Serie A Thread - 2014/15 Season

Re: Serie A Thread

Zanetti for me has been our best player this season, he showed his creative qualities tonight with 2 superb assists for Del Piero. Del Piero himself was inspirational. He produced some great touches throughout, and his 2 goals were excellent, especially the 2nd where his first touch was fantastico.

There are negatives though and that is the defence. Molinaro was poor tonight, and was at fault on the first Lazio goal. He also didn't produce his usual attacking threat but has done well thus far. Zebina is Zebina:lol: prone to errors& even though he wasn't awful tonight, there were still errors in his performance. Chiellini as well at times wasn't as good as usual, while Legrottaglie was more solid:applause: even though him and the whole defence often looked troubled by Rocchi. Buffon thankfully is Superman:8): and was faultless as ever, with 1 truly world class save he made at 2-1 that was crucial.

One final word on Tiago who I thought did well just behind the front two when he came on. He won the ball, worked hard and created chances, and showed he's worth persisting with imo. I feel that role is the one where he'll get the most joy, even if it did require a change of shape in midfield.

Overall, a brilliant win, and a much needed one away from home.

Forza Juve!!!
 
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GRANDE MILAN! WORLD CHAMPIONS!!!!!!!!! Sacchi was crying on television!!!!

Shame your form in the league is shockingly poor, (12th) I really expected a big performance from you in the derby but you just sat back & let Inter pile the pressure on. Pato will now be eligible to play but tbh, the team needs some fresh legs.
 
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Gerd said:
Ben,

abysmal = very, very bad

as in an abyss: a deep hole in the sea...


Dutty nose said:

i see, thanks guys :)

well Don, it might sound obvious.... but mate, we lost 0-5, of course he was abysmal, like everyone else wearing a pink shirt that day :mrgreen:

nontheless he still has been awesome this year, and he played even better than last year. his only poor performances so far this season were the matches against juve and catania.

anyway guys we're almost at the half of the season now and there would be many interesting things to talk about, but i don't have enough time at the moment. i just came in this forum to post this
http://forums.evo-web.co.uk/showthread.php?p=1202744#post1202744
(i'm posting the link to direct your attention on it ;)).

as soon as i'll have a bit of free time, i'll be back here to post my thoughts on serie a again.

see ya guys and enjoy your holydays! :D
 
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Ive had fabolous holidays mate - wat about you? Can;t wait until the league begins again, although as :( i am to say it the title looks very hard to obtain with Inter in the lead. Still Pato's arrival, the champions league battle, and transfers will all be incredibly interesting :)
 
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I'm really excited for Sunday night. Milan - Napoli...... Pato-Gilardino in attack. With Kaka playmaker. I hope we will be a different team this year.
 
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Indeed, of course I doubt that the amount of hype placed on Pato is both helpful or accurate, I mean no 18 year old is that good :p
 
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Who knows, but he seems very determined, which is exactly what we need in our attack right now. A Drogba like striker who will always hunt for goals.
 
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Satty said:
Ive had fabolous holidays mate - wat about you? Can;t wait until the league begins again, although as i am to say it the title looks very hard to obtain with Inter in the lead. Still Pato's arrival, the champions league battle, and transfers will all be incredibly interesting

my holidays were great too, Satty ;). Maybe a bit too short but great! :D
the scudetto seems to be out of reach for everybody but inter. but i don't think roma has anything to complain about. roma made a very important step foward this season, and i think many people underestimated their growth.
at the beginning of the season (the first 6 matches) we saw a terrific roma, who was able to dominate any opponent, scoring loads of goals (can't remember how many) and keeping Doni quiescent for all the time (0 goal received by roma in 6 match..... that's not roma-like, if u know what i mean ;)).

up until they were able to play with their starting eleven, they played the most beautiful and effective football in europe.
then they had a little slow down, they started loosing some silly points with weaker sides and their clean sheets period ended.
everybody said that it was te usual roma, that crazy team who could destroy anybody, but also loose against everybody......

honestly i disagree with it. roma had an amazing growth this season, and those who talked about "the usual roma" didn't notice that that roma was playing without some of its most important assets, like taddei and AQUILANI. this season roma was quite unlucky, talking about injuries.....
aquilani has been out for almost the whole season (he got injured during the first match vs manchester in CL), taddei has been out for 2 months, perrotta has been out for 3 weeks, totti has been out for almost 2 months, mancini for almost 1 month... roma missed for several matches almost its whole "spine" (except de rossi, who seems to be bionic! :mrgreen:). add to this tonetto's poor season (he's facing some problems with his back), and the picture is complete.

