Serie A Thread - 2014/15 Season

Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

Milanista said:
I think they're still suffering from the huge investment demands from Mourinho. It's like Milan following our CL win in 2007. It was years of free transfers and weak signings.
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Hum, not sure about that mate. Between 2008 and 2010 Inter reported a 38M€ loss in their transfer sheet balance, almost the same Milan spent during the exact period of time (-35M€).
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

Has anyone been watching Roma? I think Ben called it first... Enrique to get the sack by next month?

http://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/kmlzv/gasperini_sacked_by_inter/c2lhqc1

I'm going to explain it to the best of my ability: the problem is Luis Enrique. This guys basically wants to export the Barcelona model in Italy. Which is impossible, especially in Rome. Barcelona is unique, no team in the world can afford to keep possession of the ball that long, never leave any room for the opponent's initiative, and no team in the world has Iniesta, Xavi and Messi, except of course Barcelona. Can Pjanic be our Iniesta ? Great player, but no. Can De Rossi be our Xavi ? not if he keeps on playing like he did in the last two seasons (also i suspect he is involved in shady businesses with the local gangs in Rome). Totti is not Messi. We cannot leave our wingbacks and central defenders alone against some of the still very skilled strikers that we have in serie A (even in small teams: Di Natale in Udinese, Di Vaio in Bologna, Pellissier in Chievo), we cannot focus only on the estetic aspect of the game, the attacking phase. In Italy you win games with good organization, especially in defense. That doesn't mean you have to play defensive, but you need to know that any little team (like Cagliari or Novara) can be dangerous and will seaze the opportunities they get from you. Therefore you need to be humble and organized. This idea of "champagne football" that Barcelona makes everyone want to imitate is not sustainable unless you are Barcelona.
And what Luis Enrique has done in the beginning of this season is revealing , he took some of the most moronic decisions that he could take in the name of "beautiful football"; He has no idea what kind of players he has in the squad,he told the managers to buy Osvaldo for 18 millions , a striker who's now playing on the side. Still hasn't used Cassetti , our best wingback on the right, and instead used Cicinho (jesus christ), Rosi (for fuck's sake) and Perrotta ( WTF ?). I thought he would be more balanced, but his motto is : "i want to attack and score goals". Yeah right, more like allowing any given team to score 2 or 3 goals just like Cagliari did in the first round.
Not to mention that Totti cannot play every fucking game because he is 34 (But that's Totti's fault for wanting to play all the time), Borriello is the best italian striker at the moment and he is not even on the bench (Osvaldo is so horrible i cannot begin to tell you), Bojan is mediocre, Lamela is injured. The positive notes are José Angel (amazing left hand wingback), Kjaer and maybe Pjanic. We had Stekelenburg, but a criminal decided to kick him in the head. The american owners are not really involved in this team. Don't get me wrong they spent the money, but they don't really know what they bought. Today they are talking about building a new As Roma stadium based on the model of football stadiums in America. I personally don't see the point, but you have to admit the new Juventus stadium is awesome.
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Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

The_Special_One said:
Hum, not sure about that mate. Between 2008 and 2010 Inter reported a 38M€ loss in their transfer sheet balance, almost the same Milan spent during the exact period of time (-35M€).
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You have to consider the contract demands for Milito, Thiago Motta, Lucio, Eto'o, Muntari etc., and the colossal super star Ricardo Quaresma that cost something like £20m. After the CL, you've also got all the bonuses and contract bumps. Also, Inter was probably still paying Rafa since sacking him, and he's not cheap.

