Serie A Thread - 2014/15 Season

Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

As Ben said sometime ago, a bunch of people can collect each other and make themselves heard but agree he had a great reception at the Franchi.

Anyway gerd, check this article. It will give you a clearer image.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2009/may/25/serieafootball-acmilan

his red card against Ancona in 2003 where him and Bilica got sent off for punching each other.

His little bust up with Chiellini was awesome though. And how Chiellini reacted was priceless. :D

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Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

Thanks Zeem and Stef.
I understand it was only a minority of the fans who behave disrespectfull.
I respect players who have the nerve to criticize the fans.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

@ Milanista, i agree with you, i also admire Maldini, he is for me the greastest defendor of football history, and one of the legend of XXth century.
I agree with in fact everything you said (i just read again while writing), Leonardo's choice just a carreer choice, understandable.
I would also feel unconfortable to see Maldini in Inter, just not possible.
Great player, great legend, but for ACM.
What made me angry in fact is that a player like that, who proved everything he could prove, and more with ACM, was still considered as a "secondary" legend. You see that's what makes me angry.

As an example, i take Zanetti. He is the greatest captain, the best. He is not the example tifosi might (maybe) want to see in inter's history as Bergomi, Mazzola, Suarez or Facchetti, but he deserves to. And i am sure that the day he will retire, even the people (if their still are) who don't see him as a legend, will respect him, what he did and above all who he is.
Zanetti is the captain, to my eyes the greatest one in Inter's history. This point might not been shared by every interista, but no one will claim, the day he retires that he is not.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

:CONFUSE: who's that crazy man!! :LOL: never heard of him before. i assume he's a commentator for mediaset premium, right?
it's actually pretty funny but way too flamboyant for my likes.... i'd get a headache by listening to him for 5 minutes, i could never endure an entire football match! :P

anyway, speaking of napoli-juve..... did u guys see this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MsIQ0zwSlI

as a guy who has been in that stadium.... and sang "o surdato nnammurato" along with the napoletani on several occasions, i can tell u, as impressive as it may look and sound and feel from that youtube....... u have no idea how much more overwhelming it is to actually be there and experience that stadium atmosphere live!
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@allezinter: mate i can guarrantee, every single inter fan already considers zanetti on the same status of those legends u mentioned (facchetti, suarez, mazzola and bergomi).
javier represents for the entire inter community what del piero scirea and boniperti are for juve, what maldini, rivera and baresi are for milan.

as for that disgusting show some milan ultras put during maldini's last match in san siro, let's not forget those idiots were just a few dozens.....they certainly don't represent the entire milanistas community.

besides, if anything, that incident gave us (yet another) chance to realise what a MAN Paolo is!
theese days football players are more politically correct and ass-kissers than politicians. they always take their fans side, no matter what.
and that especially concerns those iconic legends..... gerrard, totti, raul, u could just swap "liverpool" with "roma" or "real" and their interviews would be absolutely identical... they're like brainless robots, acting on a script.

can u imagine any of them standing up against his own ultras like Paolo did? (let me remind ultras are the most "hardcore fans", the ones u certainly don't wanna piss off, unless u're trying to force the club to sell u or just want to make your own life absolutely impossible)

i really don't think so!
 
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Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

Yes i agree with you, but i think this is really too bad some brainless men came this special day to show their stupidity.
And what you finally said is true, there are only a very few players now you can admire. Maldini was one, and he stays, as everybody, and especially we (inter) said, a great footballer and a great opponent. Just hope we can find a third generation in professional level, that would be funny to see again someone with shirt :)

MALDINI
3​
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

I'm sure I've brought this up before but has ther been a player that's had as many headers incorrectly disallowed as Toni.

Off the top of my head there's the recent one against Napoli, one against France in the World Cup final and one disallowed against Romania at the '08 Euros.

The man's cursed!
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

LOL! i never noticed that... he actually is quite unlucky with those kind of situations :P

allezinter, about that 3rd generation of maldinis, one of paolo's sons was described as a pretty talented defender a few years back. check out the perfect technique in this tackle!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXpPD3FpxIg
seedorf is obviously just messing around with those kids, but just look at that tackle. the timing on the slide is perfect, the position of both legs is perfect.... he even dragged back the backup leg (wich in this case is the left leg) to capture the ball afterwards. it's funny to see a 5 years old kid performing such a well timed and executed tackle.

when galliani retired the number 3 shirt, he said that number will be used again only by a maldini (if one of paolo's sons will ever make it to the professionals, of course).
it would be cool to see another maldini wearing that number 3 shirt, but obviously the expectations on daniele would be huge.
 
