud on the pitch, they act like a mother when his 2 sons are fighting: she just twists both his sons arms and punish em both, no matter who started it.
and that's fine. but u gotta show some consistancy. u can't apply different criteria to similar situations. once u establish a method in judging a specific situation, u got to stick to that method.

and this is not trying to defend gattuso because is italian. i'm not doing that. neither i'm turning this into a racial incident (wich is what u seemed to imply). i'm applying logic. i'm arguing my point with a simple objective criterium. u can't use 2 different standards to judge 2 similar situations. and i don't think u can say i'm twisting facts here, as my point is reasonable and pretty much undebeatable.
PLF said:
The fact that he was SO on the EDGE ever since the start though just tells you about his maturity. Being passionate is one thing, being a 33 year old who's been through it all but can't control his emotions at all, is another and is a weakness.
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i also disagree on that mate. there are certainly no excuses for gattuso's behaviour, and like i said before, the fact that he was wearing the captain's armband makes it even worse........... but there's not a person in the world who can always be in control of his emotions. and it's not a matter of being passionate or mature or old. u can be as balanced as a human being can be.... u can be a mature 30 or 40 or 50 years old man.... we all crack under the stress sometimes. and when that happens we might do things we wouldn't do in normal situations.
we all have "a bad day" sometimes... it could be a work related problem or an argument with our girl or with a friend... and we all tend to be more "fired up" and touchy when we're in a bad mood. that happens to everybody... 15 years old teenagers and 70 years old grandpas. and when u mix that with the adrenaline that comes with a football match, that can make things even worse, as in that context, even the silliest most irrilevant thing can bring us to make a complete asshole of ourselves. ihave to admit it happened to me aswell (even though i consider myself a pretty balanced man).

afterall we've seen this sort of scenes before. i remeber mihajlovic a few years ago, back when he was inter coach assistant (what a coincidence) did the same thing with ibra (who was playing with juve those days). it was an inter juve match and from the sidelines mihajlovic picked on ibra right until ibra had enough and attacked him. i also remember materazzi doing the very same thing last season with some other player i can't remember. marco was on the bench and kept insulting an opponent's defender right until the whole thing blew up in a fight.
i'm not trying to justify rino AT ALL. i'm just saying, as unacceptable as his behaviuour was, this is not something that would make me lose respect for a person... he's human, like us all.... and like us all, when in a bad mood he might do stupid things he wouldn't do in normal conditions.
i would certainly lose respect for him if, once back in control of his emotions, he wouldn't apologise, but that was not the case this time.

what i saw the other week was a player who was way too nervous ever since the beginning of the match (like u correctly remarked). then at the end of the game, he was shaking hands with his opponents, right until he met jordan again.
now we might believe rino went berserk for no reason at all and suddenly decided to vent his anger at jordan. that is a possibility, sure.... although it doesn't make much sense to me.
if he just had to give vent to his nerves, there were lots of opponents on the pitch to choose from, guys like him. u don't assault a man who is twice your age, a man who could be your father... an assistant coach who is quietly staying on the sideline.... u don't do that unless he gave u a reason.

this is how i see it. now i might be wrong, of course. i wasn't there (just like u) so i can't say beyond any doubt that's what happened (although u got to admit it makes much more sense).so let's just agree to disagree on this. we have different opinions on what happened, and that's absolutely fine.
but please mate, don't dismiss me, saying my opinion is motivated by the fact gattuso is italian. that is a cheap shot. i argued my point with objective and logic arguments..... and besides, u should know me better than this. :))

i'm not defending gattuso... neither i'm making a criminal out of jordan, like u said. i'm simply remarking how the federation has addressed this incident with criteria wich are different from the ones they applied to similar incidents.... and this seems a pretty much unquestionable point to me.
 
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Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

Yeah I think PLF was a bit too hard. I mean certainly it is by no means acceptable for Gatusso to hit a man twice his age like that. I can't think of another player who could do such a thing but he was banned for 5 games and when he cooled down he apologized and said he felt ashamed by what he has done and I read he is going to London to apologize again to Jordan when the teams meet up again. He affected Milan's image and I personally was ashamed of what he has done.