now try to imagine what roma would have done last season without all theese key players....... they would probably be behind fiorentina right now.
this season instead roma was able to face its problems thanks to a deeper roster. giuly has been fantastic so far... cicinho had a slow start, but he's finally getting inside the roma mentality, Spalletti (finally) realized Vucinic is a potential world class player and started lining up him too. i also have high expectations on barusso, and i hope he''ll find some space in the second part of the season (otherwise it would be wiser to send him on loan, as every club in italy would like to have him).
Esposito had some injury problems (as usual) and still wasn't able to reach the starting eleven.

giuly proved to be a great backup for taddei's, mancini's and perrotta's spot. Vucinic has been very, very good as mancini's backup and simply awesome as totti's backup.

on a little note:
a few weeks ago (after roma - empoli) some guys were undelining vucinic's bad performance and how roma needs 1 more fowards (or a better backup for totti).
well, first of all, we have to point out how the empoli match was the only poor performance by vucinic so far this season (at least the only i saw..... but i think i saw every match vucinic was in the starting formation). he has scored at least 1 goal any time he played as a striker (except the empoli game), and he was fucking good also when spalletti asked him to play on the left, as a wing (wich was something completely new to him, as he's a pure striker).
the truth is that Vucinic is one of roma's most brilliant talents. his only problem is that roma plays with just 1 player upfront (actually they are 4, but just one of them is a foward........ oh no, wait, totti too is not a foward :mrgreen:). totti would be a starter in any team in europe.... but in roma he's even more than a world class player... he's like a god. he's their captain, he's a leader, a 100% romanista, and he was born in roma. so it would be a sacrilege for roma's supporters putting vucinic in the starting 11 instead of totti.
but no mistakes, vucinic is an amazing player, and also roma supporters know it pretty well.
many people in italy compares him to ibra. i honestly don't like this comparison at all, as they're totally different (the only thing they have in common is a great tecnique)...... but maybe there something they share.... they're both much more than their "official role" says.
ibra is an ss with a striker's body and an advanced midfielder's tecnique...
while mirko is a pure striker with a wing's pace and dribbling and a central midfielder vision.
this guy just destroyed all bojinov's and chevanton's records (talking about goals scored) in lecce and he had almost the same impact on serie a gilardino and adriano had during their parma days.

when roma started to loose grip on inter, everybody here in italy started thinking at totti, remarking how he's important for roma.
but the real reason why roma had that little slow down was not totti's miss.
taddei and aquilani. they are the players roma missed the most in the past months, and they are the reason why roma lost some points against weaker sides, like empoli.

taddei is much more than a wing. his impact on the game is much bigger than mancini's one. he works as a "bridge" between midfield and attack, he cuts inside to "dialogue" with totti, he cuts outside to open the opponent's defensive lines, he "throws" aquilani and perrotta into the box, he helps de rossi in coverage, he makes one-twos with cassetti, helping him pushing on the right.
he's a vital asset in roma and probably the only really unreplacable player in roma's line up.

also aquilani was a tremendous loss for roma (and it's not a coincidence if roma changed just when aquilani got injured).
Pizarro is a fantastic playmaker, no doubt about it. but i honestly think aquilani fits better roma's gameplay.
with pizarro roma plays a "milan-like" football, with a pure playmaker assisting the players on the sides (mancini\vucinic and taddei\giuly). talking about the offensive aspect this is a pretty good solution, but talking about the defensive aspect......

Milan has always 2 players covering at midfield (gattuso and ambrosini) and filtering opponent's passes at midfield. this way pirlo can just care about "activating" marek and oddo on the sidelines.
pizarro instead has just de rossi covering his back, and de rossi is not a simple defensive midfielder (like gattuso), he also pushed foward (like ambrosini.... well a lot more and better than ambrosini, actually), so pizarro has to take care about the defensive aspect too..... but that's not really his best ability.
so roma's defence isn't enough protected by the midfield.

moreover roma has not a nesta backwards. mexes and juan are quality cbs. they both have a huuge talent but they both have some shortcomings, talking about basics, so it's not unusual to see them doing great for almost the whole match, and then doing 1 silly mistake that ruins their performance.
moreover they're both "anticipating cbs", so i'd say they're not a really well-matched couple.

so it's mostly important for spalletti to provide an appropriate coverage at midfield..... but he also needs somebody who can support and "feed" those 4 guys upfront (perrotta, totti and the 2 wings).