Milan sold Kaka but still struggled to make any important signings. We were playing with Di Gennaro, Maldini, Dida etc, until last year we actually made big signings. I think in 2008-10 we suffered a similar problem.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

Is that Aronica guy worthy of the starting place more than Rinaudo or Britos in Napoli? Tbh I'm not into Serie A too much but Aronica just doesn't impress me at all.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

I don't think he's as bad as people say. He's quite hard working and was solid against Milan and was alright against Napoli. I think Britos is injured, hence not playing, but Aronica has been doing an alright job.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

Napoli rested a lot of the squad tonight, Cavani, Inler, Hamsik and Canavarro all on the bench. The error that caused the goal was more down to Fideleff than Aronica, he botched a clearance. I think Aronica is ok, he's not a great defender but he can do ok if he has experienced defenders around him. He didn't have this tonight, Fideleff is a young Argentine of Russian extraction, who has only just signed for Napoli from Newells. Even at Newells in 4 years he had not played that many games at all for them. Also in defence was Fede Fernandez, he's a very good player but again only signed this summer from Estudiantes, it was too many changes. I can see why he did it with the CL game and then the big match on Saturday (vs Fiorentina, which should be a great game) but it was too many changes, even so Napoli made some chances and it could have been a draw.
 
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Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

Aronica is not good nor bad. He's just mediocre.

Good thing is he doesn't suck, he can be decent and he's experienced, so he'll manage to stay in Napoli team for another year before a much better younger defender is ready to take the reigns.

But yeah for me ideally, he shouldn't be a 1st-teamer but more a guy who's good to have in squad as backup/rotation plan.

Napoli should've gone for Kjaer.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

Ranieri seems to be the first choice for any club in Italy who is in crisis.

Ben, who's this Zahavi kid who scored a cracker against Cagliari? Another gem unearthed by Palermo's fantastic scouting system?
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

Aboutreika18 said:
Ranieri seems to be the first choice for any club in Italy who is in crisis.

Ben, who's this Zahavi kid who scored a cracker against Cagliari? Another gem unearthed by Palermo's fantastic scouting system?
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Oh Zahavi, I guess I heard this name before. Isn't he that Israeli guy from Hapoel that scored against Benfica in CL last year? The man seemed classy that time.

About Ranieri, well, not a bad choice at all but I've preferred Delio Rossi instead of him. Not sure why but I would like to see Delio at a big 3 team (and he certainly deserves that chance!).
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

Didn't he kiss his girlfriend after scoring against Benfica? That seemed to be what Sky Italia were laughing about when interview Mangia last night.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

That was a beauty!

Any videos of the goal against Benfica and the ensuing kiss after?! Curious now.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

my 2 cents on the recent topics:
aronica: quite a poor cb. calling him mediocre is an understatement imo, he is below average in serie a. the thing is he knows very well his limits (wich means he doesn't take stupid risks and doesn't usually take bad decisions) and he knows extremely well the 3-men defensive line system (wich is a huge plus). he's one of those players who, despite not being on the same level of their teamates, still always manages to get the job done. with lesser partners his weaknesses would be more evident, but with cannavaro and campagnaro, he can afford to be sloppy sometimes.
he's probably the weakest player in napoli's starting 11, but since he's not much of a liability, napoli preferred to spend their money on other departments this summer (donadel, dzemaili, inler and pandev).

roma: i think the club is gonna be patient with luis enrique, thomas. luis enrique certainly didn't give roma's management much to work with so far, but then again, they didn't expect him to find the right formula for the team straight away..... and although roma is a very hard city to work in for a coach (huge pressure), the romans did not expect to be competing for the scudetto this season, so they're gonna cut him a lot of slack before they abandon him.
getting back to roma's management, keep also in mind that they made a huge bet on luis enrique. ancelotti was available this summer, and roma's management got a lot of stick from the media for not trying to get him hard enough (and let's be honest, they deserve those criticisms, as it was unbelievably moronic not to push on ancelotti), so since they made such a bold move with luis enrique, they're not likely to backtrack on him until there will be no chance this man can get it right. sacking luis enrique this early in the season would destroy the new management's credibility and reputation, as such a decision would be (righftully) seen as an admission of failure.
however we got to admit, luis enrique seems to be trying very hard to be sacked.

