Serie A Thread - 2014/15 Season

Re: Serie A Thread - 2008/2009 Season

Ben and others...
Atalanta really started well this season.
Could you guys bring me up-to-date about one of my two favourite teams in Italy (the other being Palermo).
Who are the new signings, what iis their first eleven, did they play well ???
Thanks in advance.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2008/2009 Season

they made a few changes this summer, but were able to keep del neri (wich was most important) and to give some proper replacement for almost all the players who left.

tissone went back to udinese (Jesus Christ what a team Marino is building up.... last week he they signed domizzi too!). it's a big loss, but i reckon Padoin has what it takes to fill his shoes.
padoin (as tissone) is quite an unusual central midfielder. he's not a pure central midfielder, definitely not a playmaker, and he isn't even a proper trequartista (advanced midfielder). he "lives between the lines", but slightly behind the ideal advanced midfielder's spot. theese kind of players don't help a lot in covering, neither they support the strikers as advanced midfielders usually do. They keep wandering on the 3\4 of the pitch, looking for a chance to cut inside (they have a good shooting ability), and by doing this they also help the fowards by attracting one of the cbs over themselves. they also provide some "high pressing on the ball carrier in the opponent's midfield. Their main features usually are shooting, cutting inside (with a good timing), first touch passing.
Actually i noticed quite a lot of this kind of players are “flourishing” in serie a lately (Simplicio, hamsik, inler, dessena, aquilani, tissone, padoin himself…)…. Must be some sort ot a “new generation role”.
anyway, having padoin, i don't think del neri will miss tissone a lot.

plus they signed one of the most promising young playmakers in europe; Cigarini (great signing).

langella and lazzari left, but they replaced them with garycs (who had a very good season at napoli last year) and Cerci, an amazing young winger who had a fantastic growth in the last 3 years. last season he was awesome at Pisa and i think he's ready for the big step in serie a: this guy is one of the hottest prospects in italy in his role.... he might really have a bright future.

they lost muslimovic but they were able to keep floccari, who was supposed to join palermo (:censor:).

all in all their team is even stronger than last season, as they were able to cover almost all the holes left by the departures, but honestly i can't see them repeating last season's great performances, coz lazio and genoa are just too good this season (and i think torino too has what it takes to have a great season..... if de biasi will be able to exploit his fantastic team).

moreover there's one departure they weren't able to make up for; carrozzieri will be missed and i guess their weak spot is the cb couple.

anyway del neri has all the players he needs to display his football; a deep lying playmaker, 2 very good options on the sides and a reliable striker. they should be able to reach a spot in the middle of the table (from 12 to 14 place i think).:))
 
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Re: Serie A Thread - 2008/2009 Season

Is Tissone co-owned by Juve or something?

moreover there's one departure they weren't able to make up for; carrozzieri will be missed and i guess their weak spot is the cb couple.
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Poor man's Materazzi...where did he go?
 
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Re: Serie A Thread - 2008/2009 Season

gerd said:
Thanks very much Ben...
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u're wellcome, Gerd :))

Sabac, tissone was co-owned by udinese and atalanta (not juve). this summer udinese bought back atalanta's half too, so now he's totally owned by udinese:))

Sabac red said:
Poor man's Materazzi...where did he go?
Click to expand...
:DD
quite an appropriate label. :LOL:
he came here in palermo :-pp
zamparini (poor men's Moratti:DD) bought him this summer

Abhishek said:
Is there God?

82865054.jpg
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last week during the match against udinese, Ranieri lined up amauri and iaquinta as starters (he has always been a rotation fan), to save del piero's and trezegol's energies for the champions league match.

del piero came on the pitch just at 87th minute (he played about 3 minutes).

then, one day before the zenit match, during the usual press conference with the coach and the captain, the journalists asked alessandro about those 3 minutes played against udinese. they expected him to start a rant about not being a starter against udinese, looking for something to write on the newspapers.
this was his reply:

Alessandro Del Piero said:
"what can i say, last week i really gave my best. i mean, i was really on fire..... during those 3 minutes"
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:LOL:
class.:WORSHIP:
 
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Re: Serie A Thread - 2008/2009 Season

For the midweek games on Wednesday I have:

  • Milan
  • Inter
  • Juventus
  • Atalanta
...amongst others (some Serie B games, Liverpool to beat Crewe and Villarreal to beat Santander). All going well I should see £105 :))
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2008/2009 Season

genoa-roma, napoli-palermo and lazio-fiorentina should be very nice to watch :))
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2008/2009 Season

Abhishek said:
When is Lazio-Fiorentina? I might catch a stream.
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all the matches to start at 19:30 (London time)

Foxtrot said:
Genoa to beat Roma?
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it coud really happen. roma is already finding his way out of its "bad moment", but they still miss many key players (totti, juan, pizarro, baptista, cassetti will be out, aquilani should be out aswell, menez is still far from reaching a good form).
and considering the amazing football Genoa has been playing so far this season, they might be able to outclass even a fully fit roma.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2008/2009 Season

foxtrot said:
Superb. Juventus made a mess of it last night. I had them down for a win over Catania. Should have bet on Udinese!
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:((
tell me about it! i had...
genoa beating roma
atalanta beating cagliari
udinese beating bologna
metz beating troyes
bayern beating nurnberg
stuttgart beating arminia
barcelona beating betis
real beating sporting
lazio beating fiorentina
chevo drawing (or loosing) with torino
...... and juventus beating catania :brick:
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2008/2009 Season

Hehe. I had:

  • Milan to beat Reggina
  • Genoa to beat Roma
  • Inter to beat Lecce
  • Atalanta to beat Cagliari
  • Juventus to beat Catania
  • Real Madrid to beat Sporting Gijon
  • Villarreal to beat Racing Santander
  • Barcelona to beat Real Betis
  • Wolfsburg to beat FC Oberneuland
  • Hamburg to beat Bochum
  • Bayern Munich to beat Nürnberg
  • Feyenoord to beat TOP Oss
  • Rangers to beat Partick Thistle
13 games - a huge accumulator! Would have won me around £200. Juve drew and both Rangers & Feyenoord needed extra time to win. :brick:
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2008/2009 Season

Sorry 'bout that :-pp.