About the tense thing, Gattuso is always tense and screams at refs all the time. That is his character. I didn't like him when I started watching Milan but then I got used to him.

He was extra tense in this game cause Milan were dominated and he had to put up with Crouch jumping on top of him all game. I closely noticed it. When Crouch jumps, his elbows become on level with Gattuso's face and he was frustrated by that. :D

And if it true that Jordan always tries to provoke his opponents, then screw him. He is in no position to be doing that.

Milanista said:
Trezeguet said this apparently: "Juventus need to sign three champions who are used to winning trophies, not eight who are used to finishing in fourth place."
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I am starting to think Juventus is just too big for Del Neri to handle. Even Marotta. Why spend 15 mill on Martinez who has only played a couple of games this season?

EDIT- Just read Gattuso's latest interview.

Jordan has denied Gattuso’s claims he called him a “f***ing Italian b***ard,” but the midfielder revealed more details of what led up to the row.

“Jordan was shouting and saying “This isn’t a pool,” referring to Thiago Silva’s foul. My motto is ‘respect those who show you respect.’ I’m a nice guy, but I’m not stupid.

“In these years of my career I have never hurt anyone, so when I went over to Jordan after the game and he took off his glasses as the sign of a challenge, shouting ‘f***, f***.’”

There was also an alleged brawl in the tunnel between Gattuso and Sebastien Bassong, with Ibrahimovic acting as peacemaker to tear them apart.

“Then Bassong got involved and said ‘You and me.’ So I said it back to him. We got together in the players’ tunnel, had a full match with first and second half. Bassong saw I was little and assumed I was small fry.”
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LOL Gattuso is clearly insane.
 
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Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

Zeem said:
I am starting to think Juventus is just too big for Del Neri to handle. Even Marotta. Why spend 15 mill on Martinez who has only played a couple of games this season?
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martinez has been injured pretty much the entire season so far mate.

btw did ibra really had to act as a peacemaker?!? LOL! when a hot headed like ibrahimovic ends up to be the peacemaker, u know there's something very wrong going on.

anyway where were the uefa delegates when all that mess was going on? i mean they're on the sideline precisely to report on this sort of incidents... so what they hell where they doing?

i just hope all this drama won't put too much heat on the second leg.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

Montella says he's no stop-gap manager for Roma. :D I think he's not a bad solution for the remainder of season as it's hard to get a quality coach in right now but for him to permanently become coach of Roma is just a disaster. I still see him as another 'player' basically, not sure what authority he has to tell Totti and co what to do when he was warming the bench for them for years. Though it should be said, in his peak, he was an awesome forward! Clinical finisher.

I don't see this working though. Maybe a good short-term solution because it's not the best time to recruit a true coach but nothing more than that.

lo zio said:
me acting biased? me trying to defend gattuso? wow, i didn't expect that! Sina i'm inclined to believe u read my posts in a hurry.... infact, reading what u wrote, i'm almost sure of it. however maybe it was me not expressing my point properly, so let me try again.
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You expressed your opinions pretty well at first attempt I thought my friend. I just happen to disagree with much of what you say.

But it should be said that you're correct.

1. I DID read your post in a hurry.

And more importantly, 2) I WROTE my post in a hurry. So judging by your reaction and other friends here, I'm guessing it did come out a lot more harsh and hostile than I meant it. :)

also another thing i don't quite understand is why u insist so much on making this some sort ot a racist thing. leaving aside the quite obvious fact that spending a few years in a country doesn't necessarily implies u can't "not like" italy or italians (mate are u seriously suggesting that he can't have said that just because he's played in italy for a few seasons 30 years ago??? i'm sorry mate, but this is quite a silly and very weak argument).
and anyway, that's not even important, because that's not even a racist-related thing. according to gattuso jordan called him a "fucking bastard italian". now mate, if u think the offensive part of this statement is "italian", then there's something wrong with u". :P

