Serie A Thread - 2014/15 Season

Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

Yeah but Ben, if we had been leading 2-0, it would've been a totally different 2nd half and we would be more confident and comfortable on the ball.
How can you be sure the match would be different if it never happened?

u both made valid points. in theory a second goal might have put milan in a more confortable position... but that doesn't mean u would have certainly won the match, stef.
just think of this, milan played its best football when the game was on the line. in the second half (when the clock was working on milan's favour)juve got bolder and milan's defensive line started to track back. and that's when u really risked to lose the match. your more "confortable" position lead to a more relaxed tactical approach..... but it was precisely that aggressive tactical approach (namely that very high defensive line) that allowed u to dominate juve in the first half.

so, although your point makes perfect sense, there's no telling how the game would have unfolded if milan would have shifted back its defensive line sooner than they did (wich is what would have happened if muntari's goal wouldn't have been denied).

the only thing we can say without a doubt is that both sides were denied a valid goal. everything more than that would be a guess, an opinion, but not a fact :))
gerd said:
What's up with Lazio's coach? He's acting weird from my point of view...
yeah the whole situation is weird imo. after the loss against palermo, some of lazio directors (not the owner) attacked reja. reja is a very honorable man, he doesn't like to stay when he feels "unwanted", so he resigned. but lotito (who clearely knows better than his directors) refused his resignations and, with some help from the players, persuaded reja to stay.
good call imo. reja is doing an amazing job with lazio and the loss against palermo was just a random bad match.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

i just realised italy is playing vs usa tonight. bebo, gomito, step in guys and tell us what we should expect from usa. i always liked usa national teams and i never really understood why usa is always so underrated on the international scene, but i haven't watched them in a while and i have no idea what to expect from them tonight.

so guys, any infos about lineups, possible formation or the kind of football klinsi imported in the us of a? :))
 
Last edited:
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

I can't say we would've definitely won, but when we played best, we scored both goals. Juve would have definitely pressed more immediately after, so we'd be playing to get the 3rd. I think that's a lot more likely, especially because of how much we wanted to win the game.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

I can't say we would've definitely won, but when we played best, we scored both goals. Juve would have definitely pressed more immediately after, so we'd be playing to get the 3rd. I think that's a lot more likely, especially because of how much we wanted to win the game.


I agree with you, and 2-0 is a big mental obstical to overcome especially away from home. Could Juventus have come back from 2-0 down if it had been that score at half time? It would have been difficult. Also Milan have been very good at keeping the lead, if they go 1-0 up they usually go on to win the game (on the evidence of the last season and a half in serie a), the only time I can remember them taking the lead and being defeated in the last 18 months (domestically) is away at Napoli. But Napoli is a very intense place to play and these results can happen to the biggest teams when the go to Naples. Certainly if Milan had been 2-0 up and at home, I would bet on them being more likely to win than draw 2-2. This Milan team is very well set up to be able to see out games once they have a lead. If you take the spine of the team, you have players like Thiago Silva, Van Bommel, (to a lesser extent) Mexes and Muntari. Silva and Mexes are very good center backs, they are superb positionally and Silva is very strong in the air. With Muntari and Van Bommel in front of them you have a midfield that can break up the oppositions creativity (Van Bommel is a perfect "destroyer" he can smother the opposition and is one of the most underrated defensive midfielders over the last 10 15 years). While I think Boateng is a much better player than Muntari, Muntari has a great engine on him and can cover much of the pitch and harrass the opposition with his energy. Also this Milan team has a lot of stamina, energy and quick players, especially compared to the Milan team of say 2-3 years ago. Abate, Antonini, Pato these are very mobile compared with say Ambrosini, Gattuso etc.

People say that it was one goal each disallowed, and so that equals out and is fair across both teams. But I think there are subtle differences between the goals. Matri's offside was in fact onside, but it was less clear cut than the Milan disallowed goal, there were elements of doubt, there was another Juve player offside, now he might not have been "interfering" with play and he didn't touch the ball for the Matri goal, but he was dragging the Milan back line out of position, so you could say he was interfering with play. Also did Milan defenders switch off before the goal due to the offside ? To me it looked like Mexes stood still had his hand up as soon as the linesmans flag went up a good 3-4 seconds before Matri shot, the whistle blew before the goal. I saw this on another forum which summed up the ambiguity:

j0cljn.jpg


And on the subject of complaining about refs, I agree it was bad, but from what I read it was mainly Juventus (i.e. Conte / Marotta) complaining about them not having the "right" decisions from refs and Milan reacted to this by saying things along the lines of "what do they mean, what is there evidence", in the end I think Milan were not as big protagonists in this event.

