Re: Serie A Thread
another very good post dutty nose :applause: it was a real pleasure to read your views
i'd say an introduction to "il derby della lanterna" is needed
genova's derby is probably the most fascinating derby in italy. the fans of both teams are famous for their passion, and there are many legends about the previous derbys.
it's also known as "the Lanterna's derby". the Lanterna is the lightouse of genova, the lanterna is som sort of a symbol in genova (genova was one of the 4 "Maritime Republics", from the 10th to the 13th centuries). today the lanterna is a nice little musuem and a UNESCO World Heritage Site (like almost everything in Genova
).
moving back to football, theese 2 teams don't face each others in serie a since 1994. last time they played genoa won 2-1 (Van’t Schip and Skuhravy for genoa; platt scored for samp). that season genoa went in serie b.... of course i read those things on the newspaper, as i didn't remember it :mrgreen:.
sampdoria has a new coach. novellino went to torino, but Mazzarri is a great coach too. last season he did something unbeliavable with reggina, one of the poorest teams in serie a who won an unbelieavable amount of matches, by playing a great football!!!!
that's what makes a coach a great coach; the ability to overachieve, to bring out the best in a team, no matter how good are his players, the ability to read the flow of the game and anticipate it.
nontheless, Mr. Mazzarri will have some problems this week end. Volpi, his playmaker, his metronome, the one who gives geometry and timing to samp's passing game, should be out for injury (and even if he would play, he wouldn't be in good shape at all). Bellucci and montella played just yesterday and they wil probably be pretty tired. cassano is still injured... and caracciolo..... well, caracciolo is caracciolo :lol:
but also genoa has his problems. Genoa's coach, mr. Gasperini is another great coach. he was probably the best coach in serie b last year (togheter with didì) and one of most fresh coaches in italy. it was a pleasure to watch his pure attacking football last season. One of the most entertaining teams in italy.
this season something changed. it's like gasperini is scared to play that crazy nice football in serie a. and i can understand it..... but that's the football genoa knows how to play. till now they tried to play a more careful football, with awful results. u can't ask a turtle to run, u can't ask a hare to go slow. everybody has to play his football to truly express his potential..........
but i've got the feeling gasperini realized it and i think we'll see again last season genoa, this week end (at least i hope).
moving on....
roma - juve. intersting match. juventus will be really determined and angry, after the udinese match. ranieri had an entire week to prepare this match, to set up the most appropriate countermeasures to stop roma gameplay. juve is missing many key players... camoreanesi will be out for more than 1 month, nocerino had a car accident this week (nothing bad happened and he seems ok, but i don't think he'll play), and now also almiron, juventus lightouse, is out. i'd really like to see a midfield line composed by zanetti and tiago, because this could be the perfect choice to disrupt roma's passing game (or at least to try to). Tiago was the most expensive juventus buy this summer, and i'm sure that if ranieri will give him some time he will show what a great player he is....
talking about roma, now everybody in europe is loving their gameplay. they're getting better each year and at the moment they're really on fire.
5 matches played, 5 wins, 10 goals scored, 0 goals conceded.... really impressive. but the most impressive thing is their football... the ball never stops for 90 minutes. last year roma had the best 20 minutes of football in europe.... this season they play that amazing football for almost the whole match... i'm saying almost of course, coz u can't expect them to play that way for 90 consecutives minutes. so they still have some "rest moments", and the key to beat them is following the flow of the game, trying to resist to roma's passing game (honestly when they start to play their best football, there's nothing u can do to get the ball), then, when they slow down the game putting pressure on them, taking advantage of their lack of oxygen.
that's what colantuono (palermo's coach) did against roma, and it almost worked :roll:
anyway roma isn't unbeatable.... and actually according to juve game system (or at least to what juve did till now) they could really be the toughest team to beat for roma.
roma players are getting inside the spalletti mentality, each year more than the previous. now they're almost perfect in attack (who am i kidding, they're more than perfect) but they're still careless in defense, sometimes. and i'm not talking about the defensive line (wich is great!), i'm talking about the defesive phase of the game, wich involves both defenders and midfielders.
look at this picture i just captured from utube:
that's the action that brought to the first goal. we all loved it , as that's what every football addict loves to see......