and the race aspect pops out again when u say that "the italian in me feels insulted by that and pushes me to twist facts in order to defend gattuso".
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From my understanding, it was and basically is a racial thing. At least that's why Rino's agent and others have tried to make it and why Redknaap was saying "He's playing the race card". We all get called things like 'bastard', 'stupid', 'ugly', 'lazy' other derogatory terms at times but it's not like saying something to one's family/sister or race, then it becomes much more serious! And from the articles I read about this incident, it seemed that the main point of aggravation was a British man (just like their stupid media) looking down on an Italian by calling him F'n Italian implying all the stupid negative connotations and stereotypes that many (and especially British people) hold for lots of Italians. You know the whole greaseball thing, diving, these divas who like to gel their hair but are soft like male models, cheating, short-temper, etc.) I don't need to mention them all because it's not nice and I myself having many Italian friends don't agree with them. But there are all the reasons why a non-Italian calling someone a F'n Italian in the heat of moment and argument IS an insult because they're not saying it for the great reasons to be an Italian but the supposed bad ones (which are nothing more than overzealous generalizations and stereotypes).

So I made it a racial thing here because I thought it IS a racial thing and I still believe it was. And like I said if Joe Jordan HAS indeed said this, ( we don't know, he might have...) then I say ban that fucker for a lot longer than Gattuso!

but the weirdest thing in your post is when u say "u weren't there, therefore u can't tell what happened". this makes absolutely no sense at all.

and this Sina is exactly what BOTH OF US are doing right now. u're saying i wasn't there so i can't assume a position..... but u're doing exactly the same thing. u're not being neutral, as there's no such thing as assuming a neutral position here.
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Why no neutral? That's the position I'm taking. Unlike you, I'm not assuming Redknaap IS telling the truth. He's no saint. He or Jordan could be lying. Neither is Gennaro of course. So the fact is we DON'T know. We'll probably hear many different versions of what happened later on from different sets of players, but the fact remains that neither I, nor you, or anybody knows what happened. So what we CAN do is judge what we DID see. And what we DID see is Gattuso attacking Jordan once during the heat of the game and once after losing the game. The words that were exchanged between the two we don't know about but surely both had certain things to say to each other if it got to that...

I only used that argument on you not because I was there myself, lol of course I wasn't, but I used that argument because you came out all guns blazing and while saying Gattuso deserves his punishment, you had your heart set on the fact that this was really Jordan's fault and Tottenham showed their 'class' by their statement on website and that Gattuso was provoked, go read your post again my friend. You're not partial. You're clearly on Milan and Gattuso's side and think Joe Jordan and Tottenham got off lightly and were just as much to blame.

yet fifa still came to the conclusion that materazzi did provocate zidane, based on mere logic. quite simply there were 2 options:
1 - zidane suddenly had a schizophrenic episode and attacked materazzi.
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That's hilarious!! :D :LMAO:


i also disagree on that mate. there are certainly no excuses for gattuso's behaviour, and like i said before, the fact that he was wearing the captain's armband makes it even worse........... but there's not a person in the world who can always be in control of his emotions. and it's not a matter of being passionate or mature or old. u can be as balanced as a human being can be.... u can be a mature 30 or 40 or 50 years old man.... we all crack under the stress sometimes. and when that happens we might do things we wouldn't do in normal situations.
we all have "a bad day" sometimes... it could be a work related problem or an argument with our girl or with a friend... and we all tend to be more "fired up" and touchy when we're in a bad mood. that happens to everybody... 15 years old teenagers and 70 years old grandpas. and when u mix that with the adrenaline that comes with a football match, that can make things even worse, as in that context, even the silliest most irrilevant thing can bring us to make a complete asshole of ourselves. ihave to admit it happened to me aswell (even though i consider myself a pretty balanced man).

i'm not trying to justify rino AT ALL. i'm just saying, as unacceptable as his behaviuour was, this is not something that would make me lose respect for a person... he's human, like us all.... and like us all, when in a bad mood he might do stupid things he wouldn't do in normal conditions.
i would certainly lose respect for him if, once back in control of his emotions, he wouldn't apologise, but that was not the case this time.
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This is a very good point and one that interestingly enough, I experienced PERSONALLY myself yesterday. (what a surprise too, the same day I wrote my last msg ;) )

I'm usually pretty cool, calm, composed and collected. But yesterday over a relatively small matter, I lost my temper and had a huge argument with my girl. Truth is I was under stress like you said and at times like that, small things can put us on edge and make us go over.