Anyway I just hope whoever wins Serie A, it's more than two points difference, so the decisions on this match wont be questioned, and wont have had a telling impact.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

USA!!! Missed the match anyone got any opinions!

Bradley was probably the Man of the Match. He was covering so much ground and doing a great job of breaking up play. He also was crucial in starting the attack, springing the pass that allowed Fabian Johnson to cross in for Alitdore who combined with Dempsey for the game-winner.

The centerbacks had a difficult first half. Bocanegra was always yelling at everyone to step up to play the offside trap, but Goodson was always one step behind, allowing Matri, Giovinco, and Maggio to get behind the back four. Additionally, Dempsey was not closing Pirlo down in midfield, so he had all the time in the world to look up and pick out a pass. Luckily, Tim Howard kept us in the game until Dempsey, Bradley, and Edu started closing down space harder in the second half.

Overall, I thought the result was well-deserved. I just wish Borussia Dortmund wunderkind (and I use that term loosely) Terrence Boyd would have done better when he was with Dempsey on a 2 v. 2 in the second half. That would have closed out the game and we wouldn't had to have continued to defend like maniacs for the last 10-15 minutes.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

edmundo said:
People say that it was one goal each disallowed, and so that equals out and is fair across both teams. But I think there are subtle differences between the goals. Matri's offside was in fact onside, but it was less clear cut than the Milan disallowed goal,
:CONFUSE: Wow!! so now we're comparing the referee's mistakes to establish wich team was "more effected"??!? okay, i guess that's crazy enough for me, so, if u'll excuse me, before any of u guys start talking about "moral winners" or other bullshits like that, i will just quietly step out of the conversation and get back once u guys change subject.

just one little thing: remember this conversation people.... because next time i read someone in this forum saying "football needs technology", i will direct u towards this very conversation and use it to prove my point: football doesn't need technology.... football needs better fans.
edmundo said:
Anyway I just hope whoever wins Serie A, it's more than two points difference, so the decisions on this match wont be questioned, and wont have had a telling impact.
i wouldn't worry about that edmundo. u see, anyone so stupid to question the outcome of an entire championship for a single match would deserve no attention whatsoever from anyone and any of his thoughts would be utterly irrelevant to anyone who has ever played a football match (or who has tried any other sport) at least once in his life.
gomito said:
USA!!! Missed the match anyone got any opinions!
u didn't miss much unfortunately. italy treated this game like a training session..... really. the only ones who looked bothered were giovinco and borini. also prandelli did a bit too much experimenting for one single match (motta as a trequartista?!? oh come on, what's next, buffon lined up as a striker?).
usa were decent, but i was a little disappointed by them too. i mean it was really one of those match when we're so not bothered even new zealand could beat us.... and yet usa still didn't put much of a fight (just to give u an idea of what i'm talking about, italy had 19 shots attempt, while usa had 2).
i'm not tryng to be an ass here or to sound like a bitter loser... what i'm trying to say is that the usa team i remember (the one from 2006) would have absolutely outplayed, smashed, detroyed yesterday's italy..... in the second half i was actually hoping usa would give us a good lesson (coz honestly when u play like this what u need is an humiliating loss).

anyway gomito, steve, what can u tell me about this usa team? that shea kid looked pretty interesting :))
 
Last edited:
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

i wouldn't worry about that edmundo. u see, anyone so stupid to question the outcome of an entire championship for a single match would deserve no attention whatsoever from anyone and any of his thoughts would be utterly irrelevant to anyone who has ever played a football match (or who has tried any other sport) at least once in his life

The trouble is if the gap is less than two points at the end of the season, that match will be brought up. You can see how much discussion newspapers and tv/radio have been giving the incident already, if the league is won by less than 1 point it's going to be discussed even more. Say Milan finish 1 point behind Juventus, the Milan fans will say, "if we'd been given that goal we would have won the league". And yes you could point to other games where they dropped points (e.g. Lazio home/away, Napoli away) and say if they had won these games they would have won the league, and you could say that even at 2-0 the game wasnt over, but the sentiments of newspapers and some fans will focus on that game.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

