Serie A 2012/13, match week 6 what is worth to see

Happiness

The next match week, the one which starts tomorrow is the most interesting so far and by far. First of all there is the mother of all the rivalry and of the arguments in the Serie A, the terrific Juventus – AS Roma.

09/29/12
Parma	–	AC Milan	18:00
Juventus	–	Roma	20:45

09/30/12
Inter Milan	–	Fiorentina	20:45

Tomorrow there are two good matches, Parma is a team well-trained by Donadoni and AC Milan is still now in trouble, whatever its management says. The Parma’s manager, I’m sure, will put up a tough match for his former team (as a player), there is the question about the third match in 7 days and how a little club like Parma will face it, but that’s true for every team on the pitch. At 20,45 the big match, between two teams that really hate each other, Zeman during the 90s show at the world of football that Juventus were doping its players (Vialli, Ferrara, Del Piero, etc); that was a shock, later the magistrature found that the Juventus was up to no good, but at that time doping was not a serious crime and the prescription saved its management, still today Juventus is angry for that scandal, and obviously not with the former president, or the doctors, or every one else, no, with Zeman who make the scandal explode…that’s Italy.

Anyway Juventus is the favourite to get the 3 points tomorrow, but Roma is like his manager absolutely unpredictable and tomorrow could really happen anything.

Next day there is only one interesting match, the last one between Inter and Fiorentina, the Tuscany team has made since now a great championship, they’re a real surprise, good players and a good manager, but I think that on Sunday they’ll pay the effort to try to beat Juventus on Wednesday, so in my opinion Inter with a larger number of skilled players is the favourite.

Serie A, on match day 4 and match week 5 what is worth to see

Already 4 goals this season

Another glorious page of Italian football has been recently written by the volcanic Cagliari owner Massimo Cellino. He doesn’t own a stadium, he used to rent the one in Cagliari, then he had heavily criticised the local council that had failed to improve its structures, but he had failed to pay the rent…so he decided to move to the near city of Quartu Sant’Elena, but there they’ve failed since now to meet the security requirements thus they have to play without audience, but Cellino had the great idea to push his supporters to go to the stadium even though the local authorities had denied the authorization, to avoid riots or any incident, the match was put off, and now Cagliari has got this match lost 0-3 by decision of sportive justice in favour of AS Roma. Cellino is still crying that he’s been misunderstood, but there are a lot of news on his official website, and he’s attacking AS Roma because they got the match won. In a few words: it’s not his fault, it’s someone else fault. Meanwhile Cagliari is going to play the next matches at Quartu without audience or in the very far Trieste. In Serie A a tournament that has recently sold the right to broadcast its matches for over a billion of Euro, we’ve got teams without a pitch where to play. That’s inconceivable!

Anyway Juventus has got an astonishing start of season, winning against Chievo, a well organised team; SS Napoli and Lazio lost easy points; Inter and Milan have been going to the dogs. What really upsets me is that Stramaccioni, Internazionale’s manager, is so sad when he lost that you want to do something in order to cheer him up…but then you think how much he earns and stop worrying about it…Udinese has finally got a victory…and to make a slight deviation from the Italian football, I watched Bastia-PSG on Saturday, and I was really happy to acknowledge that Ancelotti is starting to get something from his team. PSG played well for the large part of the match, showing ideas and playing like a team. I am happy for the legendary Italian manager, go ahead Carletto!

The 5th match week has some really interesting match to see, remember that they’re playing tomorrow and not next week-end:

09/25/12
Fiorentina	–	Juventus	20:45

09/26/12
Napoli	–	Lazio	20:45
AC Milan	–	Cagliari	20:45

Fiorentina-Juventus is a classical match, and both club hate each other, for historical reasons (Roberto Baggio move in the 90s) and for more recent one (the Berbatov affaire), moreover they play really well both, so for tomorrow keep yourself free. Napoli-Lazio is another big match, they’ve started the season well, but Mazzarri’s team has always the same problems when it needs to control a game and Lazio as soon as tries to make a little bit of turnover got a defeat, showing an unreliable Zarate, as usual. However it could be a great football match to see, I am also curious to see how Petkovic will face it. The last match I suggest to watch is because when you see a team in a crisis so deep like AC Milan you can never tell where it will end, the last match they lost 2-1 and got 2 red cards, this time without Allegri (disqualified) they play against Cagliari, a team that could have been deeply touched by the recent scandal of their match first put off and then lost for 0-3. So have a nice match day!