So we're all human beings. No matter how cool or collected or grounded, it's inevitable that every now and then, emotions get a tighter hold of us than we'd like to admit or let and we act out of character.

Plus a point that should be made but hasn't been here, is that Gattuso has played what like 100 CL matches? And for such a fiery and combative character playing in the midfield where the majority of action is, he's only been sent-off like once hasn't he? That's very impressive and is something that people Pro-Gattuso in this situation (not me :P lol ) should mention.

what i saw the other week was a player who was way too nervous ever since the beginning of the match (like u correctly remarked). then at the end of the game, he was shaking hands with his opponents, right until he met jordan again.
now we might believe rino went berserk for no reason at all and suddenly decided to vent his anger at jordan. that is a possibility, sure.... although it doesn't make much sense to me.
if he just had to give vent to his nerves, there were lots of opponents on the pitch to choose from, guys like him. u don't assault a man who is twice your age, a man who could be your father... an assistant coach who is quietly staying on the sideline.... u don't do that unless he gave u a reason.

this is how i see it. now i might be wrong, of course. i wasn't there (just like u) so i can't say beyond any doubt that's what happened (although u got to admit it makes much more sense).so let's just agree to disagree on this. we have different opinions on what happened, and that's absolutely fine.
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No, I can't agree there. It makes more sense to you not to me. This is a classic case of temperamental sore loser making a fight and trying to give the other a 'peace of their mind'. Gattuso was on the edge, and having lost the match, probably went to the man he already had an altercation with. You don't go and suddenly randomly pick on Rafa van der vaart who if anything was acting as peacemaker before. You go to the same man who ticked you off before and made you angry and you were involved with. So a competitive character like him, the captain on the night, feeling he's let himself down, and losing at home being outclassed for much of the match, he went to pick a fight with the man he already had a fight with. A man he blames and wants to take his frustration out on.

We've seen it all the time from school days up until we're older, the losing team and players, often think, hey if I'm gonna lose this match... then I'm gonna take someone with me. And I certainly don't think this is shocking behaviour from someone like Gattuso.

but please mate, don't dismiss me, saying my opinion is motivated by the fact gattuso is italian. that is a cheap shot. i argued my point with objective and logic arguments..... and besides, u should know me better than this. :))
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Having said all that, it's obvious that we will have to agree to disagree on this matter and I for one am glad. Finally we found something we both completely disagree on! :D

Yes I do know you better. Hey, you're practically my best friend on these forums anyway. My favourite guy. The one I respect most. But you already know all that, that's absolutely no surprise for you. ;)

I'm sorry if I offended you with my previous post but while I did disagree, I wasn't in a great mood when I wrote it (as you brought up a very good point about us being on edge) AND I wrote it a rush so it actually came out more hostile than I meant.

But at the end of the day, this is just a silly argument and you know I love you. ;) (no homo) lol.