We didn't manage to kill the game off. Should've scored that 2-0 earlier on. Plenty of chances to make it 2-1 after catania equalised, but it just wouldn't go in!
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2008/2009 Season

Don't you guys find it funny that Juve's defense has been, well, solid? Aren't we glad that we 'wasted' money on Amauri, because it looks like he's the only one who can score. We should have scored more against Catania, which should have ended 10-1. We also need more creative players. That should be a priority in the January transfer window.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2008/2009 Season

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.

The derby will be a tough one, but I think a draw will be the result, maybe 1 to 1.

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.

Juventus has a tough job against a Sampdoria that blindly need his first victory in the championship.

Lazio and Napoli will win, and I'm strongly convinced that Bologna will get only 3 points this year (._.)

Chievo - Fiorentina is a sure draw, if Gilardino doesn't create something incredible.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2008/2009 Season

lo zio said:
:((
tell me about it! i had...
genoa beating roma
atalanta beating cagliari
udinese beating bologna
metz beating troyes
bayern beating nurnberg
stuttgart beating arminia
barcelona beating betis
real beating sporting
lazio beating fiorentina
chevo drawing (or loosing) with torino
...... and juventus beating catania :brick:
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Blame him!
plasmati.jpg


Jokes apart, Juventus deserved to win. Too bad they took a goal from the only mistake in a 4 years by Chiellini :-pp
 
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.
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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.
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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 (._.)
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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 :DD


Hey there said:
Jokes apart, Juventus deserved to win.
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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?"
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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"
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:BLINK:
jeez, what a fucking monster!
:WORSHIP:


sorry for the usual longest post :-pp
 
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Re: Serie A Thread - 2008/2009 Season

Bologna are going to be solid. I'm backing them up for survival. Their attacking players can easily play in most of the bottom 10 teams in Serie A. If anything, I think Cagliari are going to be the poorest team. Reggina might eventually go down there too, but they've been solid and hard to break down. That Icelandic player they have is a beast!!!!
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2008/2009 Season

Milanista said:
Bologna are going to be solid. I'm backing them up for survival. Their attacking players can easily play in most of the bottom 10 teams in Serie A. If anything, I think Cagliari are going to be the poorest team. Reggina might eventually go down there too, but they've been solid and hard to break down. That Icelandic player they have is a beast!!!!
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u mean halfredsson right? yeah, he had a great season last year (he was in my "rookies top 11" if i remember well)
but it's not just halfredsson, really. Vigiani, barreto, tognozzi, lanzaro, brienza, so much quality.
not to mention Cozza. in premiership Cozza would probably be playing for the likes of everton, tottenham or manchester city.... oh no wait, he's not famous and cool enough for tottenham and manchester city :-pp

as for cagliari they have the same problem palermo has. a stupid president. they have a very nice team (imo way better than bologna and reggina).... canini, ferri, conti, cossu, fini, lazzari, acquafresca..... they should be fighting with the likes of torino and atalanta.
the problem is that as soon as the teams looses 2 matches in a row, Cellino (the president) start moaning.
last season he finally found a very brilliant coach, who was able to let cagliari play at its best level and to save em from the relegation...... and what he did? he fired him as soon as the season ended.
what a stupid idiot freak! Zamparini looks reasonable compared to him :DD
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2008/2009 Season

I think Fiorentina will turn it around. Its about time after their poor performances. I think Roma is also a cert... ive got money on them. Its the kind of game where they turn their season around.
 
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Re: Serie A Thread - 2008/2009 Season

genoa beating fiorentina? that's really a tough call.
genoa are on fire, but they'll be playing on fiorentina's turf.
fiorentina must show last week loss was just an incident, but they'll have to face a champion's league match in a few days, so i can't see prandelli lining up the best formation for the entire match.

sure it's going to be a great match.

i have a serious feeling milan will win the derby, instead.
derbys are crazy match, everything can happen.... i'm going to put a few quid on the rossoneri winning :DD
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2008/2009 Season

I managed to watch the Juventus game late at night here and I wasn't satisfied with the performance. Sampdoria had the first half covered with a lot of corners and we did have various chances with Del Piero's shot which hit the post. We did begin to change things in the second half, the possession ratio changed in favor of Juve however, we just couldn't get decent enough chances to take a shot on goal.

I'm disappointed with another draw, but there's not much you can expect against a solid Sampdoria at home, I hope we can turn our results around in the next few matches.
 
Re: Serie A Thread - 2008/2009 Season

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.

The derby will be a tough one, but I think a draw will be the result, maybe 1 to 1.

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.

Juventus has a tough job against a Sampdoria that blindly need his first victory in the championship.

Lazio and Napoli will win, and I'm strongly convinced that Bologna will get only 3 points this year (._.)

Chievo - Fiorentina is a sure draw, if Gilardino doesn't create something incredible.
Click to expand...

I probably gotta start betting about "how this player will score".
I'll be filthy rich.
 
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