Serie A Thread - 2014/15 Season

Re: Serie A Thread - 2012/13 Season

ALBICELESTE2010 said:
Indeed. He had real courage in taking on the Mafia.
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yep. everyone was amazed by his courage and sense of duty, even before his assassination.
a journalist once asked him "aren't u afraid to die?"
he replied: "of course i'm afraid. but a brave man dies only once, whereas a coward dies every time he bends the knee to those who frighten him. Look, i know very well what's gonna happen to me. i just don't know when it's gonna happen. and that's why i must hurry up and finish my job before my time has come".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3z4DT-dysQ
this video instead contains another extract from a different interview (but still on the same subject).
the journalist: "u once said that only cowards die several times. does that mean u have no fear?"
Falcone: "it's not a matter of having fear or not... what's really important is how u deal with your fears... not letting them overwhelm u and influence your actions. that's what courage is about. courage is not about being fearless... that's just recklessness"
this video was shot just a few months before his death. look at his smile... he knows what's gonna happen to him, and yet he's almost stoic about it.

miccoli did the very one thing a sicilian could never (ever) forgive: dishonoring the memory of an anti-mafia judge.... and he even picked the greatest of them all.
that scumbag's legacy is now completely ruined. for ever. usually i'm not overly dramatic about anything..... but he's dead to me.
sorry for the little off topic.
 
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Re: Serie A Thread - 2013/14 Season

Huge balls by Roma's Rudi Garcia. "Those criticising the club and the players aren't Roma fans. Perhaps they're Lazio fans."
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2013/14 Season

Never ever liked Miccoli. Dislike him even more now.

Fat thug-wanna-be midget.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2013/14 Season

TheJinxedOne said:
Heh.. I can already tell Lo Zio is preparing to disagree ;)
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preparing ? why should he prepare lol

and I just had a research and found out what's happened , all tho dont know much about mafia and this falcone guy , but it seems something not as bad as people are making , at last you never know Miccoli's reasons ...

just to tell a story , my friend has a business , he has a restorant and a petroll , every month he pay some % to some "commandants" (mafia that get money from almost every business) because if he don't do that that than his places will get burned something like this will happen ! my friend have them "friends" not because he want but because he want to keep himself and his business alive , he also has to vote them and do a pic to his own vote and show he did vote them ... I know its really shit and isn't Italy , but Italy has a lot of crime too and mafia so I won't be surprised if Miccoli its just victim of this guys since they also own some money , and to get his money back he need to be friends with them .... !


honestly I always like Miccoli and Di Natale , they seems to love their teams , city and people there , so I dont think Miccoli has attention to hurt Palermo citizens and fans .... seems he's coming to play at Lecce at Serie C while he could still play at serie a team , or even move to Australia or somewhere else where he can get a wage 5 times bigger than he'll get on Lecce , so to me he dosnt seems like a bad guy at all , maybe I'm just wrong .... but hey he's Italian so of course he would be linked to some mafia at the end of the day :-P
no hard feeling for last sentence it was a joke
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2013/14 Season

a few clarifications are probably needed:
- miccoli didn't befriend a mafia boss or a mobster.... he made friends with the son of a former mafia boss. Miccoli's friend's name is Antonio Lauricella. this guy's father was a big time mafia boss (i'm using past tense because this man has been in jail since 2011 and he's never gonna get out of prison).
the son (miccoli's friend) is nothing but a pathetic loser, who likes to enjoy his father's ill-gotten fortune and to pretend to be some sort of a gangster (u know, kinda like 50 cent and all those pathetic rappers, who like to pretend they're mafia gangsters, simply because they think mobsters are cool and badasses).

- what really pissed us off wasn't the fact that miccoli befriended the son of a convicted felon. this friendship was already public knowledge since last summer infact... and although it certainly didn't made miccoli look good in front of the people, it still wasn't enough to cause such a massive reaction.
what really pissed us off was an excerpt from a taped phone call between miccoli and his "friend" (even though this guy is not a mafioso, he still is the son of what once was a pretty important boss, so the italian authorities keep an eye on him and taped his phone for a while). During this conversation, miccoli referred to Giovanni Falcone as "scumbag".
sicilians are very tolerant and laid back people; u can mock our God, our religion, our traditions, our culture our government, our country, our heritage. it really takes an amazing effort to hurt or insult a sicilian..... but besmirching the memory of an anti-mafia judge? that's probably the one thing we won't tolerate.