...but..
look at the midfielders position on the field. during the game we were excited by all those great short 1st touch passes (the short first touch pass is the most difficult exercize, it should be a basic for every player, but nowadays kids are more intersted in learning how to do flip-flaps
)...
and for sure it was nice to see them showing their abilities. But i'm pretty sure that in that moment Spalletti was really angry... he was probably screaming like a mad "
what tha hell 'r u doing, look at yoiur position on the pitch! look at your teamates position on the pitch! look at where the hell 'r u going!!! :mrgreen:
4 players in less than 10 squared meters..... such a sillly tactical mistake... just try to immagine what could happen if a dinamo player would have been able to intercept one of those short passes..... behind those 4 players ther are just the 2 cbs and doni, because cassetti is running toward the right corner of dinamo's midfield to receive a pass (and u can see him on the top of the pic), while tonetto is doing the same thing on the left (he will be the one who will receive the last pass from aquilani and cross the ball for perrotta).
they're just gifting the whole midfield to dinamo players, with that awful midfield line up.
so even if they really look unbeatable at the moment.... they aren't.
moreover we'll have to see who will play for roma. i mean mancini, taddei, perrotta, aquilani and cassetti need some rest so we could see esposito, giuly, pizarro and panucci taking their places. but many of theese players (pizarro and esposito especially) are far from being in a good physical shape.
they need to play to reach their best condition, but we can't expect too much from them at the moment (until they'll be in good shape again).
so that's another good news for juve.
talking about atalanta - lazio, this could be another intersting match, between 2 teams that still have to show what they're all about. atalanta wasn't that good lately, but still they managed to get some good results, with a lot of luck and a great zampagna.
lazio is really disappointing me. i know they have so many problems, so many injuries at the same time (cribari, stendardo, mauri, mutarelli, mudingay).... many players just started playing again (like mauri)..... but still it surprises me to notice what a lack of stamina lazio players are showing.... rossi's athletic preparation was aimed to bring his players to the best shape for the champions league preliminary matches...... so why are they still playing so bad???? They should be on fire theese days, coz they should have more oxygen than the other teams (whose athletic preparation was aimed to bring the players to the perfet shape in october\november).... i don't know.
another big factor is the goalkeeper. peruzzi was among the greatest keepers in the world and he was leader too, i guess lazio is badly missing him
but then again, why buying muslera???? :shock: i mean i don't know this guy and maybe he'll become a hell of a keeper... but there's a man called Amelia who is stuck in livorno since ages!!! he's the most talented young keeper in italy (with mirante and alfonso) and one of the best young keeper in europe too. he already knows the italian football, he already knows the italian fowards..... he already knows the italian language!!! Muslera doesn't even speak italian!!! how can we expect him to guide lazio's defensive line???? It's mostly important for a keeper to talk to his cbs, to tell them when they aren't correctly lined up (coz the keeper is the only one who has a perfect vision of the defensive line line up).....
u have to replace a legend like peruzzi..... and u go for muslera????!!!! :shock: that's unbelieavable. The second big mistake lotito did since he's in charge (the first one was selling foggia).
moerover we also have to admit that lazio camciomercato was pretty disappointing. they will have to face 3 competitions this season (serie a, coppa italia and champions league), and they didn't strenghten the team at all. kolarov seems to be a promising player, but that's not enough of course... i have the feeling lazio will do really bad in champions this season, and that's a real pity, as they played a wonderful football last season
i'd like to write something about cagliari- palermo too, but it's getting late and i already wrote a looooooooong post, so i guess it's better to end it here.
