Serie A Thread - 2014/15 Season

Re: Serie A Thread

Hey Lo Zio....you must be very happy mate...well done.

If you can check out Barcelona Zaragoza highlights if you can. Barca are at half time right now having just played the best football in Europe this year IMHO. Or the best first half anyway Hehe

The passing has been brilliant and Messi has been unplayable...
 
Re: Serie A Thread

i couldn't be happier! \\:o/
a nice undeserved victory, grasped just at the end of an awesome match, against a great milan :D

it was a real pleasure to watch the game. Milan played an amazing football, and they were really unlucky,as even a 1-1 would have been an unfair result.

the rossoneri looked extremely focused since the beginning of the match (as i thought) and carletto's line up was absolutely perfect.

we played with the formation i wrote yesterday, but cassani played on the right, with zaccardo playing as a cb (rinaudo started from the bench) and diana on the left (as expected). the midfield line was composed by caserta, simplicio and migliaccio, with bresciano playing behind amauri and miccoli, as advanced midfielder.

milan played with the usual formation with jankulovski, nesta, kaladze and oddo in defense, gattuso and pirlo in the midfield and kaka and seedorf playing as advanced midfielders, behind gila.

colanuono decided to line up a 3 men midfield line, to leave more spaces to cassani and diana, but his gameplan was messed up by a very smart move of ancelotti who placed kaka and seedorf very close each others; they didn't started their action from the sidelines, as they did in the last matches, and played as pure advanced midfielders.

this situation brought to many duels (kakà-simplicio; seedorf-caserta) and so cassani and diana couldn't push on the sidelines, coz they often had to give a help to the midfield.
Milan instead did exactly what colantuono wanted Palermo to do. with kaka and seedorf playing on the centre and palermo sidebacks too busy with kaka and seedorf to cover the sides, marek and oddo had nobody in front of them and were free to push on the sidelines, till our box.

this situation lasted for the entire first half. milan played silky football in our midfield with some nice short first touch ball exchanges and passes between oddo-kaka and seedorf-marek and with pirlo directing the whole orchestra from the midfield line.
palermo spent the whole first half trying to contain and keep down milan plays (with no success) and this situation brought to the first goal (a nice "passing-dialogue" between kakà and seedorf which left our cbs agape).
milan produced a lot of football and a lot of scoring chances also after the goal (they also hitted the bar).
we just tried to push the game out of our own midfield, and produced just one long shot by cassani, a heading by bresciano and a nice "all alone action" by miccoli.

in the half time then colantuono made a revolution! back to 4-4-2 (a very offensive 4-4-2) with cavani and jankovic on the sides (out bresciano) and with rinaudo taking his place in the defense beside barzagli, while zaccardo slid on the right and cassani went out (it was time!).

palermo's pressure on the side didn't nullify oddo and marek.... actually we didn't press them at all. we just cared about pushing on the sides, trying to pruduce some football (infact milan continued to play his football, creating many scoring chances and hittin the bar for the 2nd time :shock:).
but now we too were playing football, and in milan's midfield! jankovic made many silky ball exchanges with amauri and cavani did the same thing on the other side with miccoli.
our first goal actually was invalid as amauri stopped the ball with his arm..... but u will forgive me if for once i'm not sad at all about the ref's mistake :mrgreen:

both of the teams was more worried about creating scoring chances than disrupting the opponent's football, and so both of them had many scoring chances (6 for palermo, 8 for milan).
but the match slowly headed to the end when we earned a free kick from a not so dangerous position.

my girl lost her usual aplomb, screaming miccoli's name. i told her "com on do u see from where he's shooting! no way he will score!"
then she said "what? we're talking about Kalac!! He can't do everything right for 90 minutes! he has to mess up something sooner or later, and the game is almost over".

after the goal, after the celebrations, when the game started again (for the remaining 1 minute) me and my friends looked at her like she were some sort of nostradamus! :lol::lol::lol::lol:

milan lost playing some very good football. they were really unlucky and i can see them winning a lot of matches in streak from sunday on :)



If you can check out Barcelona Zaragoza highlights if you can
Click to expand...

the match was live on sky italy yesterday. i recorderd it (as i always do when my zaragozza plays :)). i hope i'll find the tiime to watch it this week end ;)
 
Re: Serie A Thread

Congrats, Lo Zio.