i understand it must be difficult for u to understand how big a deal this is for a sicilian, Valon, since u said u don't know who Giovanni Falcone is.... but trust me, it is a big deal, a huge deal indeed. and not just in sicily. several italian clubs were after miccoli till a month ago (since his contract was about to expire)... livorno for instance had already contacted miccoli's agent..... but as soon as the this "phone conversation" became public, livorno's owner immediately backed off and said he didn't wanna have anything to do with miccoli anymore.
LFC-albania said:
seems he's coming to play at Lecce at Serie C while he could still play at serie a team , or even move to Australia
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well perhaps he could move to australia..... but i doubt any other club in italy (apart from lecce) will ever wanna be associated with miccoli's name anymore.
actually even lecce fans themselves don't want him anymore. half the city was against his signing and the ultras themselves stated "he does not represent lecce anymore", as u can read here.
http://www.sportmediaset.mediaset.it/calcio/calcio/2013/articoli/1003842/lecce-mezza-citta-non-vuole-fabrizio-miccoli.shtml
http://www.liberoquotidiano.it/news/1274726/Miccoli-Lecce-contro-il-calciatore-Non-ci-rappresenta.html
respect to lecce, its people and the fans :WORSHIP:
I won't be surprised if Miccoli its just victim of this guys since they also own some money , and to get his money back he need to be friends with them .... !
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i'm not sure where u got that, but nothing of that happened. miccoli doesn't owe money to anyone, no one forced him to befriend the son of a mobster, and certainly no one forced him to insult the memory of a man who knowingly gave his life, in order to do his duty.
 
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Re: Serie A Thread - 2013/14 Season

thank you for explain all this , as you said I dont know much about what happened , for some reason I always thought Miccoli its a classy guy , but hey what do I know about him ? I must say it surprise me a bit ....

and I understand Ben I really do , maybe I dont know who Giovanni Falcone is , but we use to have people like him too so I know how it feels , yeah i've been reading at Lecce forum a lot of people are against this transfer , also tried to search and find anything , but you know when I google translate from Italian to English a lot of things dosnt make sens hehe

anyway after your explain and seeing Lecce fans reaction (since they will be so happy if they got Miccoli before this happen) I can tell something its really wrong ! and I do have mixed feelings about all this now , maybe because I'm not italian and didnt know how all this mafia stuff went but still Miccoli seems to dont be what I thought it is ... and now I wish Lecce didnt sign him , he'll be even more trouble , some fans will be against and some support so I dont think this is good for Lecce :/
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2013/14 Season

LFC Albania said:
thank you for explain all this , as you said I dont know much about what happened , for some reason I always thought Miccoli its a classy guy , but hey what do I know about him ? I must say it surprise me a bit ....
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it was a huge shock for me aswell (as for every palermitano, i guess). i never considered miccoli a classy guy, but i always thought of him as a good guy.

i'm also sure he didn't really believe what he said about falcone (no one in his right mind would insult a such a noble and heroic man), but that really doesn't matter.
he probably said those things only "to look cool in front of his friend"., but that's irrelevant. u can use peer pressure as an excuse when u're a 15 years old kid trying to "fit in"...... but miccoli is a grown man, a father.... and he must take responsibility for what he does and says.

it's sad to think that his legacy is now completely tarnished and that italians pretty much declared a fatwa against him.... but then again, he only has himself to blame for that.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2013/14 Season

Hi Ben.
What a coïncidence that this in this thread people talk about the maffia and "protection".
This morning i decided to change my signature on this forum after having read the story of a very courageous family from the Sicilian village Caccamo. The story about 26 year old Nicoletta Scimeca is amazing. She and her family decided to say "no" to the local clan...

If you ever feel hungry for pastries you should buy them in Nicoletta's shop. Her site is in my signature. I have the intention of spending at least once in my life a holiday in Sicily because it seems a beautiful place and if that happens i want to go to Nicoletta's shop and buy far too much pastries to support her.