inter: yes, moratti isn't really feeling like spending huge sums on players lately, but i don't think that has anything to do with the victorious CL campaign. an italian journalist a few days ago pointed out that moratti spent 75 millions this summer, just to cover for last season's current expenses.
according to mario sconcerti (very reliable source) inter makes a loss every financial year... a loss wich goes from 70 to 100 millions euros. and rather than recurring to debt, moratti disburses (from his personal money) from 70 to 100 millions every summer in order to clear or reduce the financial exposure.
so u can easily imagine he's not really eager to splash dozens of millions on the market, right after clearing debts for 70 millions.

and that's not somenthing new either. this situation has been going on for quite a while now... pretty much since mancini's last season. u might think "hey, but moratti spent huge sums to give mourinho what he wanted"... and that's true. but moratti didn't spend for mourinho straight away; mourinho had to "persuade" moratti to give him the players he thought he needed (just think of the quaresma deal... mourinho even went public, stating his interest for quaresma, to push moratti.... and only after almost a month of resistance, moratty eventually agreed to get josè what he wanted).
u see moratti is quite a romantic (wich is nice) and stupidly naive (wich is less nice) person. he must fall in love with his coaches. if they manage to captivate him, not with their coaching skills, but with their charisma and their personality, then moratti will be more likely to spend for them... wich is exactly what happened with mourinho and leonardo (whom moratti loved) and didn't happen with benitez and gasperini (who weren't really chose by moratti but by branca).
bottom line, moratti only spends for those who fascinates him (but then again, don't we all do that? :P ).

ranieri: Andre, i think ranieri was the right call at this time. u see i'm obviously a huge fan of delio rossi :DD but he's not the kind of coach inter needs at this point in time. right now inter needs a "fixer", someone who can jump on board of the train while it's running, quickly assess the situation and find the right fix. ranieri is absolutely perfect for this kind of job.
rossi is a different kind of coach. u put him on charge in june, give him the players he asks for, and then by october, chances are your team will be winning and playing some amazing football. just like gasperini, rossi isn't specialized in saving sinking ships.... ranieri is.

zahavi: verry very talented young player. it's way too early to express an opinion on him, but so far he's been extremely impressive. he's already scored a couple of stunning goals in preseason. he's got a sweet touch but he tends to disappear for long spans of time. he can amaze u with a brillian play and then u don't see him touching the ball for 15 minutes. then again, he's just arrived in italy... that's his first experience in serie a and he's only played 3 official matches with us.
i also think he's a bit too lightweight... if he works out a bit, his impact on the game could be really huge.... anyway he's already beated ilicic for a place in the starting 11.... and when u think of how talented ilicic is, that tells u a lot about how impressive zahavi was.
Zeem said:
Interesting interview by Gasperini here. Same exit as Benitez, moaning about players bought. Moratti needs a coach to boss him into signings like Mourinho. Like doesn't he discuss buying a 33 year old striker who can't play in the CL and on a big wage with the coach before he buys him?!

http://www.goal.com/en/news/10/ital...-if-inter-did-not-believe-in-my-work-why-did-
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u really can't help but feel for gaspa... this brief experience ruined his reputation and honestly moratti and branca are much more responsibles than him for this mess.
but speaking of class, the way gasperini handled this situation is enourmously different from the way benitez reacted. i lost a lot of respect for benitez (as a person) last season.

anyway i believe what inter needs the most is a good team director. the current ones (branca and paolillo) are just not good enough. it's always better to have a good team director to discuss with the coach about the signings. u see coaches have a completely different approach to the market than team directors.
in a nutshell, coaches go after "a specific player", whereas team directors go after "a specific type of player"..... and that makes all the difference in the world. mourinho actually offers us a good example of what a bad move can be to put your coach in charge of signings (i'm talking about the quaresma deal). another good example is the british market, wich is hugely inflated (and devalued) precisely because in most epl clubs coaches handle the signings on their own.
 
