Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season
you guys are looking at it all wrong. this is not about making Roma competitive. This is about building a new and improved Roma, something that will bear fruit 3-5 years from now. Barcelona is the direction football is going and what better way to emulate Barca than to bring in their youth coach.
i understand this is supposed to be a long term project mate. infact i'm no judjing them yet. i'm not saying i'm disappointed in what they've done so far, nor i am saying this project will turn out to be a failure.
all i am saying is that from the moves they've done
so far (and please take note the "so far" part is bolded):
- menez, vucinic and mexes out
- lamela, bojan and heinze in
- a newbie coach we know nothing about....
i can't honestly say i'm excited and filled with enthusiasm about the way this project is starting of.
mind u though, they have also done some good things. sabatini is a great choice for the team director position (if u're trying to build a young talented squad, it's hard to find a better man than him for the job). and also bringing baldini back was a great move by the americans. baldini is a huge talent and was wasting his skills in england, in a job position that couldn't put his abilities to good use.
but what really turns me off are theese "
now let's do it blaugrana style!" claims. i sincerely hope it was the media who came up with this bullshits, because if luis enrique really thinks it's possible for him to emulate the way another team plays (wheter it's barcelona or hull city), then we should really question his understanding of the game.
the way each and every team plays football depends by so many different factors and variables that it's impossible to replicate. it's not just the quality of the players or the coaching guide or the tactics (theese are the most obvious and controllable factors). there are also some other factors wich are completely out of control; the chemistry between the players, their understanding of each others, the harmony in the dressing room, the hunger\motivation of the whole environment, the relationship between the players and the coach, between the players and the rest of the coaching staff, between the players and the board.
palermo offers a great example. just watch a palermo match from last november.... then watch a jannuary game. it's like watching 2 completely different teams. yet there wasn't any apparent change. the players were the same, the coaching staff was the same, the tactics were the same. so what caused such a football change?
zamparini's vitriolic criticisms, during xmas completely destroyed the poise inside the dressing room. and that was it. it only took a few words from the club owner to destroy what rossi achieved with months of hard work..
what i'm trying to say here is that there are so many details and small variables involved in the way a teams play football, that it's impossible to replicate the same situation.
not even the same coach could do that. infact no coach playes the same football wherever he goes. spalletti's football is very entertaining, but that's just a vague indication; infact the actual football his teams play is always different. both his udinese and his roma were great teams, both teams played some great football, but roma's great football and udinese's great football were completely different. the same goes for rossi. he had all his teams playing some breathtaking football (lecce, lazio, palermo)..... but all theese teams played in a very different way. also ancelotti's chelsea and ancelotti's milan were very different from each others (even though they were both great team and has some basic concepts in common).
not even guardiola could be able to replicate this beautiful barçelona experiment in some other club... because the situation would be different.....so how could luis enrique possibly achieve such result? because he's from barçelona? yeah right.
i'm telling u, u could import to roma guardiola, his entire coaching staff and half the starting formation of the blaugranas, and u still wouldn't be able to see the same football.
not even barçelona will be able to repeat itself, once this amazing cycle will be over.
so bottom line, pretending to import barçelona's football to roma, just because roma signed luis enrique and bojan is just lame and amateurish.
the only things u can import from some other coaching experience are tactics. and speaking of tactics, barçelona hasn't really invented anything new. this blaugrana team just play some fantastic and effective football, but they haven't brought some tactical revolution, so simply displaying their formation and adopting their tactics wouldn't actually bring u anywhere near their football.
rfu said:
Dont do it. Dont. Remember Argentina a few months back? This was merely a friendly. Lets not get too carried away. Can't believe I missed the game though. Darn.
u're right, it would be unappropriate to get carried away only because we did very well on pretty much every occasion ever since prandelli took over. we did very well against spain and germany, but doesn't necessarily mean the italy shirt will have a 5th star anytime soon. u can display some amazing football for 2 years, then when it comes the time to "put up" (the world cup), u might get 2 key players injured, other 2 players in poor form, and u can kiss your expectations goodbye. national football lives on the moment afterall.
but, having said that, it would also be unappropriate to ignore the AMAZING job prandelli has done in just 1 year. just one year ago this team couldn't beat new zealand! as a matter of fact we weren't able to string 3 passes in a row. there was no drive, no enthusiasm, no hunger at all. now the players get pissed off when they miss an italy game. u can actually feel their enthusiasm and their joy to play together.
and it's not just the players who look forward to international breaks... even the fans enjoy watching this team playing now. prandelli had this team playing some quite entertaining football, so an italy game is now something to look forward to.... and not only for an italy fan, also for a neutral fan who is just looking for some nice football...... and that is something new for italy!
so sure, let's not get carried away.... but let's enjoy this moment and appreciate the football we're playing right now, because truth to be told, there aren't many national teams out there wich are playing as good as we're doing right now.
i'm a huge fan of prandelli (who could possibly not be a fan of his afterall?), but i didn't expect him to do his magic so quickly.... actually i didn't expect him to do any magic at all, as he's one of those coaches who needs the daily contact with the players, in order to pull the best out of them and national team coaching doesn't allow that.
well i'm glad i was proved wrong..... as usual
He'll be fine IMO. Buy of the season for me, so far. Maybe keeper of the season 
I don't assume that there are many people watch Ajax regularly. Still I think he's really a decent one but don't see a world-class keeper in him who's worth that much of hype. I also must admit that Roma did pretty good job with the fee of his transfer, I don't think it's overprized, especially in the context of today's transfer market.
i'm giving this guy 2 months (tops).