Oh and in regards to the 2nd leg, I don't know, I think ALL of this will make it even more interesting! :D It's gonna be less pleasant for the players/coaches, but as a neutral this r0cks! :D

I love watching matches with fights and altercations like this. Just adds something even more 'extra' to the game. :P
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

Sina don't even think for a second i was somehow offended by you. u're too much of a good friend to me, therefore u gotta do so much better than this to make me feel offended. afterall u know what my line of work is, so u'll easily realise your post hardly qualifies as "hostile" in my book :)). infact i can't really understand why the other guys said u were harsh....i'm guessing they meant u were being harsh on gattuso (?) and not on me.... the only "harsh" comment u made to me was "biased", and obviously that hardly qualifies as "offensive". i was suprised by the biased\racial part of your argument, but really, nothing more than "surprised". ;)

but u see i think i figured out the issue here. there's a very big difference between what qualifies as racist in italy and in other countries. and this is something i realised over the years. in usa, in uk, in france, in germany, in all south american countries... the concept of racial offense is much much wider and all-encompassing than it is in italy.
if u say to an english "u fucking english bastard", he's probably gonna take it as a racial offense.... probably the same goes for an american or a german. but saying "u fucking italian bastard" to an italian is absolutely not a racist insult. because it doesn't clearely implies that "every italian is a fucking bastard". if u wanna sound racist to an italian hear, u gotta be a lot more specific. just putting the word "italian" after a common insult just won't make that a racist insult.
that is probably why u see this as a racist thing, while i don't.
anyway u're right bro. it's about time we disagree on something... it was getting kinda boring. :D
PLF said:
No, I can't agree there. It makes more sense to you not to me. This is a classic case of temperamental sore loser making a fight and trying to give the other a 'peace of their mind'. Gattuso was on the edge, and having lost the match, probably went to the man he already had an altercation with. You don't go and suddenly randomly pick on Rafa van der vaart who if anything was acting as peacemaker before. You go to the same man who ticked you off before and made you angry and you were involved with. So a competitive character like him, the captain on the night, feeling he's let himself down, and losing at home being outclassed for much of the match, he went to pick a fight with the man he already had a fight with. A man he blames and wants to take his frustration out on.
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that's actually a very good point. it DOES make sense indeed.
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as for montella, once ranieri resigned, rosella sensi tried to have him changing his mind, but she couldn't. So they decided to go for an "internal solution". montella was already coaching for AS Roma (he was the coach of one of the youth teams), so they didn't have to hire a new coach.
right now rosella sensi is in a bit of a tricky spot (as the entire roma organization). u see the club has not a real owner right now, coz unicredit (sensi's famility creditor) took the club from the sensis. unicredit managers are now negotiating with a new owner and they left rosella in charge (like some sort of a ceo)... but she hasn't any real spending power, so she was kinda forced to find a free solution to replace ranieri.
another reason why she picked montella imo is to put more heat on the players, to make them feel more responsible. they have displayed some embarassing performances lately, so hiring montella for the rest of the season could be her way to tell the players "ok u stupid brats, that's what u wanted, now it's all on you!"
Montella is an ex teammate and is only 2 years younger than their captain (totti), so he obviously won't have any authority at all inside that dressing room.
so hiring montella becomes a way to give more power (and resoponsability) to the players thelsemves.
anyway this is obviously going to be only a temporary solution. in 1 or 2 months roma will have a new owner and the new owner will obviously hire another coach for the next season.
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YoungGun, yeah i did hear about that pastore rumour. but there's something that doesn't sound right to me about this speculation... the money. it's very common to hear some market speculation during the season... but u never get specific figures. this is not the time to make offers... this is a time to quietly negotiate.
on the other hand, italian media are nothing like foreign media, especially when it comes to market speculation. they're usually pretty reliable, so if they say there was a contact between palermo and man utd, it's most likely true.
so if i had to imagine what happened... yes there probably was a contact between man utd and palermo, but the 40 millions offer bit is just wild speculation. probably man utd told zamparini "hey if and when u decide to sell pastore, let us know coz we're interested".
besides 40 millions seems a lot of money by palermo standards. i'm not saying pastore is not worth it, as any valutation is subjective (some might say if carrol is worth 40 millions, pastore is worth 3 times that money).... but i just can't see palermo selling him for such a high ammount of money. u see we are very good in finding unknown cheap talents all over the world.... we're also pretty good in raising our talents and developing them........ but we aren't good at all in selling our players once they become big. we don't really drive a hard bargain, if u know what i mean... just think of kjaer; he was arguably the best cb on the market this summer, and yet he left for only 13 millions. and those 16 millions we got for cavani don't seem that much either, on hindsight. i would be surprised if pastore would leave for more than 25/28 millions.