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Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

Good game of football between Chievo and Genoa today. How awesome is Frey as a keeper? Really liked Bradley too - nice to have some Americans in Italy!
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

I always asked myself why Frey never had a serious chance in any big club.

@zio Good post, I agree about Ranieri. Maybe he's not the man to play nice football or win trophies, but is the man who can fix this. And here it came the first win to Inter. Eto'o was a huge loss.

I watched Catania-Juventus and I'm still puzzled on why the ref didn't call for penalty when that defender kicked the forward head. Maybe I'm biased here because when I was a kid I liked Juventus (platini was playing there and was one of my favorite players). Glad to see Juve and Udinese there. All the posts about Udinese in this thread helped me learn a lot about the club and the credit they deserve. A pitty they're not in Champions League.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

Watched Lazio against "my" Palermo. I was disappointed. This was not a good match...Hernandez (Palermo) had a very bad match.

All in all good start by Palermo.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

drekkard said:
@zio Good post, I agree about Ranieri. Maybe he's not the man to play nice football or win trophies, but is the man who can fix this. And here it came the first win to Inter. Eto'o was a huge loss.
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Entirely subscribe your post Alexis, which is the same of saying that I agree with Ben. :D Still would like to see Delio Rossi proving at the big stage, but yea, Ranieri is the right man at the right place atm. Now, more than ever, Inter needs someone to clean up the mess and fix things. Btw, was Ranieri a Moratti's choice? Or did Branca call him in the first place?

Very interesting Serie A so far. Big teams are dropping a lot of points in these few games of the season. Juve was the one that he impressed me the most, mainly because of their first match at home. Man, Pirlo still rules! What a dumb decision Milan has made last Summer by letting him go to Torino. L'architetto rocks! :D

Oh finally AS Roma got a victory! They played awful tbh but they won! Congrats Luis Enrique, keep going (if you can! :LOL:)

Btw, what do you think of Alessio Cerci? I’m looking forward to see this guy, he has been hugely praised in the Italian press. Shamefully, I’m still to watch a Fiorentina game this season, you know, they are kind of my Italian favourite team for obvious reasons :P (well, I think every benfiquista has La Viola in his heart).
 
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Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

The_Special_One said:
Entirely subscribe your post Alexis, which is the same of saying that I agree with Ben. :D Still would like to see Delio Rossi proving at the big stage, but yea, Ranieri is the right man at the right place atm. Now, more than ever, Inter needs someone to clean up the mess and fix things. Btw, was Ranieri a Moratti's choice? Or did Branca call him in the first place?
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Ranieri said that Moratti called him. I don't really think it needed alot of thought, was an obvious choice, I would have wanted Ancelotti though :P don't think he would have accepted.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

Oh which team has the best results since the beginning of the season? Atalanta.
It seems that the 6 points deduction actually had a team bonding effect...it once happened with Leeds in Ligue 1 too...
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

A much improved Roma last night, but what impressed me most was Daniele De Rossi. Playing with confidence and composure. Totti also showing his experience and being involved in almost EVERY single play by Roma - it's hard to make the team play without him. Heinze also had a very solid game.

My favourite moment of the weekend was Seedorf right before kickoff against Cesena. He went to every team mate and gave them a hug, telling them they're great and are champions of Italy. In the interview with Costacurta (Sky Italy) after the game, he said it's his way to get his team mates to feel more calm, especially younger ones like El Sharaawy and Taiwo (first game). He then said that playing alongside Paolo (Maldini) and Billy (Costacurta) was an honour and inspired him to lead Milan with confidence. Man, he's classy.

Also, right before Milan-Cesena :LOL: The banner says "Either you don't shave, or you use Nivea for Men".

YouTube - Milan-Cesena: barbe in campo!
 
