Re: Serie A Thread - 2009/10 Season
Grazie
I don't understand many of Lippi's choices and can't help but think this is the weakest Italy team for some time. There's no magic in the side once provided by Totti or Del Piero, little creativity in the middle of the park (Pirlo is well past his best) and 4 Juventus defenders and a keeper aside, the whole team is pretty average.
The promising young players of 5 years ago such as Cassano, Gilardino, D'Agostino and Bonera to name 4 should be leaders in the side by now, but they're not for various reasons. That has meant that Italia face the 2010 World Cup with too many players who seem past their prime such as Zambrotta and Gattuso, and too many younger inexperienced players like Santon.
The solution to the creativity issue in attack is obviously Cassano. Lippi needs to swallow his pride and call him up like Donadoni did
this ain't gonna change mate. we'll have to wait the world cup.... after another humiliating tournament, the federcalcio won't renew lippi's contract, and we will finally be able to "move on".
as u and abhi said, it was a disgraceful decision to fire donadoni.... actually it's funny.... before euro 2008, donadoni was told by the federcalcio that a decent result would have been a semi-final (wich means "if u'll reach at least the semi-finals we won't fire u").
now i won't even bother talking about the arrogance showed by the federcalcio (a semi-final a decent result??!!!!
then i assume winning the competition would have been an "slightly more than average result" ).
anyhow that's what they asked donadoni before the beginning of the competition....then euro 2008 started.... donadoni lost cannavaro...., then he lost barzagli, then panucci and then gattuso. and it doesn't end here; as soon as the competition began, it was pretty evident some of our key players (camoranesi and toni) were in a horrible horrible form).
so, did the expectations changed given the situation? no way. with an untested brand new defensive line, without the 2 most important defensive players of our spine (cannavaro and gattuso) donadoni was still supposed to reach a semi-final AT LEAST!!!
even though that meant going through a group stage with Netherlands, France and Romania (
)........
and the craziest thing is donadoni almost did it!!! we reached the quarters finals, where we faced Spain (the team wich will eventually win the whole thing), wich, for the records, didn't even manage to beat us in 90 minutes. they needed the penalties to "kick us out of the competition".
Now, i'm not nitpicking here, they defeninitely deserved to beat us.... i'm just tryng to say they weren't able to score (as well as we weren't) in the 90 minutes.
donadoni was just 1 penalty far from the semi-finals.... with all the problems he had to face... and still this wasn't enough to save his job
he had to face one of the toughests challenges a coach can face. taking the place of a living legend like lippi, who just won a world cup.... he had to face a tremendous "generation-change" with nesta and totti retiring and many other players getting old....... and the hardest task of them all... he had to give new motivations to the players who won the most important trophy u can get with a national team.....
he faced all theese challenges; in 2 years he gave italy a completely new shape. new players, new formation, new schemes..... for the first time in ages italy was playing some beautiful football (we always played great football, but let's be honest, not really "beautiful").
and still now he's gone.
seriously what a stupid decision this was... for all the people who got involved.... for italy, as our team is now playing the most boring, uneffective, and annoying football since trapattoni's days.... and for lippi himself... i mean when he left, he was praised like a God. he's always been a world class coach, but the world cup victory and the way he won it, gave him a divine aura and brought people to even overrate him... as if he was not only one of the best coaches in the world, but also one of the best in history (wich, let's be honest, he's not). in italy he was more respected than the pope!
now instead no one can stand him.
however, even though i agree his pick ups are very very questionable (my ideal starting 11 would be completely different from lippi's one), i don't think the players are the main issue here. i mean the confederations cup italy squad had an average age of 28 (wich is not old at all) and our starting 11 could easily kick the shit out of any other team in the world (except argentina and spain) on a constant basis.
the main problem is the football we play. we didn't lost against brazil, coz brazil has a better team (because they're not better than italy)... we lost because brazil played better football than us......
right now, almost all the top national teams in the world play a better football than us. that's our main issue: the quality of our football, not the personnel.
pirlo is not past his prime.... coz anytime his teammates do their job, he comes out with outstanding performances. the problem is having a god like pirlo playing in teams with
absolutely no movement without the ball (like milan and italy) is like having a ferrari with no tyres: it's just useless.
however there's just no point in talking about it, as this situation is not gonna change until the end of the next world cup.
PLF said:
That's a great reaction save! Not the best ever though. I've seen superman himself lol aka Buffon make better saves!
I always call him Superman among friends because he's the best goalkeeper I personally ever had the pleasure of watching. Wonder what his nickname is though? He must have some Italian nickname the media gave him or something? It's not Superman?
actually i don't think he has any nicknames at all.... at least i never heard it. usually we just call him Gigi.
however yes, that's a great save, but not his best.... in a "gigi buffon' greatests saves list" that save wouldn't even make the top 3.
btw nice new avatar bro!
looool