however it seems we might not be selling pastore this summer. he said he doesn't like the idea of leaving palermo this summer. and his agent said pastore clearely told him he wants to remain in palermo next year (is he nuts?!? :P )... he even signed a contract renewal. so maybe we're not gonna sell pastore this summer, but next summer.
anyway it's still way too early to be sure about anything. the only thing we know is that the red devils are interested in javier. :))
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very nice match yesterday between inter and bayern... well probably not for an inter fan... but for a neutral it was really enjoyable. both teams had lots of chances and each side could have won. i'm absolutely astonished by this ranocchia kid. he's playing at the very same standards he did in bari last season.... straight away. no adaptation period, no worries at all. this kid is not just an extremely talented player, he has the composure and the coolness of a veteran. he has the gutsy approach of balotelli, but without that unbearable attitude of balotelli.
world class potential, balotelli's guts and montolivo's class and education.... that's a great combination!
yesterday i saw him doing what probably was his very first mistake with an inter shirt (that crazy side pass, right outside the box)... but then he made up for that mistake with a fantastic tackle. i am very very impressed. let's hope he keeps going like this. :))
 
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Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

Three first leg home defeats for Italian clubs in the CL first knock-out round. Serie A is dead, Ben. :P
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

I also watched the match between Intern and Bayern. This was indeed a great match for a neutral...
As a team Bayern was clearly the better team, so the win was deserved, but inter could have won it too.

For me the most impressive player on the pitch was Eto'o. During long stretches of the match he was totally isolated, but still proved very, very dangerous before goal and that from situations where he was outnumbered by the Bayern defense. Unfortunately Bayern's young GK had a couple of great saves..I'm looking forward to the away match in Munchen, now Inter need to attack... i wonder what will happen.

And yes i agree about Ranocchia.
I was also impressed by Bayern's new player Gustavo Luis...great performance from him aswell.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

Last year the ywere let down by their central defenders...it seems they are now stronger in this area.
Bayern as a club deserves a CL win. This is a very sensible club and the last years they are playing very attractive football (which wasn't always the case in the past). At the moment they have quite a few players who came through the youth teams.

IMO Van Gaal is an underrated coach.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

Aboutreika18 said:
Three first leg home defeats for Italian clubs in the CL first knock-out round. Serie A is dead, Ben. :P
Click to expand...
at least now big clubs won't be blaming midclass clubs for losing the 4th spot in CL anymore :P
Gerd said:
Last year the ywere let down by their central defenders...it seems they are now stronger in this area.
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i dunno mate... they seemed very shaky at the back. i mean 2 days ago it was basically eto'o and maicon against their entire defensive line (milito is out, pazzini can't play in CL, so they could only line up 1 forward).... and yet those 2 alone managed to do whatever they wanted everytime they pushed a little (as u pointed out).
infact i'm quite surprised inter didn't push a little more (but then again, like stef said many times, leonardo's teams basically have no midfield at all).

it was a very entertaining game though, and yeah bayern definitely deserved the win... i got a feeling the second leg will be even more exciting.

as for van gaal, i don't think he's underrated honestly.... not that he isn't a great coach... but he actually is considered a great coach by most, so.
however i still can't stand the guy. i know, u already tried to change my mind about him once gerd, but it's just stronger than me... i can't get to like him. always on his high horse, remarking how amazing he is because he plays "offensive football"...... as if he were the only coach in the world who displays offensive football. wake up "luigi", about half the teams in europe play offensive football today...... and yet their coaches don't shout about it like u do!
his pre-match press was just hilarious. he talked for about 5 minutes about how defensive inter is, basing all his arguments on the final he actually lost 2-0 and inter's last serie a game (the game vs cagliari, wich was arguably the worst inter performance ever since benitez was fired).... and then after the game he actually complimented inter saying the nerazzurri were actually more offensive than he expected...LOL! so that was an offensive display by inter? it makes u wonder if he had watched any other inter match beside the game versus cagliari! :LOL:

nah, i just can't like the guy... besides i can't quite point my finger on it, but there's something disturbing about his looks... i don't know, maybe it's the lack of eyebrows :P

jokes apart, this bayern is a sweet team :))

btw when u think of it, it's amazing what impact sampdoria's former forwards had on their new teams. it's less than month since pazzini joined inter and cassano joined milan.... and yet it's already almost as if milan and inter are just not the same team without em.
 
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Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

Hahha yeah and of course Samp are the big losers in all this!

As for van Gaal, I fully agree. This guy is somebody that you just can't quite 'like' lol. He's super arrogant, thinks he's the greatest and there are many disturbing stories about him.

Having said that, he's a great coach. Legendary in some ways and I think most people already DO know that and do give him credit for it. So I wouldn't say he's under-rated either as he is one of the world's most famous coaches and as high profile as it gets.

And yeah although I don't personally like the guy either, I admit, he's good! And knows what he's talking about!

He is inflexible in my opinion and VERY much set in his ways, which can at times be a disadvantage when things aren't going your way and you are simply too stubborn to ever consider an alternative.

As for Bundi grabbing 4th place CL now, does that take effect immediately? So does the team that finish 4th in Bundesliga THIS season get CL place instead of Italian one? Or is that from next?
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

2011/2012 will have 4 Italian teams in the CL and it will be the last.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

Oh I see.

Any reason for delay?

You'd think if changes happened now then at least starting next season (which is 2011/2012) they would be implemented. But apparently not, it's the season after which these changes will come into effect.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

PLF said:
Oh I see.

Any reason for delay?

You'd think if changes happened now then at least starting next season (which is 2011/2012) they would be implemented. But apparently not, it's the season after which these changes will come into effect.
Click to expand...

Well since this happened in the middle of the season, some Serie A teams have already set objectives to a CL spot and made investements like Lazio and Napoli. I would be harsh and something like a slap if they were implemented immediately
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

No that I know and agree with... but I see where I was wrong... this means these changes are for 2012/2013 CHAMPIONS LEAGUE meaning, it DOES come into effect NEXT season (2011/2012) in domestic leagues meaning next year is the last year Italy will have 4 representatives in CL which inclues this season's Napoli and Lazio probably for example.

But for next domestic Serie A season, then only top 3 get rewarded the subsequent year with CL places and #4 of next year will end up in the lovely Europa League that Italian clubs love so much! :D
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

I see one of Juve and Roma being affected a lot by this, maybe even both if Napoli make some smart moves when they get the CL spot this season.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

Ben (and Sina),

I can't really comment on both former Samp forwards, i haven't seen them play for their new clubs...as a matter of fact, i've never ever seen Pazzini playing football at all...

About Van Gaal's arrogance: that is not Van Gaal, that is Van Gaal as the typical Amsterdammer...most people of Amsterdam are like that. Some call it arrogant others call it being assertive.

I admire Van Gaal for his work with young players. In a season and a half he ahas brought players like Thomas Muller, Badstuber, Contento and that young GK in the first team...

Do you know that Bayern's board (Hoeness, Beckenbauer, Rumenigge: extremely influential people) wanted to buy a GK, but Van Gaal went against them and decided to give that young GK his chance...he was quite good. That is what i admire in him...

I'm something of a fan, although i'm well aware that he's not a very likeable man...but then again Cruijff is also like that and Cruijff became one of my heroes (when he played i was a kid and i absolutely couldn't stand him).

About that fourth CL place, as a fan of Italian football i think it's a shame Italy lost that 4th place. On the other hand, the Bundesliga is a great league and they deserve a fourth CL spot.

I think overall both the Bundesliga and Serie A are stronger than La Liga, but Barcelona and (occasionally) Real Madrid give them lots of points..
 
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