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Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

:LOL: abbiati looks so weird.
drekkard said:
I always asked myself why Frey never had a serious chance in any big club.
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yep, that's a good question indeed.
the special one said:
Juve was the one that he impressed me the most, mainly because of their first match at home. Man, Pirlo still rules! What a dumb decision Milan has made last Summer by letting him go to Torino. L'architetto rocks!
.....Btw, what do you think of Alessio Cerci?
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yeah, pirlo is absolutely on fire... then again, it's normal to see pirlo playing so much better, because now, whenever he gets the ball, he's got plenty of available targets. this juventus team has some very good off the ball movement (much more than last seasons milan), and a player ike pirlo thrives on his teammates' off the ball movement.

as for cerci, about 3 or 4 years ago i remember i had a private conversation on cerci with andrew (aka gib... btw where is he? haven't seen him around for a while!).... he was asking me about atalanta (when cerci was playing there)... i told him the kid might have a brilliant future (cerci was just a teenager back then) and that he had pretty much everthing it takes to potentially become a top class winger (dribbling, shooting passing game... his only flaw was positioning.. but then again positioning is something u work on as your carreer progresses).
and obviously, since i told him cerci might become a great player, you know he's gonna become a major flop and a huge disappointment!!!! :COAT:
but then, halfway through last season, cerci suddenly woke up. he hit a good form period, and i believe those 2 months boosted his confidence and made him really aware of what player he could be..... ever since then he hasn't stopped impressing. he's been absolutely fantastic for the entire second half of last season... and it seems he's starting this season exactly how he ended the last one. good for him....... and for me (it's nice to see your predictions proved right every once in a while :P ).
Gerd said:
Oh which team has the best results since the beginning of the season? Atalanta.
It seems that the 6 points deduction actually had a team bonding effect...it once happened with Leeds in Ligue 1 too...
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yep, but u see it's not just about the psycological aspect (wich is definitely a factor though). atalanta is actually a very nice team.
when the points deduction became official, atalanta's president got worried (atalanta was already a relegation contender, but having to start the season with a 6 points handicap was basically an anticipated serie b sentence for them).... so he opened his wallet and scouted the market for good players on the cheap. he later admitted that he wouldn't have spent those money if there would have been no points deduction.
anyway they signed lucchini from samp for about 700k euros.. don't let this cheap pricetag fool u, lucchini is a very, very good cb (one of the most underrated in serie a)... the italian market is quite cheap, but in england he would cost at least 10 times that sum.
they signed masiello (another very good signing) and maxi morales (who, by the end of the season, might be challenging for "rookie of the year")... and then they got cigarini back (and that was a fantastic move by atalanta). so make no mistake, this atalanta team is a very good team.
Gerd said:
Watched Lazio against "my" Palermo. I was disappointed. This was not a good match...Hernandez (Palermo) had a very bad match.
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that was not a game for forwards to shine gerd. and, as painful as it is to say that, u should not be disappointed in palermo's performance against lazio, as i'm afraid we won't get much better than this. obviously, as the season unfolds, the players will get to know each others (we had 7 new signings in our starting formation... wich is absolutely crazy).... but quality-wise, this team cannot do much more than this.

actually if u compare this early season performances with our preseason performances, we made huge step forward. at least now we're playing football, u can see some schemes, spot some routes... u can actually have an idea of what the team is trying to do on the pitch..... and that is more than i could say till 1 month ago.
i was impressed by mangia (palermo's new coach)... this newbie got some personality and he was able to turn a huge tactical mess into a very balanced and disciplined team.
of course u won't be seeing that amazing football palermo used to play till last season... but then again that palermo is gone, and now we have a completely different team.

we went to roma with a pretty simple gameplan; sit back and hit on the counter. good plan imo.... with so many new players in the formation, u wanna keep things as simple as possible... besides it's not like we had many other options either. we don't have a midfield which can dictate the plot of the game anymore (and it really kills me to say this), and we're very good on the counters. moreover we were playing in roma against what was supposed to be a very good team.... a lazio team wich was desperate to win (reja has been under pressure lately).