Few words on juve yesterday; simply great. A lot of second choise players were given a chance and they all performed well. A lot of quick play, one or- two touch play only. It all looked stylish and solid for once, at the same time. Seems like Ranieri is managing to give the team an imprint and a style of play. Ranieri managed to make a side without Camoranesi, Nedved, Del Piero, Marchionni, Chiellini, Iaquinta and Andrade look like a good and cohesent unit. Though it has to be said, Reggina didn't really give much of a fight.

'Minor' Players like Molinaro, Salihamidzic, Palladino, Birindelli and Legrottaglie(!) got a chance and performed. I guess 'minor' is hardly appropriate considering the ways of the tinkerman though. More importantly, Tiago finally got his chance, and he did very well, he was a joy to watch yesterday (where are you PLF :D?).

P.S. I just love Zanetti.
 
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Re: Serie A Thread

A real pain to not be able to always keep up with seria a due to the coverage in the UK. I have to wait for some kind of round-up show on sky or channel 5s coverage on Sunday I guess....at least I got to watch some really good La Liga games...even so :(
 
Re: Serie A Thread

i just watched fiorentina-roma :shock::shock::shock:
WHAT AN AWESOME MATCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :shock::shock::shock:

for the first time in ages serie a is finally entertaining me as much as la liga!:D

@vanzandt: still didn't have the time to watch barça-zaragozza (i'll do it tomorrow), but i had the chance to watch the highlights...... pure pleasure :D
 
Re: Serie A Thread

lo zio said:
i just watched fiorentina-roma :shock::shock::shock:
WHAT AN AWESOME MATCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :shock::shock::shock:

for the first time in ages serie a is finally entertaining me as much as la liga!:D
Click to expand...

Hope I get to at least see highlights of these matches this week.

lo zio said:
@vanzandt: still didn't have the time to watch barça-zaragozza (i'll do it tomorrow), but i had the chance to watch the highlights...... pure pleasure :D
Click to expand...

:salute:
 
Re: Serie A Thread

lo zio said:
i just watched fiorentina-roma :shock::shock::shock:
WHAT AN AWESOME MATCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :shock::shock::shock:

for the first time in ages serie a is finally entertaining me as much as la liga!:D

@vanzandt: still didn't have the time to watch barça-zaragozza (i'll do it tomorrow), but i had the chance to watch the highlights...... pure pleasure :D
Click to expand...

Watched it live, then downloaded it - says it all really :D
 
Serie A Review

Hey guys, not been able to come into this thread for a while, but now I have managed to get some time :)

Another great, great round in Serie A - 23 goals and a great advert for the league. What I am very happy with is the fixture list. There seems to be a single special match a week. First round was Roma-Palermo, on the weekend it was Roma-Juve, and in the round just gone it was Roma-Fiorentina. Note that these weren't the only good matches :) Looking into the future is excellent as well, Fiorentina have a fixture list similar to the one Roma is going through - that should be excellent. Personally, I can't wait for Fiorentina vs Palermo - that like my prediction of Roma vs Fiorentina (which was correct) - should turn into a classic :) Can you say that about Everton vs Tottenham?