Only if both clubs win all their other matches and have a draw in their other match against eacht other, is that game decisive. That scenario is almost impossible. As a matter of fact, it is impossible in reality.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

Mathmatically yes, but in the minds of some fans, and in big sections of the media the sentiment will be that this was the decisive game, e.g this was "the two points they didn't get".
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

i can live with that. i don't usually entertain conversations with stupid fans and i hardly read any football related media nowadays.

but if u start talking like that, then that is a problem for me, because u are everything but a stupid fan and i do like to talk with u. ;)

anyway buddy, i'm sorry if i sounded petulant (i mean "more petulant" than i usually am :P ) this morning in my previous post.
i just got news lucio dalla was dead and i probably wasn't in the best mood for conversation.
Gomito said:
Shea might be the next USA world
Beater, very similiar to Gareth Bale. Lefty, fast, strong and can finish.
sweeeet! so it wasn't just my impression :))
 
Last edited:
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

Shea might be the next USA world
Beater, very similiar to Gareth Bale. Lefty, fast, strong and can finish.

Shea goes to the Arsenal in the off season to train . I`m sure keeping tabs just encase he comes available.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

i wouldn't blame this draw if Milan end up losing the league as Milan had the chance to keep the 1-0 lead and to be fair Juventus really pressed in the final half hour.

Also to be fair, the league is a very long marathon and Milan have been awarded some soft penalties along the road. Some that ended up winning the game so Milan should just look forward and try to control some players like Ibrahimovic and Mexes. Ibrahimovic is like an unleashed dog and keeps getting banned. Really shows how strong his character is that the Milan management keeps letting these things go for him which is unusual. But hey! Even Galliani walks and screams at Conte at halftime just shows you the level of anger that was in this game even though what Conte was saying before was disgusting.

And yeah, Pato out for another 3 weeks. His 13'th injury since 2010. Can't imagine how frustrating this must be for him and how talented he is makes it sad. Some are blaming the way he bulked up quickly. I don't know!
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

As a neutral fan who happened to watch the match, I will risk giving my oppinion from my very limited perpective on the Serie A. I've seen matches here and there, but very diverse in terms of teams, so I will have seen probably 2 or 3 matches of every team.

About the Milan-Juve: Probably the 2-0 would have been too much for Juve to come back, but that didn't happen unfortunately for Milan. But I would blame Milan more than the ref. In the second half, they played too confident and speculated too much with the short lead.

Should Milan had gone to score another and clearly for the match, I had the feeling they would have surely won. But instead of that they went back and back and ALLOWED Juve to get into the match. Juve took profit of it, saw a stretch of light and took breath and they were very intense in the last minutes, so in my oppinion they deserved the draw if only for the will to dominate and put intensity.

This scenario has happened a lot this year for Barcelona in away matches, they speculate too much with the result because they feel a bit superior to the rival and risk the draw. Very big mistake.

In that scenario, any bad decision by the ref will have a big impact on the result, but if the team had player more brave and with a strong intention to take the ball and attack then the ref influence on the game diminishes. And if Milan had attacked a bit more, Juve lines would have gone back and probably wouldn't have had the chances they had at the end.

I know it's easy to talk from the couch, but in my oppinion Milan has a better squad but lacks killer instinct. And Juventus has a solid team that will struggle against big teams, but has a very good attittude, and they supply the lack of brilliance with intensity. If they add one or two key pieces to the puzzle, I could see the Vecchia Signora dominating again and doing that final leap.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

Completely agree with the killer instinct... in the past we had Sheva, Kaka and Pippo. Now we rely on Boateng (limited creativity) and Ibra. Cassano has real ability to totally open up teams, but we know what happened with him.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

I must say that i read all this with amusement.
For me it is very simple.

Juventus are the last team on earth that has the right to complain about referees. The fact that the club even still exists is IMO an injustice. Now people will think that i have something against Juventus: not at all.
My favourite Belgian team (and my all-time favourite team altogether) has ceased to exist due to tax fraud and other sorts of fraud and i completely agree with that although i was gutted because of it. What Moggi did goes against the fundamental principles of every form of sport and should have been punished very harsh and this not only for Moggi himself but for the club he represented. This didn't happened and in principle i will not moan about that. I might even enjoy some of Juventus' football.
But...
I think Conte has one hell of a nerve to complain about referees. If Juventus win the Scudetto, then they will have earned it just like any other club who wins the league after more than 30 matches. But don't expect me to be jubilant because of it. Although i would be glad for Andrea Pirlo.