Serie A 2012/13, match week 4 what is worth to see

Saturday, 09/22/12
Parma	–	Fiorentina     [Match Appeal: 3/5]	18:00
Juventus	–	Chievo     [Match Appeal: 2/5]	20:45

Sunday, 09/23/12
Sampdoria	–	Torino     [Match Appeal: 1/5 – STAY AWAY]	12:30
Udinese	–	AC Milan     [Match Appeal: 4/5]	15:00
Atalanta	–	Palermo     [Match Appeal: 2/5]	15:00
Inter Milan	–	Siena     [Match Appeal: 2/5]	15:00
Catania	–	Napoli     [Match Appeal: 5/5 – BIG MATCH]	15:00
Cagliari	–	Roma     [Match Appeal: 1/5 – STAY AWAY!]	15:00
Bologna	–	Pescara     [Match Appeal: 1/5 – STAY AWAY]	15:00
Lazio	–	Genoa     [Match Appeal: 3/5]	20:45

Siena

The 4th match week of the 2012/13 Serie A is starting this afternoon, a week full of events, let’s sum them up shortly, 2 draws in Uefa Champions League, 1 victory and 3 draws in Uefa Europa League, while the result of FC Juventus, SS Napoli and in a certain way SS Lazio are good achievement, the others are definitely not.

Lazio’ supporter had the most from their journey to London by shouting insults at Tottenham’s players, and triggering an investigation by the Uefa for racism, that I really hope will produce serious consequences for their team. But this week the Nobel prize for supporter of the week goes to Napoli ones who assaulted Swedish fans in a Napoli restaurant, unfortunately they are (or were) all supporters of the Italian team travelling to Italy to support their idols. Good job Napoli! Go ahead! Ah, by the way Lazio player Mauri, is under investigation by Swiss and Italian authorities for money laundering and tax fraud; but that’s a no-news in the Italian football. Milan’s manager Allegri has argued in public with the former striker Filippo Inzaghi, the fact that they have to publish a photo to deny it, it’s the definitive evidence. Cagliari a Serie A team still doesn’t have a stadium where play football, this year they moved from the city of Cagliari to the near Is Arenas, but unfortunately the local stadium doesn’t respect the safety rules, so they can play but without audience until the work on the stadium itself will be finished. What a ridiculous club…

This match week we have some interesting matches, my favourite one is Catania-Napoli, it’s a weird choice as “big match”, but both are teams full of talents and with ambitions, so I forecast a good match. Another interesting one is Udinese-Milan but just because it’s always interesting to see to sides in strong difficulties fight to survive, especially AC Milan, perhaps Allegri will argue with someone else…Parma-Fiorentina today and Lazio-Genoa tomorrow should guarantee emotions and hopefully a certain amount of goals. The other matches seem to be nothing special, Juventus plays in Verona against Chievo and, Roma goes to Cagliari. This match could be an interesting one but playing without supporters, in an empty stadium is something ridiculous, and a really sad show, so watch it but only if you’re a fan of one of the teams.

Uefa Champions League – Match day 1 – Italian teams short analysis and Europa League

De Jong

First of all none of my forecasts came true, but that’s something very usual, here in Italy we aren’t in a different position in confront of the last year tournament, a prestigious achievement (Chelsea-Juventus 2-2) has been described from the Italian press as the most valuable result of all times, they just drew and journalist are describing it like a victory.

That’s the new level of the Italian football, last year when AC Milan didn’t lose with Barça it was seen like a victory too, now and then all our media are talking of these teams as real pretenders for the final. Let’s be honest for a moment, just the fact that you’re describing a draw like a victory is something weird. What’s more in my opinion what we saw yesterday is that Juventus plays really well, but lacks of a true forward, with a champion to line up in its attack perhaps yesterday’s match could have been a victory. The attack will be a problem in the coming matches, this is my point of view, but anyway Juventus made a great match for what it can. By the way astonishing goal of Oscar, the second one is a masterpiece.