Roma vs Fiorentina was just amazing. The football was literally all end-to-end and was an absolute delight to watch. I knew Fiorentina would counter-attack frequently, as well as fluidly, but what impressed me was how constantly the attacked and just didn't relent. In my opinion, the Firenze outfit outplayed us, especially in the first half. We played some good football, and Mancini's goal symbolised the flair within the Roma outfit. Fiorentina were brilliant as well, and better than us :( I think at times they overplayed completely, almost to compete with us and say "We can do it too, you know". They did to be fair - however, it generally broke down all the counter attacks that Fiorentina had. Still, the match was a fantastic advert for the league and was easily, in my opinion, the best match in the season - all over Europe.

Milan - Palermo. Well, Milan were very unlucky in this match. They played some nice football at times and outplayed Palermo. Palermo's goal came against the run of play and I really do think there was a handball there. Miccoli's goal was splendid, but really the two goals were undeserved. I wonder what Ben will make of this :) I think that Gilardino played very well, and came close to scoring on a few occassions, also his football with Seedorf and Kaka (I swear that means Shit in French :)) was amazing. I am not really sure Kaka played his best again today. He was solid, and had a few nice plays, but I think he hasn't hit the heights of last season enough this season. The only games that I can think of are Genoa and Benfica - and that was both the first halves. Still, he is performing better than most, which says a lot about his potential :)

lo zio said:
i just watched fiorentina-roma :shock::shock::shock:
WHAT AN AWESOME MATCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :shock::shock::shock:

for the first time in ages serie a is finally entertaining me as much as la liga!:D

@vanzandt: still didn't have the time to watch barça-zaragozza (i'll do it tomorrow), but i had the chance to watch the highlights...... pure pleasure :D
Click to expand...

The Barca-Zaragoza match was a lesson in football. Truly orgasmic first half performance from Barcelona :) Can't wait until they put a whole match of football like that together :shock:

Side Note: My friend, who said Serie A was boring, has asked me to tell him to watch Roma vs Inter, maybe he can be turning :)
 
Re: Serie A Thread

tobi said:
Link please.

Roma on Sunday ripped that no pace Juve too shreds, tis a shame that they took there foot of the pedal.
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tobi, first of all, nice to see u here. i do always read your post with interest and i hope u're coming here to stay. :)

about roma-juve, there's not much i can say as i still didn't watch the game.
but i can still tell u it's not a shame if they slowed down the game in the second half,for 2 reasons.

first of all, roma is facing a terrible period; in 10 days they're playing against: dinamo-juventus-fiorentina-inter-manchester (:shock:). they're playing 3 macthes per week (and believe me, playing so often, so early in the season, with the italian summer training camp still on your legs, is really hard.

moreover roma had to preserve his key players for the following important matches (roma-inter, especially). they're already missing taddei (who will be out for 2 weeks), perrotta had fever this week, and totti is having some problems with his ankles.

so it's absolutely obvious if they decided to slow down the game, avoiding injuries and avoiding to get too tired to play again "roma football" in 3 days...... it becomes even more obvious if u think that they were winning.

talking about juve, i'd say pace is the last of their problems, at the moment. actually pace is never a problem... coz if u play good football, it doesn't matter how much (or how fast) u run.
pace becomes a factor just when the quality of the football is poor (in italy we use to say "if u have no brain, then u have to use your legs").
juventus has enough potential to play quality football, so they don't have to care about their pace.... they have to start playing togheter.... and they will, in a couple of months ;)



Satty, nice post (as usual ;)). I agree with your view about fiorentina-roma..... but i wouldn't say fiorentina really outplayed roma. roma too showed some great football. of course they weren't as great as in the past matches, but we really can't expect them to play always at their best level, especially when they have to face 3 top teams in 1 week (they're really facing a terrific tour de force.... juve, fiorentina and inter).
moreover they were playing at fiorentina house, so i'd say they did really a great job.
the quality of the football was ridiculous.... it was like watching a "90 minutes highlights"... just unbelievable.
fiorentina's ability in attacking the spaces is something amazing!!!! (does the expression "attacking the spaces" exists in english??? :roll:... if not, tell me and i'll try to explain what this expression means, coz it's almost impossible to talk about italian football, without knowing the meaning of "spaces attacking").