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Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

Hahaha that's sick! :D

Anyone seen Milan vs. Udinese! Crazyyyy game! And Di Natale didn't look happy about being taken off in final minutes. But Denis did what he could!

Cassano 3 assists in final 25 mins after being brought on.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

Cassano's got something like 4 assists in the 40 minutes he's played so far for Milan. Ridiculous.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

How is Alexis Sanchez developing at Udinese then? He's playing much more central from the snippets Ive seen of him this season.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

PLF said:
Cassano 3 assists in final 25 mins after being brought on.
abou said:
Cassano's got something like 4 assists in the 40 minutes he's played so far for Milan. Ridiculous.
well he certainly is a fantastic football player, there's no doubt about that. he's an uncivilized nutcase, has the same i.q. of a monkey (actually is probably worse than a monkey on that department.... i'd say he's closer to the likes of kahn and van bommel) and has an ego of monumental proportions...... other than that, he's an excellent football player. :P

btw am i the only one who has some doubts about sampdoria's latest moves? does any of u guys know who took marotta's place as general manager? coz he doesn't seem to be doing such a great job to me.
why taking macheda on loan and selling pozzi? did pozzi wanted to leave? coz i can't see any other possible reason for such a move. macheda might well become a great forward (who knows), but right now, Pozzi is way ahead of him. not to mention marilungo (who imo has a much brighter future than macheda).
besides garrone said he got macheda to fill the vacuum in the roster left by cassano's departure..... but cassano was a starter..... while, if pozzi and marilungo were still there, macheda would be a 3rd pick backup...... so how can macheda take the place of cassano, if even cassano's former backups (pozzi and marilungo) would be ahead of him in the starters list?
not to mention the fact that macheda is also a completely different kind of player.... his role is much closer to pazzini's one than to cassano's..... i honestly don't understand.
YoungGun said:
How is Alexis Sanchez developing at Udinese then? He's playing much more central from the snippets Ive seen of him this season.
he's having one hell of a season. he's always shown lots of class in the last few years.... but, like any young talented south american, he was also pretty unconsistant...... this season instead he's being a major factor for udinese's results.
infact he's almost too good to be true.... i would wait and see how he does for the rest of the season, before establishing he's finally become the great player he was supposed to become.
inter is desperately trying to sign him up, but without success so far.
he's been, along with giovinco, hamsik, pastore, krasic, hernanes, mauri, menez, cossu and ilicic, the most impressive 3\4 offensive player this season. funnily enough, bar cossu and mauri, they're all pretty young players. more impressive, if u also bar krasic and hernanes, all the others (sanchez, giovinco, hamsik, pastore, menez and ilicic) are under 23 years old.
it kinda dismantles the old clicheè youth=inconsistency.

anyway guys, we're halfway through the season now..... what are your comments on what u saw so far? do u guys have a best 11 in your mind? any players or coaches or teams who impressed u or disappointed u particularly?
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

Sorry Ben, i will not answer you question because i don't see enough Italian football to give a valid answer.
I have a question.
It's a question about Udinese.
This club intrigues me for years. In fact from the moment they bought Zico and what happened afterwards. The last years i see a team wuth plenty of great players (Inler, Quagliarella and i forget a dozen others), but a team that rarely has good result.
In fact when i see the results of the Serie A matches i (used to) watch out for the results of 4 teams: Palermo, Atalanta, Genoa and Udinese.
Is there something wrong with Udinese. Are they underachieving or do they have to sell all those great young players because they want to be a financially healthy club?

Please tell me more anyone.

Oh and by the way Ben, i read your reply in the Arsenal thread, yes you are right from what i saw Palermo is also one of the most attractive clubs in Europe...i didn't know that Wenger considers himself a pupil of the great Zeman. Which makes me wonder how Zeman is doing with Foggia at the moment.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

I don't know if Zeman is able to coach in the Serie A due to trouble with some of his statements in the past, and guess what, he was right in most of his acquisations.