Sorry to be off-topic.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2013/14 Season

Italian Soccer Federation prosecutor wants Lazio to receive a 6-point penalty and ban Stefano Mauri for 4-years+6months for match-fixing . The prosecutor also wants Genoa and Leece to get deducted 3 points and Omar Milanetto to be banned for 3-years+6months.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2013/14 Season

Not sure if anyone caught Rafa on Sky Italia tonight - he's such a nice guy. He also said "You guys have asked me more questions about tactics in 20 mins than in a whole year in the UK." :D
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2013/14 Season

What do you mean? You can usually tell if they're ambitious or not. Teams like Catania got promoted a few years ago and worked really hard to grow as a club, and last season they almost got into the Europa League.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2013/14 Season

Milanista said:
What do you mean? You can usually tell if they're ambitious or not. Teams like Catania got promoted a few years ago and worked really hard to grow as a club, and last season they almost got into the Europa League.
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Teams like Lecce,Regina,Livorno... pass most of the time in Serie B :CONFUSE:
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2013/14 Season

yeah, the kid is really coming along. it's gonna be quite interesting to see how napoli will play this season. there are many new signings and a new coach, so it's probably gonna take some time to see what this team can actually produce, but with higuain, pandev, insigne and hamsik at his disposal, benitez can basically display whatever offensive setup he wants.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2013/14 Season

so much good football last week end! it was weird... i haven't seen so many serie a teams playing well since 2010. hopefully that's a sign of things to come (and not just a one off).

i was especially impressed with napoli! the timing for the coaching change was perfect; over the last 2 seasons it looked like napoli lost a bit of edge and drive, and both the team and the coach needed to go separate ways... but i certainly didn't expect benitez to leave such a strong mark on the team in such a short time. from a tactical point of view it seems benitez is completely redesigning the team (from the grounds up).
i was a bit worried about his signing, but luckily it appears napoli signed valencia's benitez (and not liverpool's benitez).
again, let's hope that's a sign of things to come.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2013/14 Season

lo zio said:
a few clarifications are probably needed:
- miccoli didn't befriend a mafia boss or a mobster.... he made friends with the son of a former mafia boss. Miccoli's friend's name is Antonio Lauricella. this guy's father was a big time mafia boss (i'm using past tense because this man has been in jail since 2011 and he's never gonna get out of prison).
the son (miccoli's friend) is nothing but a pathetic loser, who likes to enjoy his father's ill-gotten fortune and to pretend to be some sort of a gangster (u know, kinda like 50 cent and all those pathetic rappers, who like to pretend they're mafia gangsters, simply because they think mobsters are cool and badasses).

- what really pissed us off wasn't the fact that miccoli befriended the son of a convicted felon. this friendship was already public knowledge since last summer infact... and although it certainly didn't made miccoli look good in front of the people, it still wasn't enough to cause such a massive reaction.
what really pissed us off was an excerpt from a taped phone call between miccoli and his "friend" (even though this guy is not a mafioso, he still is the son of what once was a pretty important boss, so the italian authorities keep an eye on him and taped his phone for a while). During this conversation, miccoli referred to Giovanni Falcone as "scumbag".
sicilians are very tolerant and laid back people; u can mock our God, our religion, our traditions, our culture our government, our country, our heritage. it really takes an amazing effort to hurt or insult a sicilian..... but besmirching the memory of an anti-mafia judge? that's probably the one thing we won't tolerate.

i understand it must be difficult for u to understand how big a deal this is for a sicilian, Valon, since u said u don't know who Giovanni Falcone is.... but trust me, it is a big deal, a huge deal indeed. and not just in sicily. several italian clubs were after miccoli till a month ago (since his contract was about to expire)... livorno for instance had already contacted miccoli's agent..... but as soon as the this "phone conversation" became public, livorno's owner immediately backed off and said he didn't wanna have anything to do with miccoli anymore.

well perhaps he could move to australia..... but i doubt any other club in italy (apart from lecce) will ever wanna be associated with miccoli's name anymore.
actually even lecce fans themselves don't want him anymore. half the city was against his signing and the ultras themselves stated "he does not represent lecce anymore", as u can read here.
http://www.sportmediaset.mediaset.it/calcio/calcio/2013/articoli/1003842/lecce-mezza-citta-non-vuole-fabrizio-miccoli.shtml
http://www.liberoquotidiano.it/news/1274726/Miccoli-Lecce-contro-il-calciatore-Non-ci-rappresenta.html
respect to lecce, its people and the fans :WORSHIP:

i'm not sure where u got that, but nothing of that happened. miccoli doesn't owe money to anyone, no one forced him to befriend the son of a mobster, and certainly no one forced him to insult the memory of a man who knowingly gave his life, in order to do his duty.
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Good to hear that there is still a shred of morality in football. Perhaps next time he may engage his tiny brain before he speaks ill of such a man who is worth a thousand Miccoli's.

