Serie A Thread - 2014/15 Season

Re: Serie A Thread - 2013/14 Season

Milanista said:
Guys, although Roma had a rough summer, I don't think I've seen such a united squad since Spalletti.

Garcia is awesome in interviews - he's the new Petkovic. All the pundits seem to love his sense of humour and his down-to-earth manner.

Don't underestimate the team, as De Rossi looks a little bit reborn and the squad has some very determined players pushing for a WC spot. I watched their last 2 games, and goddamn - when they succeed in the counter, they end up with plenty of 3 v 1s! It's crazy attacking football. I think Fiorentina won't be as great as last year, because Roma will take their spot as the entertaining team of the year.
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don't get me wrong stef, i'm not saying the squad isn't good.... and i have huge admiration for rudy garcia, who is a fantastic coach (even moreso than pektovic... and i actually like pektovic a lot). like Sina said, my issue is with the ownership and their moves over the last 2 years.

as for the team's results and their football so far this season, they're doing an amazing job. for the first time since spalletti, roma is both delivering good results and entertaining the crowds. finally the fans can forget about montella and stop regretting letting him leave roma so easily... finally they can stop regretting not giving luis enrique a second chance.

.... and finally they can forget about the terrible zeman experiment.
i love that man, but there's no denying that zeman failed miserably last season. quality wise, roma was a team wich could easily challenge napoli for the 2nd spot. infact i believe roma had an even better squad than napoli last season. sure napoli had some great players (cavani, inler, maggio, campagnaro, hamsik, pandev, that insigne kid)... but roma had just as much quality upfront, and even more quality than napoli at midfield and in defence.
the real difference was the tactical guidance. napoli had a great coach in mazzarri, so they didn't just have a good squad, but also a great team. with zeman instead, roma had a great squad but no team whatsoever.
now rudy garcia is showing us what this squad could have done with a proper coach.

i can't wait to watch roma-napoli this weekend. i don't have much hope for napoli to be honest. benitez has been doing an amazing job so far (i thought he was actually even more impressive than rudy garcia, given what he had to work with), but roma seems just unstoppable and napoli's defence (wich was already exposed by arsenal) is probably gonna have to face their second real test. the hard truth is loosing campagnaro (who was their only great defender) was a huge blow, and, unlike cavani and mazzarri (who were adequately replaced), campagnaro left a huge hole in napoli's defence... a hole that albiol just can't fill imo.

still on the napoli and roma players topic.... did any of u guys catch the italy game yesterday? the match was a borefest (as expected of course), but what about florenzi and insigne? WOW! just wow! lorenzo keeps improving at a ridiculous rate (it looks like each month he grows into a much better player than the month before).
and as for florenzi, i know it's stupid to say this (as each player is unique and comparisons between different players are impossible), but the similarities between him and perrotta are just scary! ...wich would be good news as i consider perrotta the world's most underrated midfielder of the last 25 years (and i challenge any of u guys to come up with a better name).
 
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Re: Serie A Thread - 2013/14 Season

Roma vs. Napoli...great match, great players and Roma are realy good to watch atm.
 
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Re: Serie A Thread - 2013/14 Season

...won again.
w/o Totti for the major part of the game, which is good to know, and Pjanic showed presence, Dodo solid game, important game for the head.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2013/14 Season

ImpossibleYesbutitsTrue said:
...won again.
w/o Totti for the major part of the game, which is good to know, and Pjanic showed presence, Dodo solid game, important game for the head.
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Roma is so good right now, watched whole game didn't realize totti was injured until panic took PK. What a renaissance maicon is having
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2013/14 Season

Also watched and was really impressed.
Strange substitutions by Raffa imo...just like he knew Napoli would never win this match.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2013/14 Season

Gomito said:
Roma is so good right now, watched whole game didn't realize totti was injured until panic took PK. What a renaissance maicon is having
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yeah, maicon and gervinho are 2 completely different players from their "premier league version". as for totti, trust me, had he been on the pitch u would have noticed. totti is just unplayable theese days.... it's like watching the hero from "matrix" playing football. ridiculous.

anyway it was a weird game, as both teams had a much more cautious approach than usual, yet the game was still quite eventful and entertaining. u feel like saying this was a tactical battle (and it definitely was... a very good one too), wich is weird, as usually the expression "tactical battle" is nothing but a diplomatic way to say "the game was boring aas hell".... but that's not the case this time, as even though both teams didn't really play their usual football, the game was still quite fun to watch.
unusual as it might be, we've already see both theese teams playing defense a few times before, but this time was different.

napoli, as a team, are very self conscuious about their defense, so they usually try to keep the ball as high up the pitch as possible (to prevent the opponent from exploring their weaknesses). and that's a good plan. those 3 nightmares upfront (hamsik, insigne and callejon) provide an unbearable high pressing, so it gets hard for the opponent to even get on the other side of the midfield line.
the problems begin when the napoletani hit the panic botton. as soon as their self-consciousness kicks in, those 3 fellas upfront fall back, shifting the entire centre of gravity of the team (good bye high pressing) and leaving the forward (higuain or pandev) alone. and of course, since insigne, hamsik and callejon are less than useless in defense, not only the team still can't defend against any attack... but they don't even have any punch upfront anymore (the arsenal game being the most evident example of this situation).
yesterday instead napoli didn't panic. even in the second half, when they were already down on the scoreboard, they still looked quite exuberant. unfortunately though insigne was completely worn out after the international break, and maggio and higuain clearely haven't recovered yet from their injuries.