now aquilani sure is not great talking about defending, sure he's not better than pizzarro. but even if he's more an attacking player, his attitude on the pitch, his movements, his tendencies, help roma much more than pizarro's ones, talking about the tactical-defensive aspect.

aquilani attacks the spaces (the holes) like kallstrom, puts pressure on the ball carrier like taddei and he has the same outstanding vision and first touch pass totti has.
with his ability in "spaces attacking" and putting pressure on the ball carrier he can help juan and mexes much more than pizarro.
when roma used to play with de rossi and aquilani at midfield roma's midfield looked like a "piston", persistently pushing upfront, forcing the opponent's cbs and midfielders to get rid of the ball as quickly as possible (wich means forcing them to commit mistakes) and disallowing them to push upfront.
all the opponents roma faced till aquilani's injury (palermo, siena, reggina, dinamo kiev, etc.) were just crushed by those 2 kids (daniele and alberto); their opponents had not enough time to think what to to with the ball coz as soon as they got it de rossi was putting pressure on them and alberto was pushing foward to receive a pass as soon as daniele was able to steal it from the opponent ball carrier.

when pizarro plays beside daniele, u don't see this happening. when daniele steals the ball, pizarro is not ahead of him, ready to receive a pass; he's behind de rossi, trying to provide coverage at the defensive line while de rossi is trying to put pressure on the ball carrier.

so, to put it in simple words, with pizarro, roma's midfield is less aggressive, gives more spaces (and time to think) to the opponents, and that's the reason why roma had a slow down, since aquilani got injured.

btw it's not just roma's fault if the scudetto already lies in inter's hands. this season inter is even stronger than last season and they would probably be leading any league in europe at the moment (liga, premiership and bundes).
de rossi said during an interview a couple of weeks ago, it is a bit frustrating to see inter winning even when they play bad.. and i can understand his feelings; how can u hope to reach them if they always win?

nontheless roma supporters, players and coach have to be proud of what they did so far this season. they made a huge step foward, compared to last season, and i can see them playing that awesome football back again, now that aquilani is finally ready to play ;)


there are many other things i would like to talk about (there would be many things to write about milan, palermo,juve, empoli, cagliari, lazio....) but i ran out of time now. maybe later or tomorrow i'll find 5 minutes to post here again.
see ya guys :)
 
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my holidays were great too, Satty ;)

I know the feeling, I am already back at school :shock: and not getting into any trouble at all :lmao:

the scudetto seems to be out of reach for everybody but inter. but i don't think roma has anything to complain about. roma made a very important step foward this season, and i think many people underestimated their growth.

Indeed, Inter are just quite simply unchallengeable when it come to the long haul of a season. They just don't lose. As a title-challengers fan, it is difficult to watch because as I step back and focus solely on Roma you see we have been very good, especially considering injuries, but then Inter seem uncatchable - quite frankly for any team, and that is extremely infuriating.


nontheless roma supporters, players and coach have to be proud of what they did so far this season. they made a huge step foward, compared to last season, and i can see them playing that awesome football back again, now that aquilani is finally ready to play ;)

Indeed, when I focus solely on Roma I am very proud of what we've achieved. Add to that the mouth-watering transfer targets and then next season looks very, very promising - especially if Ibra gets crippled :p

there are many other things i would like to talk about (there would be many things to write about milan, palermo,juve, empoli, cagliari, lazio....) but i ran out of time now. maybe later or tomorrow i'll find 5 minutes to post here again.
see ya guys :)

It took you 5 mins to write all that? :shock: :lol:
Jokes aside, I'd love to read your opinions on Milan and your eternal rivals, Cagliari.
 
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It took you 5 mins to write all that?
5 minutes are a lot of time mate! ;):D
anyway i'm pretty fast in writing :mrgreen:

Jokes aside, I'd love to read your opinions on Milan and your eternal rivals, Cagliari.

here they are then...

