Re: Serie A Thread - 2008/2009 Season
Cool, thanks for the help with those translations!
u're wellcome mate ;-)
anyway this really was a crazy calciomercato (stef, yesterday late night i saw on tv Pastorello throwing milito's contract over the lega calcio box wall
priceless).
what do u guys reckon was the best deal?
which team strengthened itself most? (is this statement grammatically correct however?)
Milanista said:
What a first game of the season! (Sorry Ben)
Udinese were impressive and were very compact. Palermo seemed all over the place and Liverani and Cavani were poor imo. Cavani was constantly making mistakes and missing easy chances. Liverani just couldn't do his "Pirlo" stuff and was closed down by a very impressive Inler. All 3 goals were nice, with Di Natale probably winning goal of the week!
Di Natale... he gets better with age..... Every time Udinese were on the break, they missed because of a good save or a deflection. They were so deadly. Isla was great, and so was Vuckevic, Pepe and Pasquale (I rate him, since his Inter days). THey were quick on the attack and the whole team worked together. Di Natale and Pepe were working as full backs while defending!
well u're right about everything, Stef, but honestly i can't say i was surprised by the result or by udinese's performance. i mean they're a fantastic team, with a great roster, a great coach, a great management, who just did some slight adjustements to the roster, wich means that the main structure of the team is already settled and that they won't waste any time trying to find new tactical solutions to suit the new signings.
shall we talk about coach Marino? i mean this will be his third season in serie a, and until now he has been nothing less than AMAZING!!!
the 4-3-2-1 system he applied in catania was fantastic. the 4-3-3 he used in udine is fantastic.
u mentioned how both di natale and pepe moved back during non possession phases wich was great and very "
manchester utd-style"... but actually it was slightly different, as di natale and pepe didn't move backwards to redouble the marking on the ball carrier (as rooney often did last season). they did some sort of a "vertical overlap" (don't even know if this word actually exists, as i've never see anything like this before) with the sidebacks. and it wasn't just a position switching, as obviously pasquale and ferronetti could never do what pepe and di natale do (and vice versa). however pasquale and ferronetti started running foward anytime pepe and di natale moved backwards , with inler and d'agostino following the sidebacks, to get ready for a "hook" or a "fast discharge-passing". great!
Moreover, while man utd usually keeps at least 1 central midfielder behind the ball-line, during theese sort of "end-around" (it can be either hargreaves or carrick or fletcher.. or both carrick and hargreaves), udinese saturday played without a "covering" central midfielder.
of course all this "magic" was also allowed by our disgrafecul midfield displacement. lining up a 3 central midfielders line was everything but smart from colantuono. this set up requires a good stamina (coz u need those 3 guys to absolve the coverage duties of 4 men) and it also requires a perfect chemistry between them; they have to know each others, to be able to harmonize and coordinate their own movements without talking each others..... coz they won't have the time to talk each others. colantuono instead lined up together 3 central midfielders who almost never played together before (migliaccio and liverani played together just 1 match, while nocerino saturday played his first match wearing a rosanero shirt).
so we let udinese take control of the match, by gifting them the midfield, and all our 3 midfielders were just wandering around the pitch, trying to follow all those role swaps udinese players were applying.... no wonder they were in a spin, trying to understand what the fuck was going on.
and u also have to consider udinese were missing their defensive cb couple and obodo! both felipe and zapata were out and so lukovic and coda took their place. and what about their midfield setup. can u imagine what they will be able to do with their whole starting midfield? obodo-d'agostino-inler..... this is as good as fiorentina's midfield... as good as samp and napoli midfield. this midfield is so good that tissone won't be nothing else than a backup. and the same goes for coda, talking about the cbs....
tissone and coda... backups??? in a team wich can't even be mentioned among the top 5 (udinese should be considered among the 6th and the 9th place in serie a right now):shock:
so this means that this fantastic team, not only isn't likely to reach a champion's league qualification spot, but they will also have to fight in order to reach a uefa cup worthy spot (and it won't be an easy fight, with challengers like genoa, samp, napoli, lazio atalanta and maybe fiorentina aswell).
i also agree with u about pasquale, Stef. very very good fullback. i actually think udinese has 2 of the most underrated players in serie a (in their own roles);pasquale and d'agostino.
The next generation of Italians seem amazing 