I'll get to you Ben with my views on the half later. :)
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

I thought Marilungo was extremely talented and would be perfect to fit Cassano's role out of Macheda or Pozzi. Surprised they loaned him out. Pozzi seems like he could be a 'Pazzini', so maybe they didn't really need those qualities.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

Gerd said:
Is there something wrong with Udinese. Are they underachieving or do they have to sell all those great young players because they want to be a financially healthy club?

i wouldn't say they're underachieving. they did pretty bad last season, but that was their only poor season in the last 10 years or so.
the thing is, it really takes nothing to fall from the 5th to the 15th spot in serie a. there's a huge pack of teams which are pretty much on the same level (palermo, fiorentina, napoli, udinese, lazio, genoa, sampdoria)... and right behind them the so called "poor clubs" are actually so much better than the other leagues "poor clubs" that they're almost on par with the midclass clubs (i'm talking about the likes of cagliari, parma, catania and so on).
long story short, the competition is huge, so u can't afford a single false step. on week u're 1 point behind the 4th spot.... a few tough breaks, a few bad injuries or unlucky results and u might well find yourself in the relegation battle.
just look at this season: palermo is doing great at the moment. we're 5th and we're just 1 point behind the 4th spot. everyone is praising the amazing job rossi is doing with such a young and unexperienced team....... but then again, udinese is just 4 points behind us. just a couple of bad weeks and udinese could be ahead of us.

as for their policy, yeah udinese is the tipycal italian midclass team, build a good team on talented youngsters, have them growing and improving and then, in 3 years, sell them for 5 times the money u originally spent on them, so u can start over again.
infact udinese epitomizes this model of club management, as they were the very first club in serie a which developed this financially healthy policy. that allowed them to get some great results (like the partecipation in champions league, just a few years ago), without compromising their balance sheet..... actually their incomes grow each and every season.

they have one of the very best scouting network in europe (arguably the best in italy), and i'm quite sure they developed more talented players than any other italian club in the last decade (perhaps only palermo did better than them in this department).

they also had some great general managers. from the mid 90s to 2004 Pierpaolo Marino was in charge in udine. he's the one who invented this new model of heatly management that is now referred to as "financial fair play" (like i said before, udinese was infact the first club in italy to apply this pennywise financial strategy).
Marino built that amazing udinese side which reached the champions league (felipe, zapata, iaquinta, di natale, fiore, pizarro, pinzi, jankulovski, almiron...)
then when marino left, Pozzo (the owner) hired another great general manager (Leonardi). Leonardi is the one who brought the likes of inler, d'agostino and sanchez. then a few years ago Leonardi left and the General managers who came after him weren't really on the same level of their predecessors. but they're still doing great so far.
Gerd said:
Oh and by the way Ben, i read your reply in the Arsenal thread, yes you are right from what i saw Palermo is also one of the most attractive clubs in Europe...i didn't know that Wenger considers himself a pupil of the great Zeman. Which makes me wonder how Zeman is doing with Foggia at the moment.
a few years ago wenger said that without zeman's influence, he would have never become the coach he is today. he said that zeman's football is the main inspiration in his coaching style.

as for zeman's foggia, they're 9th in lega pro right now. in 19 matches his team scored 39 goals and conceded 37 goals..... good old zdenek! :P

zeem said:
I don't know if Zeman is able to coach in the Serie A due to trouble with some of his statements in the past, and guess what, he was right in most of his acquisations.
the only reason why zeman was "banned" from serie a was moggi. with his accusations, zeman became moggi's nemesis and serie a club owners didn't wanna hire him coz if they would have done it, then that mafioso piece of shit would have caused em troubles.
now moggi is gone and his influence on serie a is gone with him, so there's no reason to believe zeman couldn't be hired by a serie a club.