i can't even imagine what a team fiorentina would be if they would still have toni...... and i can't imagine what a great team fiorentina will be when pazzini's star will start shining :)





absolutely agree with u about palermo-milan. it was really an undeserved victory (but usually the undeserved victories are also the most beautiful! \\:o/).
in the first half milan really outplayed us and amauri clearely stopped the ball with his arm in our first goal action. I really hope our left backs will be back as soon as possible coz we can't keep playing with cassani or zaccardo on the left..... sunday oddo did everything he wanted on the left, he had no opposition at all. Our left backs are actually are our weak point (honestly pisano and capuano didn't impressed me last year), but at least that's their proper role, and playing one of them on the left, we can line up zaccardo on the right (or on the centre).
another thing i didn't like was amauri's playstyle. he did good, moved backwards often and helped the team in many ways.... but that's not what he's supposed to do. theese are bresciano's duties, miccoli's duties, guana's duties. Amauri is one of the best fowards in italy; there's only one other tall foward in italy who has his same technique, ball control and dribbling.... ibra (actually ibra is even better, but amauri is the only one who can do almost the same things ibra does).... he has to stay upfront, to help bresciano, miccoli and diana pushing foward, he isn't supposed to work for the team... the team has to work for him.

talking about the tactical aspects, i already wrote we'll have to wait to see colantuono's imprint. at the moment we're playing decent football, but u can clearely see our football still hasn't a "plot-line". anyway that's absolutely normal at this point of the season and i'm still very confident in colantuono.

but there's something i can't understand. in our last matches palermo didn't press at all. milan played some great football last sunday, but i think it was mostly because we did never put pressure on the ball carrier...... and that's something really strange, if u think that pressing the ball carrier is one of the key factors in colantuono's football :roll:
i just hope this is due to tha lack of stamina (we too played 3 matches in 1 week).



talking about milan, i really don't know what they could do to solve their tactical problems. Sunday they were good, but still they looke pretty naive on the pitch; they created many scoring chances but weren't able to score more than once. ok, they hitted the bar twice, but as i said before, this was due to palermo's lack of pressing, imo. gilardino is always alone upfront, kaka is not exactly an "assist man", wich is exactly what gilardino needs to show his ability (just remember what gilardino did in parma, when morfeo used to play behind him), seedorf is a bit too unconsistant, pirlo can't try through balls for gilardino, cos gila is always alone upfront and the opponent cbs are always on him. so pirlo can just try his awesome big openings for the upcoming sidebacks (oddo and marek), but then, most of oddo's and marek's crosses will be intercepted by the opponent's cbs, because the only one who can receive the crosses is gila, so it's quite an easy job to cover him with diagonal moves.
kaka is not playing at his best, but that's quite normal because he needs space to play his football. kaka isn't not great in short range runs; his greatest ability is his progression, so he needs at least 30 meters to show his "magic". in europe is pretty easy to find those spaces, in italy not, so that's why he's underperforming. moreover ancelotti often places him just behind gila, wich is a big mistake imo. kaka has to play at least 10 meters behind gila to play his football; he's not a foward, he can't play with his backs to the box... he has to play looking at the box.
anyway Satty i agree with u about gilardino's match sunday. he was pretty good and helped his teammates a lot. the real point is that gila (like amauri) isn't supposed to help the team... he's not that kind of foward; the team has to help him.




There seems to be a single special match a week.
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actually more than a single special match ;)
i can't talk about those matches i didn't watch, but, talking about those i watched......