I cannot stand criminals (the legal ones included) and he stood up to them.


Is there any disquiet in serie A in losing someone like Lamela ? Will attendances improve and how are the stadium rebuilding plans getting on to revitalize the league ?

Why are Roma selling anyway. Marquinhos, Osvaldo and now Lamela ?

The leader tipped to replace Totti. The incoming players like Maicon and Gervinho are hardly stellar.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2013/14 Season

lo zio said:
so much good football last week end! it was weird... i haven't seen so many serie a teams playing well since 2010. hopefully that's a sign of things to come (and not just a one off).

i was especially impressed with napoli! the timing for the coaching change was perfect; over the last 2 seasons it looked like napoli lost a bit of edge and drive, and both the team and the coach needed to go separate ways... but i certainly didn't expect benitez to leave such a strong mark on the team in such a short time. from a tactical point of view it seems benitez is completely redesigning the team (from the grounds up).
i was a bit worried about his signing, but luckily it appears napoli signed valencia's benitez (and not liverpool's benitez).
again, let's hope that's a sign of things to come.
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Some of the Napoli fans seem to have fallen very hard for Pipita......:P He had better be careful he does not lose his shorts......
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2013/14 Season

ALBICELESTE2010 said:
Is there any disquiet in serie A in losing someone like Lamela ? Will attendances improve and how are the stadium rebuilding plans getting on to revitalize the league ?

Why are Roma selling anyway. Marquinhos, Osvaldo and now Lamela ?

The leader tipped to replace Totti. The incoming players like Maicon and Gervinho are hardly stellar.
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Stadium attendances are on the up this season, notably teams like Fiorentina, Milan, Napoli and Roma. Napoli have just agreed to buy the stadium from their council, and Udinese's new stadium is set to be complete this year. The teams that acted well financially are starting to benefit.

Roma just wrapped up Ljajic from Fiorentina for around £10m to fill in Lamela's boots. He's no Lamela, but the kid is pretty talented. Osvaldo was becoming a problem with the Roma fans, so they did well to bring in £15m. I'd say they're still out for a few more signings.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2013/14 Season

Milanista said:
Stadium attendances are on the up this season, notably teams like Fiorentina, Milan, Napoli and Roma. Napoli have just agreed to buy the stadium from their council, and Udinese's new stadium is set to be complete this year. The teams that acted well financially are starting to benefit.

Roma just wrapped up Ljajic from Fiorentina for around £10m to fill in Lamela's boots. He's no Lamela, but the kid is pretty talented. Osvaldo was becoming a problem with the Roma fans, so they did well to bring in £15m. I'd say they're still out for a few more signings.
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That is good to know. It is a major league and nice to see it hopefully on the upswing again.

I like the Friuli redevelopment to get fans closer to the pitch. And some of the other projects are also aesthetically pleasing too.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2013/14 Season

Fiorentina are a great side to watch, such a shame they didn't get into the Champions League ahead of this dull Milan side.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2013/14 Season

Milan deserved it, the shame was on fiorentina-milan when 2 penaltys where negate to red&blacks and 2 gifted to Violas. And they almost get out with Grasshopper, europe isn't the same as Serie A.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2013/14 Season

Udinese bouncing back from their EL upset. Good to see. Badu with a nice opener as well. Guess he is not coming here then....:P
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2013/14 Season

ALBICELESTE2010 said:
Is there any disquiet in serie A in losing someone like Lamela ? Will attendances improve and how are the stadium rebuilding plans getting on to revitalize the league ?
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there's been a lot of disquiet in roma this summer.... not specifically tied to this summer market operations though. the fans are disappointed by the way the club has ben run over, the last few years (or at least that's what i heard on tv).
and if that's the case, i understand them; ever since the new owners took over, the club has been making one mistake after another. roma's general manager (Baldini) doesn't seem to be able to get anything right...... what is odd is that baldini actually has a great reputation as a team director and gm (he's considered to be on par with the likes of marotta, corvino, marino and foschi)..... honestly i can't see why.... from what we've seen over the last few years, he seems utterly clueless.