And one other thing: Conte may be a very successfull coach but he seems to be a major ass-hole to me.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

Juventus exists because of its history, we are one of the most historic clubs in all of football, and it would be completely ridiculous to remove us from the sport as a whole because of a few idiots (mainly Moggi) in one season, but it is unacceptable to remove us from football, we went to Serie B and payed the price, the other Serie A teams were punished with 'just' some point reductions.
Now I can agree that some of our team members went overboard with the comments in the media as we should know better, but I do agree with some of Contes' views. The referee situation in Serie A is appalling as il Zio pointed out, the mistake in that Palermo game is a disgrace, however I'm still against technology being introduced. Football has always been a traditional sport, and I think we would lose this feeling if we had cameras/detectors and what not making decisions for us.

I know my opinion is biased towards Conte because he is a Juve legend, but he has always been the passionate type sportsman, and its clear those traits are now evident in his management style, but I think this has had a good influence on the players and club, he's just very very passionate (as you can see when we score) and I can see why some opposing/neutral fans may see this as annoying, but he has good intentions and you can see from the interviews he is BIG and friendly. Anyways, no one can say that Juve does not deserve the title this season, we have battled from the very beginning of the season playing with heart and dedication, something that we have lacked since Calciopoli. We are the only team in Europe that is undefeated which is a sensational stat, and with one of the best defences in Serie A, AND a team that forms a major part of the nazionale (like the WC2008 squad). Therefore, if we win this title I think this Juventus deserves A LOT of praise no matter what. Milan have played a great season, but I still think they were better last year, but our determination this season has made us better despite having a weaker team.

This of course is my opinion, I respect your view, but I think the amount of passion and effort put in by the squad this year overshadows any sort of stupid referring error or poor manners on television.

Forza Juve fino alla fine!
 
Last edited:
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

yep, very good post indeed matt, i almost completely agree with u. just one small thing...
Matt said:
The referee situation in Serie A is appalling as il Zio pointed out
i didn't really mean to say we have a referee problem. infact i believe we have the best referee class on this planet (and by an insanely huge margin). yes this week was terrible (by serie a standards), as we had 2 matches completely compromised by poor referee's performances (the milan-juve game and the siena-palermo game).... but how many other games completely compromised by serie a refs can u remember this season? i mean we're in march, and that's what, the 4th match screwed up by a ref in the entire season?... perhaps the 5th? in any other european top league u have usually 4 or 5 games decided by poor refereeing in 1, 2 months....we're 2 months away from the end of the season and this was the first really bad week for serie a referees. i believe that says a lot about our referees. but that's really the only part of your post i disagree with.
also very good posts by zeem and alexis. very well said guys :))

Gerd, i perfectly understand your point. this juventus scandal was a very delicate situation and there's really no undebeatable opinion or argument about it.
but i tend to agree with matt's position on this matter, and that's why. in the late 17° century italian legislators invented a new law principle called "responsabilità oggettiva". as most italian law principles, it eventually spread across the world and informed pretty much every judicial system in the so called "civilized world" (common law systems know this principle as the "strict liability rule").
now, what does this principle implies? what the responsabilità oggettiva concept implies is that a person (or a company or any other kind of organization) might be held legally responsible for acts they did not commit. this is a major violation of a paramout law principle "nulla poena sine culpa" (from the original latin "no responsability without culpability"). that's one of the most important, ancient and basic italian\roman law principles and almost every judicial system on the planet adopted it.

bottom line, the responsabilità oggettiva principle is a montruosity, a technical abomination that should have no place in any judicial system. the thing is this is a useful abomination, as it's the only system we could come up with in order to avoid some unacceptable situations (without this terrible rule the companies would never pay for their CEOs mistakes, and u can clearely see how dangerous that would be).
u can ask every law professor, every lawyer, every judge, in any part of the world, they will all tell u the same thing: strict liability is a horrible concept, but until we find out a better way to get around some tricky situations, we're gonna have to use it.

