Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season
Udinese to be on groupe of CL its enought I think they dont have capacity for more same as sampdoria last year !!
i gotta disagree with u here mate. udinese is more than qualified to play in CL (just like samp was last year). infact udinese (even a udinese without both inler and sanchez) would still be
good enough to litterally TEAR APART the 25% OF THE TEAMS WHO PLAY IN CL (just think of the teams who were in pot 4 last season: bursaspor, hapoel, cluj, zlina, partizan)......
and to beat in a confortable fashion about half the teams who play in champions league (just add to the pot 4 teams those others which were in pot 3 last season: shalcke, rangers, copenhagen, basilea).
no mate, there's definitely no doubt udinese wouldn't be out of place in CL. i mean even when u compare em with some european big guns, such as man city or tottenham, they still make their damn good impression. the financial gap between udinese and the likes of spurs or man city is huge..... but on the field the situation is different. i've seen man city and spurs playing several times last season and i can't honestly say they would be favourites in a matchup against udinese.
and mind u the same could be said about last season sampdoria. sampdoria didn't make it to CL last season....
but that had nothing to do with how good of a team they were. let's be honest werder brema are a very good team but that sampdoria team was just on another level. the reason why sampdoria didn't make it against werder is the same reason why it'll be extremely hard for udinese to pass the preliminary stage this season: the TIMING of the matches.
as u all know serie a is the last european league to begin. most of european leagues begin at around mid-august, whereas serie a usually kicks off in the last week of august (or the first week of september). some of u might say now "so what's the big deal? it's only a 2 weeks gap"
well that actually is a huge deal, because the entire summer athletic training schedule lasts for about 4 weeks.
the first 20 days of summer preparation are usually anaerobic workout. the players just came back from holidays so they first need to work on their muscular tone. first u work on your muscular strenght, then u work on your fitness and stamina (don't ask me why, coz i don't know. i just know there must be a reason as every coach in europe does like that).
after theese first 20 days of training sessions the players are completely exhausted. they have regained their muscular tone, but they haven't worked on their stamina yet.
they have gone though 20 days of anaerobic workout so their legs are heavy and their reaction times are awful.
the last 10 days of training sessions instead are focused mainly on aerobic workout.
those final 10 days allow the players to gain the best form for the start of the season (although they usually reach their athletic peak on month after). during those last 10 days they also play some friendlies, because there's no better aerobic workout than an actual football match (u just can't simulate the aerobic stress of a 90 minutes football match in training).
so why am i telling u all this? to explain u what i meant when i said that the uefa schedule is fucked up and that the timing of theese preliminary rounds couldn't be worse for italian clubs. every season an italian team (last year it was samp, this season will be udinese) who has just started its summer preparation faces an opponent (it might be a german, english, spanish, romanian, scottish team.... whatever) which has not only already completed its summer athletic preparation program.... but which has already begun its season!! LOL!!!! how fucked up and unfair is that!!!
the samp- werder double match up we saw last season is the perfect example.
first leg was played the
18 august. werder had already finished their athletic summer schedule as bundi's season was about fo kick off in 3 days. samp players instead were still in the middle of their training schedule, as serie a kick off was still far far away (29/30 august).
werder only won 3-1, but if u watched the match u'll remember how the germans outplayed samp. the blucerchiati were lucky to score as the match could have easily ended 4 or 5 to 0 for werder. there was just no match, because while the germans were already in seasonal league form... the italians were heavy on their legs and just couldn't keep up with their opponents on a phisycal plan.
the second leg was played only 1 week after (
24 august). samp had already almost finished its summer athletic program and was getting ready to start the serie a season (they were pretty much in the same conditions werder were the week before), whereas werder was already in "seasonal form", coz bundi had already begun.
mind u there was still a conditioning gap between werder and samp... but it was way smaller than the week before. samp wasn't already in "league form" but at least they had already gone through those last 10 days of aerobic workout.
the match was honestly as one sided as it could get. sampdoria litterally tore werder apart... it was like watching real madrid playing against a segunda division team..... after 90 minutes of football samp was winning 3-0.... and the result could have been even more embarassing for werder. but then, at the 93rd minute, seconds away from the final whistle werder finds a goal with a desperate "hail mary" try from pizarro. the final result is 3-1.... the exact result of the 1st leg. so it's extra time.
during extra time samp fell apart. that late goal from werder had a killer effect on samp players morale and the fitness gap between the germans and the italians was starting to show up.
werder scores again at the 100th minute and it's game over for sampdoria.
as long as uefa won't change their schedule, there will be preliminary matches in august. and italian teams are always going to struggle in august, no matter what sort of opponents they're facing.
of course rebuilding uefa calendar would imply a major change in both champions league and europa league formats..... so we will never see that happening.
we just have to deal with it and accept we will always have an handicap in european august fixtures.
but the fact that italian teams are always going to struggle in theese august preliminary stages has nothing to do with the actual quality of the teams, as there are SEVERAL teams in CL every year, wich are nowhere near as good as udinese or last season's samp...... theese teams however have an easier access to champions league because of the leagues they play into.
problem is we're linked with all the good players (Schweinsteiger, Sahin, Afellay, Ozil and Sanchez) and then we end up competing against guys with crazy money (Real Madrid, Barca and Money City). Taiwo is such a laugh though 