On the contrary AC Milan performed really badly, a 0-0 against Anderlecht at home is something to be ashamed of. Allegri is now seen as a lame duck, but Italy Herald had already revealed when he is having is last and definite chance to not be fired (the 7th October, click here to read). I thing the reasons of this situations lay in either the club and the manager, the second one used a lot of players in the wrong position (Emanuelson, Boateng) without a clear reason, and moreover let Boateng playing without exploit the fantasy of Bojan, why? I think because the former Roma’s player was bought without is opinion, and now he’s just another salary to pay with very few chances to play. With all the respect for the players, if you put on the pitch Flamini-De Jong-Nocerino in the middle, left Bojan and El Sharawy on the bench and put Emanuelson behind Pazzini (not Drogba, Pazzini…) how many successful passages did you expect? How many chances to score? Allegri has lost the pulse of the situation…The club has its own responsibilities, because has made up a team without a clear idea, not too young, not too old, with the same high expectation (too high) and buying players just for their low prices, instead of buying them basing on their skills (someone a little bit more talented in the middle, even if not a champion could have been useful).

That’s it for now. This evening starts the first true phase of the Europa League, unusually with big expectations from the Italian clubs, at least is what they’ve said, anyway for Lazio a really tough match against Tottenham, but they’re really focused and excited after the great start in the Serie A and VIllas-Boas could be another key advantage for Lazio this evening…Napoli, let me say it honestly, should easily win, too wide the difference between the two clubs, even if Mazzarri decides to use only substitutes. Udinese is facing a negative period, and I thing that unless a miracle this evening they should aim to draw, because in my opinion they’ll lose otherwise.

Uefa Champions League, match day 1

Ahhhhhhhhhhh

Another Champions League is going to start, this is definitely my favourite tournament, the best of the best, no other competition has its complexity or its spectacularly, just remember that no-one has won it twice in a row for more than 22 years! It’s extremely difficult to prevail in this tournament and that’s why I really like it.

Unfortunately there are only two Italian teams in the first round, in the last years we had scored very few points in the European competition, especially in the Europa League, with the result of losing the third place in the ranking that Uefa draw to decide which is the best league in Europe, using the result of the clubs in the last 5 years in all European competition. In this way we have only right to 3 teams in Champions league, but Udinese failed to get through against Sporting Braga and now we have just 2 teams Juventus and AC Milan.

The last one plays today against the Belgian team Anderlecht in Milan, that’s not exactly the biggest hurdle at all, but to get a smooth way to the qualification, AC Milan needs to win. Zenit has strongly improved their team and I think they can challenge the Rossoneri for the first place. So to avoid troubles in the next matches Allegri and his team needs to get 3 points tonight. They’re facing a very tough moment in the Serie A because they lost 2 matches over 3; not a great start…My forecast AC Milan-Andrelecht: 2-1.

Juventus has its work cut out, they are going to play in London against Chelsea. To be honest Chelsea has got a stronger team, with a lot of experience in Champions, while the Italians has not. Playing straight away in London could be even worse, just remember what happened to Napoli last year…But Juventus plays very well, and has got a well definite structure since over a year and that could be useful when playing against teams like Chelsea which are more talented. Hazard will be a problem for Juventus defenders. My forecast Chelsea-Juventus: 2-0.

PSG, money can’t buy everything

Envy

For example it cannot buy coherence, I have just read another boring declaration of a leftist intellectual and European MP who says that he really hopes PSG will fail to reach its targets. The name is not important, there are dozens or so statesman like this every week, what I want to know is: does it make sense criticise PSG for its wealthy using a ideological bias?

I don’t thing so. For a start a reach owner that invest a lot of money in a struggling economy should always been referred to showing respect, they’re are creating wealth, jobs and paying loads of taxes. The good aspect of football is that when a club make the lucky strike to lure a wealthy investor, that doesn’t create troubles to other clubs. Since Manchester City has been bought by the new owners, Manchester United hasn’t gone bankrupt, in fact it earns even more than in the past; and often other owners are pushed to spend more thus improving the league, the show and creating a good effect on economy in general (jobs, taxes, investment, etc.).

I understand that there is an issue with the result on the pitch when a so rich team face competitors so much poorer, but from an ideologically and economic point of view it simply doesn’t make sense.