calciopoli is a perfect example of how terrible and at the same time useful, this rule is. but it's also a great example of why we should be very careful when apllying this rule, as a very strict application could lead to very unfair consequences.
moggi and giraudo were the masters of puppets in that sorry show that was calciopoli. juventus players had absolutely no idea they were being "helped", juve fans didn't know their club's victories were tainted, the owner of the club itself (the agnelli family) had no idea of what was going on.
yet all theese people payed for those 2 bastards mistakes. as a matter of fact juventus owners, juventus players and fans.... juventus itself (as a club) were held responsible.... even though they weren't culpable.
u can certainly see how deeply wrong that is. yet it was the only way to reestablish some sort of balance (mind u, not justice, but balance). juve won (at least) 2 scudetti through illegal instruments, so it was not possible to let the club get away with it (it wouldn't have been fair to the rest of the league).

so we had to damage the club (and therefore its owners) even though they (the club and its owners) were not culpable. moggi and giraudo were culpable, not the club..... but it was the club which took advantage of moggi's crimes, so it becomes hard to pin responsabilities based only on culpability.

it is a very tricky situation, from both the moral and the legal\technical aspect. but one thing is for sure: we might wanna take advantage of a bad rule like the responsabilità oggettiva rule every now and then, coz it can be useful, but we certainly don't wanna apply this rule to its extreme limits.
so killing the club would have been just too much. an unexplainably severe punishment for a club wich afterall was not culpable for what moggi and giraudo did.
let's not forget that juventus represents one of the major pillars in european football history. and moggi and giraudo only represent a relatively brief (and sad) chapter in this long history.
 
Last edited:
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

I think maybe the word 'appalling' was a exaggerated towards the referee's, although I can agree that the referee's in Italia are much better than some abroad I just feel the quality has worsened over the years. I've noticed considerable improvement in linesmen calling offsides, but I think the main referee's nowadays lack confidence and 'palle'. There are only a few referee's I can think of that impress me nowadays in the Serie A, but this is just my opinion of course.
Anyways what you said regarding the legislation is completely spot on, we were completely oblivious to the fact that we were 'helped', and I think the use of the law in this scenario was appropriate.

Anyways this evening we face a very tough Chievo Verona, a team that we have struggled against over the years (Sergio Pellisier always worries me), but the players' know that this and the matches from now on will shape our final position. Hopefully we'll get the important three points and finally catch up with Milan with the midweek game with Bologna on the 7th March.

Forza Juve!
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

I think maybe the word 'appalling' was a exaggerated towards the referee's, although I can agree that the referee's in Italia are much better than some abroad I just feel the quality has worsened over the years.

really? i feel the exact opposite. right after calciopoli a new generation of referees. during their first seasons they were pretty poor (at least by our standards) but over the last few seasons they hugely improved. there a lots of great referees today imo, like orsato, romeo, bergonzi, rizzoli and de marco, wich is my favourite.

anyway yeah, chievo can be a real pain in the ass :P

btw a friend just sent me this video... seriously how awesome is allegri!! that's the spirit they should show during this "high tension games".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFGMAiZZ-28&feature=b-mv
:LOL::LOL:
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

I've always been quite a critic of Zlatan, but his performance against Palermo really took me by surprise. Creator, defender, supporter and scorer. This also comes after that stunning performance against Arsenal where he dictated the whole offence.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

I've always been quite a critic of Zlatan, but his performance against Palermo really took me by surprise. Creator, defender, supporter and scorer. This also comes after that stunning performance against Arsenal where he dictated the whole offence.

He had the same position in the friendly against Croatia and was stunning!
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

In my point of view he really seems to like assisting his teammates more than scoring himself over the last few seasons. I mean, from what Ive seen, he only prefers to take on defenders and shoot unless he sees a teammate in a better position which is I don't remember much in his Juve and Inter days. Maybe he got that whatever style he plays he just can't stop scoring and that there's just no need to care too much about scoring. Plus, with a non-angry and cool mind, he's already becoming one of the most prolific passers around. Well if you ask me, Barcelona's influence made this more than Allegri. At Barça, he was playing quite similarly as now but of course he's playing way too much freely nowadays. Like a boss, I'd say. :p He's one of those few players that make people watch the matches only for watching them. I'd really wish to see him make a big surprise in Euro12 with Sweden with the quality and on form players around him. I know that's almost impossible with Germany and Spain out there, though.
 
Last edited:
Re: Serie A Thread - 2010/11 Season

yep, i completely agree with your points kanoutè :))

stef, zeem, how do u milanisti feel about pato theese days? if a substantial offer would come, would u be ok with selling him?
 
Back
Top Bottom