1st week
Juventus 5 - 1 Livorno
Lazio 2 - 2 Torino
Palermo 0 - 2 Roma
Napoli 0 - 2 Cagliari
Parma 2 - 2 Catania
Fiorentina 3 - 1 Empoli

2nd week
Cagliari 2 - 3 Juventus
Udinese 0 - 5 Napoli
Livorno 2 - 4 Palermo
Torino 2 - 2 Reggina
Milan 1 - 1 Fiorentina

3rd week
Reggina 0 - 2 Roma
Napoli 2 - 0 Sampdoria

4th week
Atalanta 2 - 1 Lazio
can't talk about roma-juve, as i didn't watch the match

5th week
Palermo 2 - 1 Milan
Fiorentina 2 - 2 Roma
Lazio 3 - 1 Cagliari
Inter 3 - 0 Sampdoria
Genoa 3 - 2 Udinese

all theese matches were really great!!!:D fiorentina - roma by far the best one ;)

moving to this week matches

Livorno - Fiorentina (should be a nice derby!)
Roma - Inter
Sampdoria - Atalanta
Milan - Catania
Napoli - Genoa
Torino - Juventus (another very promising derby)
Reggina - Lazio
Empoli - Palermo
Udinese - Parma
Cagliari - Siena

the bolded ones should be the most intersting matches (from a neutral point of view)
roma - inter should be great till the half time. roma - inter has always been a great match in the past 2 years, and i hope both teams will respect this tradition..... but both teams will have to play again in 2 days, and both of them will have to preserve their energies, because they can't afford to loose some others key players (roma will already miss taddei, while perrotta, juan and totti had some injury problems in the past few weeks; inter instead is missing almost 10 players... some of them are injured, some are disqualified for the CL match against PSV). i think that the second half should be much more "quiet" than the first.

i also have high expectiations for the torino derby (this will be a hell of a match ;)) and for napoli - genoa.
napoli is playing great football, and i have to admit i'm really surprised by them :D
talking about genoa, instead, till now they have been one of the biggest disappointments. they're not playing their attacking football anymore, and until they'll get back to "their football" they will get bad results, imo.
i just hope gasperini finally realized it :roll:





I can't wait for Fiorentina vs Palermo - that like my prediction of Roma vs Fiorentina (which was correct) - should turn into a classic
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me too mate! :D
but actually, palermo - fiorentina is already a "classic". there's a huuuge rivalry between theese 2 teams, and each time we faced each others, in the past 5 years, the match was awesome!!!

just take a look at this. this is the last fiorentina - palermo (last season). one of the best matches i saw last year! great football played by both teams (those days palermo was really great!! :roll:)

the match ended 2 - 3 (\\:o/). the 3rd palermo goal (one of the best goals i saw last year) was scored by amauri in the last minute of the game!!!!! :mrgreen:
http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=nCt_14FSjko
and this is a replay of the great amauri's goal :D
http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=xDjaR7clFz0&mode=related&search=







this instead was palermo - fiorentina (always talking about last season). the match was incredible. mutu scored a great goal making fun of the entire palermo defensive line.....
during the second half cavani get inside the pitch, wearing the palermo shirt ofr the first time in his life..... 2 minutes after he went on the pitch, he touched his first ball, and scored an awessome goal..... just look at the video, it speaks for itself :D

http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=G4tOY5nY544





and this is cavani's goal replay
http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=JHecVmybReQ


i know the quality of this videos isn't great, but watch all of them till the end..... they're really worthy !:)
 
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Re: Serie A Thread

To be honest, Prandelli and Fiorentina get a lot of my respect. They play great football, with a general emphasis on youth. As soon as the youth realises it's potential Fiorentina will win the Serie A a lot.

http://z4.invisionfree.com/PES_Player_Database/index.php?act=idx

Register here Ben, then you and I can teach everybody else about the brilliant Serie A, I need your opinions there as well :)
 
Re: Serie A Thread

I'm here to stay.

When will R9 be back?

And which game on Sunday will Channel 5 show?
 
Re: Serie A Thread

Ronaldo is supposed to be back this month really - I predict in a couple of weeks.

Channel 5 will probably show Juventus :roll:
 
Re: Serie A Thread

I dont to watch Juve every week five!!!
 