just like napoli, roma too isn't used to play defense as much as they did yesterday..... but unlike napoli, when they need to, they're still deadly with their quickest counters.
but yesterday, once totti was off the pitch, relying on counters ceased to be an option and even roma's deadliest counter attacking weapons (gervinho and florenzi) couldn't make an impact, without totti serving them from behind.
it's kinda ironic to think that the game was decided but zeman's two exiles: pianjc and de rossi. one provided the goals and the other (almost single-handedly) obliterated hamsik and inler, with (yet another) monstre performance. and u know what's funny? im 100% positive that if we would ask zeman today, he would still tell us he made the right call.

so right now roma holds a 5 points advantage over napoli. they've won every game they played this season, scored 22 goals and conceded only 1 in 8 matches. and yesterday they showed us that even when they're not playing their best football, they still can handle the heat and keep a clean sheet against the 2nd best offence in the league (the 1st being the giallorossi, obviously).
yesterday they made napoli look like an average team, wich is something we've only seen from arsenal this season. but, whereas against arsenal, napoli were playing their worst game of the season, yesterday napoli actually looked in a pretty decent shape (wich makes roma's feat even more remarkable).

one last note on international breaks: 2 of the main protagonists were missing yesterday, as they looked exhausted after their efforts in the italy game: insigne and florenzi. but since those 2 kids were the only 2 who bothered showing up against armenia, the result is: italy still played a horrible game and florenzi and insigne had almost no contribution to yesterday's game.
this is a disgrace. why do we have to interrupt the domestic leagues like this is just beyond me. the national team coach can't do any real coaching work in 10 days and it's a big distraction for the players from their club duties. why do we have to do this?
why can't we save the international games for after the season? no more useless interruptions, the seasons will end a month earlier (april instead of may) and then we might hand our national team players to their respective nt coaches, so they could play all their friendlies\qualifying games during that month. not only it would be better for the clubs and the players.... even the national teams coaches could do a much better job having their players for an entire uninterrupted month.... instead of 10 every 3 months! sorry about this little off topic rant.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2013/14 Season

Maicon was fine for us when he played. He changed the game against Spurs, for instance. The problem was that he was constantly injured.

I doubt he played 2 consecutive games all season. He was also brought in to play as a wingback in Mancini's failed and shortlived 3-5-2

Not surprised to hear he is playing well.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2013/14 Season

grande viola, grande montella(good changes)

grande rossi
juve failed to score the 3. goal, were lucky with the lead by two presents from viola, then the penalty and viola just demolished juve afterwards
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2013/14 Season

Absolute pathetic performance. Time to change the 3-5-2. It has been showing the entire season, we just needed a quality team to expose it fully.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2013/14 Season

I went to sleep when Juve was 2 goals up.

fuck.jpg


Seria A is very entertaining this season. Love it so far.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2013/14 Season

I went outside after 2-0 too , thought game over , but still saw it at pub and I was amazed by Fiorentina
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2013/14 Season

This means a lot for Fiorentina. Deserved victory, but Aquilani should have been sent off.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2013/14 Season

Pepito was brilliant and he almost missed the match because of that first half contact. Lucky for La Viola he stayed till they were back and secured.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2013/14 Season

Also over the moon because of the arrogance of both Tevez and Pogba. With their goal celebrations, they mimicked a Fiorentina club icon: Batistuta.

IMO that is a total lack of respect for the Fiorentina fans and the history of Fiorentina...Tevez is a total moron.

But in the end they lost, their most severe loss under Conte...good for Fiorentina and the fans.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2013/14 Season

Good for Joe Red AKA Giuseppe Rossi. I can't wait for Gomez to be back, so that we can see Gomez-Rossi :)

It's great when players return to form after such bad and long injuries.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2013/14 Season

yeah, I can see that. but if rossi too is red (not reds) then what's the equivalent of "reds" (as we call liverpool so, for instance)?
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2013/14 Season

:LOL: joe red, never heard that one before :D

Kanouté said:
yeah, I can see that. but if rossi too is red (not reds) then what's the equivalent of "reds" (as we call liverpool so, for instance)?
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rossi means "reds" (plural). the singular (red) is "rosso". so yeah technically it should be "joe reds" :P

anyway, a hattrick inspiring a comeback against your biggest rivals. i guess pepito just earned himself an iconic status in firenze :D
i'm really happy for the beppe.... the kid has gone through some rough times in recent years and he really deserves this moment of glory.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2013/14 Season

I'm more impressed by Bradley's Italian post-match!

edit - although Milan are pretty awful this season.... when Kaka came on, it was as if he never left us. Watching him play is always special.
 
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