Milan
Galliani and Braida.... they were 2 of the greatest managers in europe. they "built" 2 of the strongest teams in past 20 years..... i honestly don't know what happened to them, but one thing is for sure; they made several huge mistakes in the past few years.

milan's crisis is the simple, predictable consequence of the (wrong) decisions those 2 guys took in the last 3 seasons.
at the beginning of the season i wrote a post about those mistakes, so i guess i'll just quote what i wrote....

me last summer said:
Milan: this situation is getting unbeliavable. this should be next season milan's defensive roster:
jankulovski (31)
serginho (36)
favalli (35)
oddo (31)
kaladze (29)
maldini (39)
cafu (37)
nesta (31)
simic (32)
bonera (27)

do u think they're going to buy a defender? of course not..... they're after eto'o, ronaldinho, drogba...... but chelsea and barca keep saying they won't sell their stars so.... they're just waiting......
But waiting for what! they already have 3 fowards... and it's clear that if they will get one of theese players the one who will leave will be...... gilardino So u guys have 2 over 30 years old strikers and u want to buy drogba (29) or eto'o (26) to replace..... gilardino (25)???????? i really can't understand their strategies.

they bought bonera 2 years ago.... he's a very good cb with a brilliant future..... and what did they do? they placed him as a side defender... they say "he played in that position in his last year in parma"...... come on, he played in that position (with just decent results) just coz parma needed him to play there..... this doesn't makes him a side defender...... but at least it seems that they understood it now.....
anyway, will they buy a cb? will they buy a side defender? of course not..... so it happens that some of the best defenders in italy are now playing in lower level cubs....canini, pratali, barzagli, dellafiore, zaccardo,modesto, mesto, rinaudo, balestri, bovo, comotto, coda, felipe, zapata, natali..... nobody buys them, and they're still there waiting for a call from a big club..... unbeliavable.

many people now is blaming milan's fowards (gilardino especially) for milan's poor season...... that's something i really can't understand.
the real reson of milan's issues is not the attack, is the side.

let's take a look at milan's famous "xmas three formation"

oddo--------------nesta---------kaladze------------jankulovski


-----------gattuso--------pirlo----------ambrosini


----------------------------------seedorf
--------------------kakà
---------------------------gila


that tactical success of this formation lies on the sidebacks. they have to push continuously to offer a target to pirlo and to offer an offensive option to ancelotti. there are no other side players in this formation, so they are supposed to run more than everybody else. they don't even have to care too much about protecting the sidelines as gattuso (on the right) and ambrosini (on the left) already offer an appropriate protection to the cbs.
but they have to push foward, to receive clean passes from pirlo, to "open" the opponent's defensive line, creating holes for kakà and seedorf and providing crosses for gila.

both oddo and marek have the qualities to accomplish theese duties. but what happens when they face injuries or bad shape problems? who are their backups? Cafu, Serginho and Favalli....:shock:

that's the real milan problem. they have no backups on the sidelines. cafu and serginho are too old to take care of milan's sidelines, and so is favalli (who wasn't that great player, not even when he was younger).

a top club MUST have at least 1 good backup for each role. I mean even Roma, who is a very poor (i mean "financially" poor) team compared to milan, has 4 quality sidebacks!

i really can't understand why they underestimated the lack of sidebacks in their roster.
they (galliani and braida) already knew it, has they faced the same problems last season.... but they did nothing.
who were they looking for this summer? Dani alves? Adriano (i mean the sevilla player)? behrami? zaccardo? mesto? cicinho? abidal?
No, they were looking for ronaldinho, emerson, baptista and pato (:shock:).

no surprise if they're doing bad this season.
if milan doesn't push on the sides, it becomes an easy game for the opponents to neutralize their attacks, because their game will "flow" just on the centre.
so u just have to put 2 central midfielders 10 meters between the midfield line on zone coverage and let them intercept every pass to gila.
4 defenders taking care of just one foward.... u don't need a great defensive line to handle such a poor threat.
with 2 top quality sidebacks pushing on the sidelines instead, the situation would be completely different.
the sidebacks would open the defensive line by attracting the opponents sidebacks;
Kaka and seedorf would go on 1 vs 1 situations against the opponents central midfielders;
gila would have more space and could stay deeper in the opponent's midfield.

now instead kaka and seedorf have always 4 men covering and pressing them (the opponent's sidebacks and the central midfielders);
pirlo hasn't anything to do, coz he never finds a good target for his passes (there is nobody on the sidelines and there are always 2 men covering on gila);
gila has to go back to the midfield line to get a clean ball...... and then he has to face an entire defensive line just by himself!
milan won't go anywhere playing this way.

many people is criticising gila lately.... but i honestly don't understand why....
we're not talking about a kid who had just a great season.... we're talking about a 25 years old player who already scored 92 goals in serie a!!! more than ibra's and kaka's goals put together!!
we're talking about a guy who reached for 2 consecutives times the second place in the serie a top scorers classify with 23 goals per season (and those days serie a was a 18 teams league, wich means 36 matches)!
we're talking about a guy who scored 111 goals in 292 matches........ IN ITALY! AGAINST ITALIAN DEFENSES! this is a world class player average!
and if we consider just his milan days, he still scored more than 1 goal each 2.5 matches!!!!