the crazy thing is that lazio had our same gameplan! they were so scared by our counters that they refused to dictate the plot of the game. the result was one of the most dull serie a games i've seen in years (it was like watching a liverpool-stoke game)... 2 teams mindlessly pressing on each others and waiting to hit their opponent on the counter.... can u imagine anything more boring than that??!!

but while palermo had a reason to play like that (actually several reasons: a brand new team with 7 new starters on an away match against a tough opponent), what was lazio's excuse??
lazio were facing an absolutely beatable team, on their own turf. and, unlike palermo's midfield, their midfield has the quality needed to dictate the plot of the game (ledesma, cana, matuzalem and hernanes).
i like reja (as a person) a lot... but to be honest, i was really not impressed with his tactical display sunday... those should have been 3 easy points for lazio.

u see guys, that's what i was thinking about when i said this not gonna be a great serie a season... i'm not talking about a "decline" because that would be too much (a decline is a process wich lasts for years, and i don't think that's the case), but the quality of this league is going down a bit imo. games like this lazio-palermo were something very rare in serie a in the last five years...and i'm afraid we're gonna see more of them this season.
 
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Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

lo zio said:
the crazy thing is that lazio had our same gameplan! they were so scared by our counters that they refused to dictate the plot of the game. the result was one of the most dull serie a games i've seen in years (it was like watching a liverpool-stoke game)... 2 teams mindlessly pressing on each others and waiting to hit their opponent on the counter.... can u imagine anything more boring than that??!!
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I just saw this game a few hours ago. That was quite a bore. Balzaretti was quite average in this game as well. There wasn't much to say, really. Hernanes had a few good moments but that's all I remember.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

Great post Ben...i was not aware that Atalanta actually has a very good team. Apart from Cigarini, i did not know those other good players. I'm very happy, because Atalanta are my "other" Italian team...

Concerning Palermo, i hope you are too pessimistic. I've also heard some positive thing about their new coach...but will he eat his panetone? I doubt it with Zamparini as a president....
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

tc811 said:
I just saw this game a few hours ago. That was quite a bore. Balzaretti was quite average in this game as well.
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yep. barreto (one of our cm) was on man marking over hernanes. the problem with setting up one of your central midfielders on man marking is that, by following his man, the midfielder might leave a hole at midfield (and that's certainly something u don't want). so, in order to preserve the team's balance, one of the sidebacks (balzaretti in this case) has to provide some help at midfield. balzaretti's action was limited by his tactical duties and by his coverage assignements sunday.

btw, speaking of sidebacks, a player that impressed me is that pisano (our new rb) i never saw him before this season (he played in serie b till last season) so i didn't know what to expect. offensively he doesn't offer a lot (or at least he didn't so far), but defensively he's a monster. he seems to be a "shutdown rightback"... there's just no way to get past him. sunday he kept konko harmless for the entire game.... and controlling konko is no easy task. anyway i've still only seen him playing a handful of times, so he might aswell be hitting a great form period... let's hope that's not the case and that he actually is this good.
gerd said:
Concerning Palermo, i hope you are too pessimistic. I've also heard some positive thing about their new coach...but will he eat his panetone? I doubt it with Zamparini as a president....
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who knows... he certainly had an amazing start. in just a few weeks mangia has given us an identity. sure rossi's palermo would tear mangia's palermo a new one... but that's not mangia's fault...he's doing the best he can with the material he's been given. just take a look at that.

palermo 2009/2010 (coach delio rossi)----------------------------palermo 2010/2011 (coach delio rossi)--------------- palermo 2011/2012 (coach devis mangia)
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as much as i'd love to be pessimistic, the difference between this current formation and the starting 11 palermo fielded in the last 2 seasons is quite evident. :(
 
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Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

I agree there is a difference.
Can you tell me something about della Rocca. I've never heard about this player...
 
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