Serie A 2012/13, match week 3 what is worth to see

Old glory

Fortunately is again time for the Serie A, this Saturday we do not have big matches in program:

Palermo-Cagliari is interesting just because we want to see whether Sannino (Palermo manager) will be fired, he has already lost the first two matches and his employer Mr Zamparini has just been listed on The Guinness of Records because it seems that is the man with less patience on the whole planet…

Milan-Atalanta is not exactly a big match, the Rossoneri have a big advantage and even if Atalanta is a good team I do not thing they will manage to get some point.

Tomorrow the most interesting match will be Fiorentina-Catania, Montella (Fiorentina’s manager) will face is former team, both have very skilled players, ambitious management and could play very well, so in my opinion if you have some spare time tomorrow at 3PM (Italian time zone), that’s a good way to spend it.

Less interesting the last match between Torino and Internazionale (20.45), too wide is the difference between the two sides, and the willingness of catching a victory after the defeat against Roma should push the Neroazzurri to the three points.

The complete schedule:

• Today:
  

  Palermo	–	Cagliari	18:00
  AC Milan	–	Atalanta	20:45

• Tomorrow:
  

  Chievo	–	Lazio	12:30
  Genoa	–	Juventus	15:00
  Napoli	–	Parma	15:00
  Pescara	–	Sampdoria	15:00
  Roma	–	Bologna	15:00
  Fiorentina	–	Catania	15:00
  Siena	–	Udinese	15:00
  Torino	–	Inter Milan	20:45

Brotherhood (Italian version)

Still smiling

Just 3 matches and for AC Cesena it’s already time to fire its manager, 3 defeats in a row, the last one for 1-4 and the first coach of the Italian Serie B has been fired, nothing special actually, last year we had cases where managers were fired even before the start of the championship. But this time is different, the manager of AC Cesena was Nicola Campedelli, a young inexperienced coach (he doesn’t own the licence to train at this level) that has as his most important talent to be the brother of the owner of the club, Igor Campedelli. Unfortunately for him the need of sacking managers is so strong in Italy that even brotherhood cannot save you from being fired…I don’t dare to imagine what will happen at the next Christmas lunch with all the family reunited under the same roof…That’s Italian football when you think you have already seen and heard everything something else come out.

Guide to Serie A, season 2012/13

Serie A 2012/13

Usually a guide is published before the start of something but, this is not the case. Modern football starts in the middle of August when the transfer market is still open, so I think it’s useless to write it before the end of the market.

Just few considerations, for the first time in years the Serie A championship has closed a summer transfer market with a positive balance, Italian clubs have earned 18 million of Euro more than they have spent (392 millions against 374 millions). Last time it happened was during the 2004/05 season, when the balance was positive for 52 millions. In Europe the trend is varied, the other Southern country with an important championship is Spain, where la Liga has closed with 53 millions of earnings; the countries of Northern Europe have behaved differently, Ligue 1 has closed with a loss of 55 millions (thanks to PSG which has spent 138 millions more than it has earned!), Bundesliga has got a negative balance for 98 millions (Bayern’s contributed for 69) and finally Premier League has got a negative balance for 336 millions of Euro.

If Berbatov didn’t sign for Juventus should haven’t come as a surprise with such context…

Let’s start with the top clubs:

Juventus FC, is the last winner of the Italian Serie A and is also the only owner of its stadium, their management are a little bit rude but seems to be effective on the pitch. They have to cope with the long absence of their coach Antonio Conte and with the pressure to be the favourite team other than to play the Uefa Champions League. They’ve bought very good players (Asamoah and Isla from Udinese, Giovinco from Parma and Bendter from Arsenal) but no-one of them is a champion. What’s more they’ve signed Lucio who since the last seasons has a tendency to concede too much to the opponent strikers. Anyway I think they managed to make their team bigger, with more players that could rotate and allow some of their key players to rest sometimes. They’ve kept the base of the team and they have a particular way of playing, so they might compensate the lack of real champions between their strikers with their way of playing as a unite team. Anyway I think they still lack some footballer able to score more than 20 goals in a season and maybe to solve difficult matches when the team could play under their usual value. In fact they’ve bought Bendtner who in his best season scored 15 goals (in 50 matches) and Giovinco who scored 16 (in 38), moreover they already own Matri (best season 13 goals in 39 matches), Quagliarella (21 in 48 in 2008/09 when he was playing in Udine) and Vucinic (22 in 31 during 2004/05 season when he played for Lecce ). Only Vucinic and Bendtner have already scored in the Uefa Champions League, 8 times the first one and 9 the second. We aren’t in front of a Berbatov, just to mention a name…
My judge on their team: 4/5; on their transfer market: 3/5; position at the end of the season: 2nd.