so how can we blame him for milan's poor results. do u expect him to take the ball at midfield, dribble 2 central midfielders, 2 cbs, 1 sidaback and go scoring????
the real problem is not gila. the problem is that gila doesn't receive clean passes. the problem is that he has to go back to the midfield line to get the ball. the problem is that there's nobody on the sidelines providing crosses for him.

now everybody is waiting pato as the great saviour... but do u really think he will be able to do better than gila? he's so young, his phisique is not developed yet, he doesn't know serie a, he probably is not tactically educated for serie a.

sure with pato milan will play with 2 fowards, and this will help a lot milan and gila, coz the opponents defences will have to take care of 2 players and not just 1 (gila)....
and i'm also pretty sure they will manage to reach (at least)the top 5 at the end of the season.....
but until galliani and braida will buy some world class sidebacks, i can't see milan challenging inter and roma for the scudetto :roll:


gotta go now. next time i'll spend a few words about cagliari, Satty. anyway cagliari aren't palermo's eternal rivals.... actually there's no rivalry at all between palermo and cagliari. palermo's rivals are catania and fiorentina ;)

Milanista said:
70 000 at San Siro for Milan-Napoli! Pato says he's loving the pressure.
:shock:
70 000 people at san siro?!! wow that's not something u see every day! good luck for the match against Napoli, Stefano ;):)
 
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Re: Serie A Thread

gotta go now. next time i'll spend a few words about cagliari, Satty. anyway cagliari aren't palermo's eternal rivals.... actually there's no rivalry at all between palermo and cagliari. palermo's rivals are catania and fiorentina ;)

I knew that :mrgreen:
 
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What can I say. I love the trident.... Ronaldo seems to be playing like the end of last season. When hes injury free, he can be a very useful player. When Ronaldo tried a trick but messed up, a Napoli fan at the bar yelled out "Thats how you make a ball explode!" :lmao:

About the team performance, I was actually quite disappointed. The individual performances and attacking performance was great though. Our midfield and defense weren't solid. Ambrosini was quite careless and so was Maldini, who I thought was our worst player. He disappeared for Napoli's first goal, which was very very nice. I really rate Lavezzi. Kaladze had a solid game, apart from that penalty he gave away, and Bonera is useful and solid as usual. I'm a big fan of his. I also thought Favalli had a good game as soon as he came on, changed our player.

About Pato... wow! I can't wait to see him player. I loved his celebration. He was very passionate and thanked all the Milan fans by giving them a heart, and then kissing the badge. He is extremely calm when hes got the ball. Unfortunately the poor San Siro pitch stopped some of his plays. He seems to be a smart player who is good at shooting and dribbling, as well as speed. He was so motivated and was running around like a mad man. One of his plays he ran past 2 defenders in the box and fired it at the keeper, we ended up winning a corner. He was a unlucky with the 2 superb passes from Ronaldo... again... Ronaldo was playing great!
His goal, I thought, was very nice. The cut in, speed and strength to beat the last defender and calmly tap it in was great!

Kaka's goal was also great! I really hope we keep up this form and Pato shines even more. This might be the turning point of our season.
 
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do any of you have youtube or any video link to the game, Pato seems like he's the New Kaka or even better from the reviews you lot our giving him, :( i miss scudetto havnt watched it since i was like 12 back in the day when del piero and roberto baggio were the top dogs
 
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link to the game
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buBKIojrkr8&feature=related
THE KING IS BACK, ROOOOOOOOOONALDO
fantastic game haven't seen milan play this well in the league in a long time:D, man of the match, ronaldo had a great game even though he had only been training for the last 10 days since he got injured the last time in early december

and I cant wait to see more from pato, I'd say best striker for his age today but we shouldnt expect too much of him now but he looked really good yesterday, he was a big part of the game for all of the 90 minutes challenging players shooting at goal and passing well with his teammates in his first game already:D cant wait till wendsday when were playing Catania in the italian cup

pato+ronaldo for the next couple of years are gonna be deadly
 
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Ronaldo was pure class last night. I love the 10 seconds leading up to Seedorf's goal where he lays two chances on a plate for Pato.
 
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Ronaldo barely lasted longer than one half though. He was completely exhausted after 40 minutes of football. Chances are he'll get injured before getting fully-match fit.

I also want to point out that Napoli were a walkover yesterday, their offensive play made it too easy for Milan.
 
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