it's a shame really; when u look at the squad roma had over the last few years.... they could (and should) have done much better than that.
u can afford a poor management, when u can count on a munificent owner (as is the case with the likes of chelsea or inter).....
u can afford a "poor" owner when the management is top class (as was the case with roma, when the sensi family was in charge)....
but u just can't afford a cheap owner and an incompetent management.
albi said:
Why are Roma selling anyway. Marquinhos, Osvaldo and now Lamela ?
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osvaldo was sold because the fans couldn't stand him. to be fair osvaldo can be a bit of an ass sometimes, but he's a very good striker and i believe roma will regret this decision.... even his teammates (totti, de rossi, florenzi) expressed their disappointment at the club's decision to sell him.
as for marquinhos and lamela, they were sold because those operatons provided huge capital gains to the club (keep in mind that capital gains are the most important item in a club balance sheet nowadays. fans often talk about "net spending" or "net transfer", wich are absolutely meaningless and irrelevant concepts, but the only thing that matters nowadays are capital gains and amotizations).
marquinhos was bought last summer for 4 millions and then sold to psg this summer for 31 millions (that's a 27 millions capital gain in just 1 fiscal year). lamela was signed for 12 millions and then sold for around 35 millions; and that's another huge capital gain, even if u take into account the money spent to sign ljacic (11 millions).
[i found all theese figures on wikipedia, so take them with a pinch of salt.... but still u can get the picture].

i can understand the marquinhos operation... the kid is freakisly talented and has HUGE margin for improvement, but it's hard to turn down such a momumental offer for such a young kid (keep in mind that a 35 millions offer on the italian market equals roughly to a 50 millions offer on the english market).
but selling also lamela afterwards was very greedy of roma, and i believe they're gonna regret this decision (just as they're gonna regret selling osvaldo).
Milanista said:
Stadium attendances are on the up this season, notably teams like Fiorentina, Milan, Napoli and Roma. Napoli have just agreed to buy the stadium from their council, and Udinese's new stadium is set to be complete this year. The teams that acted well financially are starting to benefit.
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wow! that's great to hear! i don't follow football as closely as i used to and i didn't know about theese recent developments. :))
Aboutreika18 said:
Fiorentina are a great side to watch, such a shame they didn't get into the Champions League ahead of this dull Milan side.
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u can always follow them in serie a. how is serie a coverage in uk this season?:))
 
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Re: Serie A Thread - 2013/14 Season

I can't talk about the UK.
Here in Belgium we can follow live matches on sunday evening (pay television), but what i miss is a program with highlights of all the matches. I like Serie A but find it hard the watch live matches because of a lack of context. I always watch the English live matches because i can watch Match of the Day, so i know all teams, see them every week and then if a team like Cardiff is shown live against Sunderland because i'm familiar with those teams, their players, recent form and some stories around the match. If at the same moment Fiorentina and Napoli are playing each other i will go for Cardiff-Sunderland because of a lack of context (knowing very well that both Fiorentina and Napoli are much better teams than both English teams i mentioned).

Nevertheless i have some questions;

How is Atalanta doing, have they a good team, have they done interesting transfers ?
What about Dries Mertens at Napoli. I'm afraid he has made a wrong choice. He was transferred very early and suddenly Napoli started buying all those players and now Mertens is on the bench. In an interview with a Belgian paper, Mertens said that he talked with Benitez and that Benitez intends to let him play regularly but that he will bring him slowly towards first team football (which seems strange to me, but who am i ?). Until the Kevin De Bruyne started playing for our national team, Dries Mertens was IMO by far the best player of our national team...imo he is a big talent who made the wrong choice and will have to fight for regulare first team football. But Mertens is uded to this. As a youth player he was dropped by Anderlecht because he was too small and fragile. He went to a third division club and then to Holland and everywhere he played, he became the best player....that is also what he said about his choice for Napoli, he knows that he will have difficult, but he will fight and he is certain that in the end he will be able to prove himself...

It would be nice if the Italians in this thread would post about Mertens now and then...thanks in advance.
 
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