the thing is hiring zeman as a coach of your team can be a painfully frustrating experience..... u know your team is going to play some breathetaking football, u know your stadium is gonna be packed with enthusiast fans every week..... but u also know u're gonna loose many "silly points" just because of his religious respect of offensive football.
zeman just can't have a conservative approach..... even just lining up 2 defensive midfielders is a blasphemy for him..... having (at any time) more than 4 players (gk included) behind the midfield line is an outrageous display of defensive football to him. :P

zamparini once perfectly summed up why serie a club owners tend to think twice before hiring zeman...
zamparini said:
at halftime your team is leading 3-0, your players are playing the best football u've ever seen and you feel on top of the world......but then in the 2nd half zeman team will concede 3 goals because of his intolerance towards any form of conservative football. as a result, at the final whistle, u'll be feeling suicidal, for loosing what was a certain win.
milanista said:
I thought Marilungo was extremely talented and would be perfect to fit Cassano's role out of Macheda or Pozzi. Surprised they loaned him out. Pozzi seems like he could be a 'Pazzini', so maybe they didn't really need those qualities.
i agree with u on marilungo. i really like that kid. i think cassano's departure would have been the perfect chance to give marilungo some playtime. and by holding pozzi they would have had a fantastic backup for pazzini. their offence would have been absolutely fine with those 3. i just can't understand why they let both of them go and signed macheda honestly. it doesn't make much sense to me. but maybe i'm missing something.
 
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Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

Sampdoria's moves don't make sense to me either. But then again I didn't know they sold Pozzi!! Who did they sell him to?

He's the perfect back up for Pazzini and to even rotate the two when Giampaolo is in bad form to keep him on his toes.

Marilungo I'm not familiar with so I don't know....

As for Udinese, great description. They have amazing scouting network and have been doing what many others clubs are doing now for YEARS. You're very right to say they epitomize the whole discover great young talent from Italy and abroad and turn them into stars and sell them for 3x or more their initial value. So many great players have played in this rather 'small' club over the past 10 years, both Italians and Internationals.

Gerd, I wouldn't say they're underachieving necessarily though. Because the truth is, some can argue, Udinese has been over-achieving for years. At the end of the day, from what I understand, it is a fairly small club from Udine. Not that many fans.... not the greatest history exactly, etc. yet BECAUSE of their great management, scouting, and great work, they've become a very established Serie A club and a household name. At the end of the day though, they're not a big club. They're not even a medium size club though they've turned into one because of their fine work and results over last decade.

Although I woiuldn't list Almiron in there Ben as he barely ever played from what I remember.... and it was really in Empoli later on where he shone his abliities.....

Anyway Alexis Sanchez plus Di Natale means Udinese is one team you have to be VERY careful against in counter-attacks. Especially with the likes of Inler supplying those two super talented, pacey attackers.

As for Zeman, yes I'm with Zamparini and others. I would NEVER hire him! I'm very much against his style and opinions. Conservative football definitely has its place at the right times. I do LOVE watching his teams play though :D like the Lecce team a few years ago so I DO hope a Serie A club hires him soon. :P But no he would never manage my club if I were an owner. I'd feel like shooting him after every other match! :RANT:
 
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Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

For me, Napoli is the team of the mid season & Cavani is definitely in the best 11. Ibra would make it into my best 11 too, he did good in this first half. Maybe Eto'o if we go with 3 strikers or maybe Toto Di Natale.

Storari or Abbiati would be in my goal. Probably Storari because he did so well that nobody seemed to miss Buffon, but Abbiati was also good so it's a hard choice.

I would stack my midfield with Palermo players - Pastore, Ilicic. I would consider Melo, Hernanez, Hamsik & Krasic as well. But Krasic was kind of disappointing lately, but hey I'm remembering the good Krasic before Christmas, there he did well. Hamsik looks a bit sleepy atm, even though he made this one assist in Juve game, but that was more of a Napoli Triangle: Lavezzi -> Hamsik -> Cavani - Rete, Rete, Rete!!! (Auriemma screaming). But again we are talking about the whole mid season, Hamsik made his contribution for Napoli.

I was never a fan of the defence players, so I let you pick the best.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

How long have Zebrette been playing Sanchez and Di Natale up front together?

Didn't Di Natale play in a more central attacking role last season?
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

I have much respect for Mazzarri, he helped Reggina to stay in Serie A with -15 points penalty (!!!), with him as a coach Cassano was shining at Sampdoria and now at Napoli he's doing great too. Mazzarri is a fine manager.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

Zanetti equals Giuseppe Bergomi's appearance record for Internazionale.

Still going strong Il Capitano. What a gentleman and human being. :APPLAUD:
 
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