Re: Serie A Thread

dutty_nose111 said:
Ronaldo is supposed to be back this month really - I predict in a couple of weeks.

Channel 5 will probably show Juventus :roll:
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:roll:NO,they will be showing Milan - Catania but most people would prefer to see the Turin derby:mrgreen:

Just finished watching Roma - Inter which finished 1-4 to the Nerazzurri but Roma were handicapped having been down to 10 men.
 
Re: Serie A Thread

Crap I can't watch the game today as it clashes with Everton...I have to watch my own team.

Fiorentina looked pretty decent to say the least, but I guess it was against Livorono. Loviso was a right dirty git and deserved to walk...totaly taking the mickey thinking he could get away with lashing out on top of the shirt pull.

Roma really, really have a tough week don't they. Guily cost them big time against Inter and a very tough game on Tuesday. That said Man Utd are playing poorly at the moment and mis firing so they at least they are not facing them away in form.

If anyone has a link to todays game that I might be able to watch later I would appreicate it...

Not sure I agree with Inzaghi being played as a lone front man...still should be good enough today...
 
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Re: Serie A Thread

Yeah, and the penalty was a bit harsh on Edusei because he didn't know much about it when it hit him. Mourinho in maybe? ;)
 
Re: Serie A Thread

Hey Lo Zio ! :mrgreen:

Iempolipalermo042.JPG
 
Re: Serie A Thread

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO UNO ZEROOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! 1-0 to La Signora:applause:

A very tense but enjoyable Derby with a late goal (102min) by Trez, Ranieri tinkered again with a 4-3-1-2 formation & it was nice to see Palladino fielded again,he showed he is more then capable but hats off to the whole team really, we looked very solid again.

Trez leads the Serie A Capocannoniere charts with seven goals and, unlike Zlatan Ibrahimovic, those do not include penalties:mrgreen:



juve69.jpg



David Trezeguet (102 in 91st minute):cheers:
 
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Re: Serie A Thread

Dellafiore was to blame for that goal but that's exactly why David is on the field.

He can be crap and not do anything for 90 mins but get one chance which wasn't an easy one either and he was even sorta off-balance when he had to hit that shot and GOAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaallll!!!!

Dellafiore looked nervous in the first half as well but recovered in the 2nd half and his speed which is above average for a defender was useful in keeping Nedved, Del Piero and other player's runs fairly useless by catching up to them.

However, one mistake in those final minutes would be fatal and it had to be his weak and mis-directed header which gifted Trezegoal that opportunity and he TOOK it!

Rubin looked very good in the left-back spot after coming on for the injured tall CB Cesare Natali and Ex-Chievo veteran, Salvatore Lanna moved to CB where he also did a good job.

I would've liked to see Marco Motta come in for Paolo Zanetti 10-15 mins earlier or so than the sub was made because Paolo had taken a knock, was tired and not doing much anymore. When he did come on, he didn't have the ball apart from a couple occasions and failed to get involved as much as Rubin did but that's also because Torino mainly used the left-flank for attacks rather than right.

One thing missing in this match was PACE and SPEEDY players. That brought the quality down because even the FORWARDS of these teams weren't exactly 'fast' players (Del Piero, Trez, Ventola, Bjelanovic who came on for him and Recoba).

It was an exciting competitive derby but lack of speed to make behind defenses and as a result deep through-balls meant, this match wasn't as great or 'athletic' as you'd want. Lots of slow players in both teams. Both could've done with injection of some pace especially as legs more tired and counter-attacks became more useful.

David Di Michele and Rosina's absence was felt. Two of Torino's most capable and important players.

Simone Barone and Corini may be past their best but showed they are still very good players.

Barone covered more ground than any one in this match probably and as usual showed off his great stamina. One of the candidates for MoM in a game that didn't have a real "Man Of the Match" but a lot of players who played well.
 
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