Re: Serie A Thread - 2009/10 Season
dutty_nose111 said:
but the management seem intent on selling a player that i think roma should use to build a successful team around in the years where roma are financially bad.......
.....and sold good players but not as good - such as perrotta.....
i certainly see your point satty... but u see, it all depends by how much cash they need to make up for the missing champions league related incomes....
because if we're talking about 10 millions (i doubt it), then selling a player like perrotta would be perfect. u might get from 4 to 6 millions and save about 3 more millions in wages...
but if it's more than that, then the choice is, sell 1 big asset (like aquilani), or sell
many players like perrotta (menez, taddei....).
however, as i said, i don't think aquilani will leave... u see his valutation right now is just not fair... because it's heavily effected by his injuries story.
a fit aquilani has the same value of hamsik (wich means nothing short of 25 millions).
as for diamanti, well his story is quite unusual, as he reached serie a a bit "unnoticed"... livorno bought him from some sort of an amateurs club... with all the clubs in europe sending their scouts everywhere around the globe to look for young talents and good bargains, u would tend to believe that's impossible for such a talented kid to slip off this huge global scouting network...
and yet, that's the case of diamanti.
he made a big splash in serie a 2 years ago.... definitely deserved to be mentioned among the rookies of the year (infact i seem to remember each of us regulars here put him into his top rookies ideal starting 11).
he was born as a trequartista, but recently changed his role and became a mezza punta (a mezza punta is something "in-between".... a bit of a supporting striker... a bit of a winger... they can play in a 2 men attack, right behind the cf, or in a 3 men setup moving from the wings).
really really talented, nice touch nice technique, a great shoot.. diamanti means "diamond" in italian... and infact this word kinda suits him, he's an uncut rough diamond... a bit raw, yes, but still much more polished than quaresma and much more consistant than silva... just to make two names everyone knows today.
mancini wanted him at inter... but then he left so the deal broke up.
PLF said:
Congrats on the Ps3. I bought it a few months back and haven't looked back since. :p Great purchase and I prefer FIFA. So once you get going, I wouldn't mind having a game or two either. Palermo vs. Catania. haha
it HAS to be a palermo-catania match!
btw i'm glad to see i'm not the only one who is totally new to the online gaming thing... it's kinda refreshing and makes me feel less "old".
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now, to continue that little italian football dictionary.....where were we
.....then there's the offensive mifielder role. u guys use this expression to refer to every kind of "offensive midfielder"... here in italy we split offensive midfielders into 2 subcategories: trequartista and mezz'ala.....
the
trequartista is the typical nr. 10, it's quite easy to find some examples (maradona, zidane, rui costa, totti in his prime). the word trequartista is a bit like quarterback, as it defines the position of the player on the pitch. infact trequartista litterally means "the one who plays on the 3\4 (three quarters or "tre quarti" in italian) of the pitch.
imagine to divide a football pitch in 4 areas. the third one (the trequartista's area) is the one wich goes from right beyond the opponent's midfielders territory to right ahead of the opponent's defensive line.
the whole point of the trequartista is: u try to take advantage of having an extremely talented guy lined up between the lines, so that he can slip off the direct markings.... the midfielders can't take care of him (as he's behind their shoulders) and the cbs can't either, as they have to take care of the fowards\wingers.
so the whole thing works when u have enough space between the 2 lines (midfield and defense) to put someone in between.
now, one of the very best things about british football is that
the distance between defence and midfield is always extremely short...the shortest in europe... wich is great. if the italian midfields are all about creativity and positioning, the english midfields are different, they're some sort of a "spring", continuously moving up and down to keep the team compact... this is imo the absolute best feature in english footie.
however since there's no space between midfield and defense, there's no room for a trequartista. Plus the british game is way too fast (and that is not a good feature) to afford a trequartista.
and that's why there's not a single trequartista in the epl... actually there are a few (like deco) but since they're in england, they don't play as trequartistas anymore, so..
you certainly have a lot of offensive midfielders (lampard, gerrard, anderson, nasri, ireland...), but they're all mezz'ali, rather than pure trequartistas.
now the point that guy made in the article neoexodus posted....
The rigid approach of BPL managers over the years has meant that most line-ups have not had a place for a trequartista
...is just completely wrong. it's not like the approach of the managers didn't leave place for trequartistas....
it's the british game itself that demands that rigid approach (and that disallow any sort ot tactical big variation from the 4-4-2).
because the 4-4-2, being the most basic and also balanced (in terms of space coverage) formation, is the only formation that can handle the british game. the more the pace of the game gets faster, the more u need "to keep it simple, basic" (to be fair we witness each year more and more tactical variations from many epl teams... but despite the numbers and formations, as soon as the players start to play, watching the game from the tv from a
bird's eye point of view, u can notice those aren't really different formations, but just variation on the main theme: 4-4-2). and that also explains why capello is displaying such a different football from his usual... because (unlike that dude) he's smart and realised that's the best way to pull the best out of england.
so that is why england doesn't like trequartistas and vice versa. i mean, england has a poorest coaches traditions.... and to be brutally honest, compared to an average italian coach, an average english coach is just an amateur... and i'm serious here.....
but we just can't blame english coaches for the lack of tactical sophistication of the british game, as that would be absolutely unfair and wrong.
all in all, that article is FULL of wrong assessments and there's no need to remark them all... i'll just say this:
baggio, iniesta, snejder, banayoun, gerrard... the dude defined them as trequartista...... well,
no one of theese players is, was, or will ever be a trequartista... baggio was a supporting striker (seconda punta), while the others are mezz'ali.
mezz'ali: ok this is not gonna be easy to explain, as most of u won't even know this role existed. let's try to make it simple: if u can spot the difference between, say, riquelme and iniesta, then u know what a mezz'ala is.
while a trequartista is an offensive player (something in the middle, between an attacker and a midfielder), the mezz'ala (mezz'ali is the plural) is a proper midfielder. to be precise both kind of players start their actions from the same area (3\4 of the pitch), but the mezz'ali track back much more than the trequartisti (trequartisti is the italian plural of trequartista)... they get involved in the midfield action much more than a pure trequartista.
however, even though, they're more "midfielders" than a trequartista, they're usually much more of an offensive threat than a trequartista itself.
infact, while u can have some great trequartisti who don't really score that often (rui costa was an assistman, rather than a goal scorer), every mezz'ala has in scoring goals one of his main duties.
trequartista's main features are dribbling and first touch passing (not necessarily shooting), while a mezz'ala's main features are timing (for the cut ins and the diagonal moves) positioning and shooting.
they too have usually a great dribbling and passing technique, but they're not as good as a proper trequartista in this department.
they're usually more "practical" and less creative kind of players, compared to proper trequartisti.... and they also don't suffer the high tempo of today's football. and that's why u see much more mezz'ali than trequartisti today in europe (while 20 years ago the situation was very different).
examples of mezz'ali: aquilani, simplicio, lampard, hamsik, iniesta, hleb, anderson, benayoun...... they're all pretty different, but they all have something in common... and that something makes them mezz'ali.
ok enough for today, as i ran out of time... next time i'll finish this dictionary by talking about the proper attacking roles.
), i'll add u (can't see it happening very soon though, as my "ps3 time" is very very limited).
This is our 10'th striker target this summer.
I think I heard him curse out Balotelli at one point 