AC Milan, 2nd last season it seems like an old noble man who is slowly dying, yes they have signed Bojan, Pazzini, De Jong and Niang but let’s consider only the facts, the last one is a young player that I strongly doubt is a would-be champion, because I think he’d have been signed by another French team, there are a lot and he cost even few Euro, so why sing for another team abroad? Bojan is an unbelievable talent but he scores very few goals and is too much discontinuous, last season he only scored 7 goals, too few to be considered a champion; Pazzini is an honest footballer but he is not the man who will change this season, he could even score 15 goals by the next summer, but since he’s already scored 3 he has only another 12 goals to score left…De Jong is a waste of Man City even if he is a good player. Anyway it’s even too easy to forecast that most of the problems will come from the defence, last year the two central defenders were Nesta and Thiago Silva,  this year Yepes and Bonera, not exactly the same thing…My judge on their team: 3/5; on their transfer market: 1/5; position at the end of the season: 4th.

SSC Napoli, is a great team with a great management, except its coach, Mazzarri a man who seems only able to play counterattacks, he has got a great group of players, very skilled, very good, and the only thing that he wants to do is counterattack. It might even work but, only when you play against teams that leave you play, if they just aim to defend and make the same kind of play as Napoli (like almost all the medium-little teams) then a lot of draws or defeats happens. They’ve a team that could fight for the title, they’ve a lot of good young players: Insigne and Vargas over all, but they seem unable to make the last step to become a top team. However the team has been improved, the sold of Lavezzi hasn’t changed much and they could really aim at something important. My judge on their team: 3/5; on their transfer market: 4/5; position at the end of the season: 3rd.

FC Internazionale, another year without successes, at least is what I forecast, they’ve changed a lot, in a good way in my opinion, selling old expensive players and signing young cheaper ones, but they still seem to lack something. An extremely young manager with no experience in Serie A could be another crucial factor of the season. I don’t think they’ll fight for the title, if everything goes well this season they’ll build their future successes, otherwise there are all the factors to build another disastrous season (a lot of new players, few champions, a team that doesn’t play together). The great number of goals granted to their opponents since now is not a good sign. My judge on their team: 3/5; on their transfer market: 4/5; position at the end of the season: 5th.

AS Roma, they are going to be the real surprise of the 2012/13 Serie A, there are all the ingredients: a spectacular manager (Zeman), a charismatic captain (Totti) a bunch of young hungry players (Lamlea, Destro, Nico Lopez…), a management able to sustain its coach with no pressure. It’s difficult to manage so many young players and work in a city like Rome, where there is a lot of pressure from supporters and media, but Zeman is very likely the best Italian manager when we talk about young development and even if they won’t win the title is quite sure that they’ll have fun with their attacking style. They aren’t going to play European tournaments and this is another advantage, just think at the recent Internazionale – Roma 1 – 3, the first team played in Europa League and it had an influence on their performance at least at a psychological and stress level. Moreover I think they’ve got the strongest attack of the whole Serie A. I really hope they’ll be the surprise of the championship, we need young, funny players and even more important honest men to turn around our Serie A. My judge on their team: 4/5; on their transfer market: 5/5; position at the end of the season: 1st.

I’ll add the remaining teams later.

Uefa Europa League 2012/13 Draw

Uefa Europa League 2012/13 Draw

After the yesterday Champions League draw, today has been the big day for the very less important tournament, Europa League. Unfortunately since its start Italian teams haven’t put a lot of effort on trying to win the award, from a financial point of view it could seem a right decision (the reward for such a long competition are very poor), but in fact it is not, because this trophy contributes heavily on the scores that determines how many teams each nation could qualify for the Uefa Champions League. So it comes as no surprise that the Italian football is now in the 4th place of this ranking well behind Bundesliga which is the last league that could qualify 4 teams for the bigger European award and, that Portugal and France are now very close to Italy. Anyway let’s consider the today draft.

