Re: Serie A Thread - 2008/2009 Season
many interesting points brought by u "hey there"
Hey there said:
AC Milan is back in shape, at least judging by the latest results, too bad Borriello injured, now we have to play with the Chelsea jersey kisser and he will probably score (just to make me fell pleasure and pain in the same time, I hate him.)against Internazionale.
in my opinion milan's issues are something "deeper" than shape and condition. they have a "football issue".
Carletto has been playing the same football for years... and there's nothing bad in this, as there are a lot of great coaches out there who have a specific "tactical trademark" (spalletti, wenger, hiddink, scolari, capello, mourinho, pellegrini, baldini, rehagel, del neri, shaaf, veh, camacho, irureta, marino, novellino...), and they're all pretty faithful to their tactical imprint.
the thing is today everybody (in italy and in europe) knows ancelotti's football. the italian coaches started to strategise against his system. the situation in champions league has been slightly different, coz outside italy, there's not a real coaching culture and the ability of the coaches depends most by their personal natural talent, not by their studies. and anyway their skills usually concern the "group-leading" aspect (mourinho) or "teaching your own football" aspect (wenger).
outside italy coaches aren't usually "football scholars".
of course there are some exceptions. benitez is a real tactics expert and he (aswell as mourinho, who isn't as knowledgable as rafa though) studied football for years and followed the footprints of the "masters" (sacchi for benitez, van gaal for mourinho). hiddink is another real master of tactics, aswell as irureta. and last season Ferguson too (for the very first time in his carreer) showed he knows how to set up a specific tactical strategy for every different opponent.
but anyway most of the coaches outside italy don't study their opponent before the match, don't strategize against them.... they just take care about displaying their own foootball. and that's why milan had better performances in champions league than in serie a in the past few years.
every coach in italy today knows how to freeze milan's gameplan.
and carletto also had to face a serious impoverishment of his roster. of course, when u look at milan roster today, it still looks like a great team, but when u try to compare it with milan's previous rosters, the gap is pretty evident.
till a couple of years ago milan cb couple was formed by stam and nesta. today nesta is always injured and his teammate is kaladze (who used to be a 4th pick backup, when nesta, stam and maldini were in charge).
jankulovski and zambrotta definitely aren't bad at all... but i have some doubts on zambrotta's hunger and motivations, and jankulovski isn't even the shadow of maldini (and i'd say serginho too).
seedorf wasn't so lazy and unconsistant 3 years ago, and both sheva and inzaghi can't be considered 2 of the greatest strikers in the world (as they were till 3 years ago).
a long time has passed. milan's opponents detected ancelotti's gameplan's flaws and the roster lost much of his quality and depth.
bonera, pato and borriello are the only "good news", but this is not enough. Borriello remains the only "tall benchmark foward" in milan's roster and galliani signed another advanced midfielder, wich means that carletto will be forced to stick to the xmas tree formation this season too.
i'm pretty confident the team will improve, throughout the season, and, once borriello, kakà, nesta, ronaldinho will get in a good shape, the whole team will grow up......
but i really can't see milan as a title contender this season.
Hey there said:
About AS Roma, bad stop, no De Rossi on the next fixture and out of the scudetto race at the fifth fixture if they don't get the 3 points against the good Atalanta.
roma's issues, unlike milan, depend mostly the the players shape. totti is injured, both the starting cbs are injured (mexes and juan), cassetti is injured, pizarro is injured, menez, julio baptista, riise and tonetto are in a disgraceful form..... no team could ever face so many problems in the same time.
they lost against palermo.... but honestly it was like watching de rossi and aquilani alone, facing just by themselves the whole palermo team.
menez is a great but raw talent. he has an amazing technique, but he still has a lot to learn in terms of awareness, positioning... in one word, tactic. i reckon he'll become a huge factor for roma, but he needs time, a lot of time.
baptista too still has to get inside the spalletti mentality.
as for riise, good Lord, i can't believe Conti payed 5 millions euros for one of the poorests (i'd say the poorest) leftback of the whole league (especially when u think dossena was available for just 4 millions more!).
riise's signing and giuly's departure were the only mistakes roma did since spalletti's in charge..... but they're both huge mistakes.
however this slow start won't compromise the title race, imo. this season serie a's quality is even bigger than last season. even the poorests teams have a lot of quality.... the leading teams will face many "false steps" during the seasons, loosing or drawing with weaker sides, and this will allow roma to make up for this bad start.
i'm pretty confident the scudetto winner will end the season with less than 85 points (wich is the amount of points inter collected last season).
Hey there said:
and I'm strongly convinced that Bologna will get only 3 points this year (._.)
given the points i made before, there won't be a donkey team in serie a (as usual, afterall).
bologna is a pretty good team, with some very good players and a very good coach. they might look poor, compared to the likes of catania, atalanta, reggina, torino..... but if u compare bologna to stoke city, sporting Gijón, sochaux or energie cottbus, the quality gap between those teams and bologna is huge.
so i'd say they're more likely to collect 30 points, instead of 3
Hey there said:
Jokes apart, Juventus deserved to win.
i've been praising italian commentors sublime football knowledge many times in this forum.
well juve - catania was commented by caressa and bergomi.
5 minutes before catania's goal, caressa told bergomi:
"so what do u think about what u're seeing, Beppe? Juve looks in a confortable lead, don't u think?"
bergomi replied:
i don't know Fabio. juve is creating lots of scoring chances, but it seems they still didn't find the appropriate countermeasures to catania's football. they're definitely deserving to win, but they don't seem to be really in control of the match .....honestly i wouldn't be surprised if catania would score anytime soon"
jeez, what a fucking monster!
sorry for the usual longest post :-pp
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