Udinese hasn’t been very lucky, in the group A they have reached Liverpool, Anzhi and Young Boys. The English team is one of my favourite but is only a far relative of the Benitez’ Armada that reached twice the finals in the Uefa Champions League, and now they struggle to find an identity, they have recently bought the talented Fabio Borini from Roma, a great forward in my opinion who will leave his mark on this season, but they still lack something as a team I think more than on the single players. Suarez, is a poor racist but a great player, while Carroll is definitely not up to scratch (he’s still not up to scratch but is now on loan). Rodgers as new coach could be the right choice but for now we have seen his former team Swansea still playing a great football, while his new one is playing badly, was the last season a great one thanks to him or the Swansea club organization? We’ll see. Anzhi the very rich team of Samuel Eto’o and of the troubled Caucasus area could be a real danger, especially because the Cameroonian is a real champion and could win matches all alone and I think it won’t be easy to play at their home field. Young Boys as usual happens with Swiss teams are undervalued by Italians, we think that Swiss can only ski or make chocolate, but history tells us that they’re well organised and that it’s very difficult to score, at their stadium they could beat anyone. I think that Udinese is weaker than the last year, unless Muriel grows really fast, he’s a potential champion, someone so strong that Sanchez the former Udinese player now at Barçelona would seem an amateur, but unfortunately we have no guarantees on his growth, this fact, the sold of two key players this summer and another year on the shoulder of their captain and main scorer Di Natale could be an obstacle too big to avoid. My forecast: 1. Liverpool; 2. Anzhi 50% – Udinese 50%; 4. Young Boys.

In the group F Napoli will face PSV Eindovehn, Dnipro form Ukraine and AIK from Sweden. It doesn’t seem a mission impossible for the azzurri. PSV is not the great team of the past, but never trust Nederlands teams, they’re always a danger, moreover their new coach is Advocaat one of the most experienced and winner coach on the market, they have signed Mark van Bommel also, so it’s necessary to keep them in mind if you want to win the group. Dnipro and AIK are not exactly famous teams and honestly I don’t think they will be such a difficult hurdle for Napoli. The Italian team has sold Lavezzi to PSG but has signed Insigne a young talented forward and has kept its base, I think they could have only two issues, the first one they want to focus on the Seria A more than on Europe, that’s clear, the second one their coach Mazzari is not skilled enough for a European tournament (and in my opinion for the championship too). My forecast: 1. Napoli; 2. PSV; 3. Dnipro; 4. AIK.

In group H Internazionale will face Russian Rubin Kazan, Partizan from Beograd and Neftçi from the remote Azerbaijan. Inter is the strongest team of the group, but, they have signed a very young and inexperienced coach, they struggled too much in the qualification stages against weaker teams, and they want to focus on the championship more than on Europe too. Moreover Rubin is a tough challenger, Partizan is not so good but when they play at home could be difficult to get some points. Neftçi should be the victim of the group. My forecast: 1. Internazionale FC; 2. Rubin; 3. Partizan; 4. Neftçi.

In group J Lazio has its work cut out, they will face Tottenham, Panathinaikos and Maribor. Maribor is the weakest team of the group, even if a lot of good players have recently started a career from here. Panathinaikos has faced troubles with the ownership, and I think they’re far weaker than some years ago, they have let go their most important players, the only thing that could work for them is that is always difficult to play in Athens. Tottenham is the strongest team, they have plenty of talented players, the loss of Modric is not so big, I don’t think he is so strong, but they’ve a new coach Villas Boas who is not a guarantee after his first year in Premier League. But they have kept most of their players and are an ambitious team, if they don’t focus too much on the championship they will win the group. Lazio has got a new coach, but a very weak transfer market, just two players signed, and only one of them seems a good one, but they’ve only Klose as a talented scorer, if he wasn’t fit they’d face troubles. Moreover the environment doesn’t seem a quiet one and in my opinion they are going to face a troubled season. My forecast: 1. Tottenham; 2. Lazio; 3. Panathinakos; 4. Maribor.