La Vecchia Signora compra un vecchio gioiello: Calcio Italiano 2018-19

[danielmak]

I get selling Nainggolan, but his sale has left a hole on the pitch in terms of play but also just general steel and leadership.

I agree that this is a tough job. Capello had a nice run and since then it's really only been Spalletti who can last there. I really like Rudi Garcia and he was spat out after two somewhat successful seasons.

In other Serie A news, one of the topics of conversations in a recent On the Continent was the high hopes and falling out of Antonio Cassano and Mario Balotelli. Balotelli seems to have another shot with the NT even though it's clear he will never meet the high hopes. But all the chatter about Cassano never made sense to me. I saw a lot of him because he really got his start with Roma after being sold by Bari (?). I never really rated him. He was clunky; somewhat slow; and during a time when Serie A strikers were some of the best in the world (Scheva, Inzaghi, Vieri) he did not have the nose for goal. I was glad Roma sold him to Real, where he never amounted to anything (although that might have been the time when the heart troubles started). Anyway, here is my question for you guys: Was I missing something with him? I know he was generally an idiot but did you guys rate him highly as a footballer?

[scratchmonkey]

He had magnificent technique and was good for a handful of fantastic moments a year.

I'd say he was the Italian Joe Cole only more daft; I've been drinking though.

[CY_Boaby]

Huge things were expected of Cassano when Roma shelled out 20 million for him, but it was inevitable he would fall out with Totti and there would only be one winner there. A shame that partnership never fully blossomed as they could have been explosive. One of those players who are immensely talented, but will do better at smaller clubs where they can be star of the show. Once he was in a team of other superstars (i.e. Real Madrid), he got easily outshined and his appalling behaviour just wasn't tolerated. He did well at Milan and when he suffered a stroke there was a lot of goodwill shown towards him whilst he recovered.

But of course, his bad behaviour soon saw him lose any sympathy. Storms out at Milan even though they did a lot for him during his recovery, and subsequently does nothing special at Inter expect have a fight the coach Stramaccioni. I think it was the 2014 World Cup when it was reported that Balotelli had to intervene when Cassano went ballistic at one of the hotel maids for no good reason. Says it all when Super Mario comes across as the level-headed one.

[ursus arctos]

Cassano was one of those players who became more maddening the more often one watched him.

Whereas the moments of genuine brilliance could be savoured by others, Romanisti were left with memories of all of the non-highlight moments and the immense waste of talent.

[White No Sugar]

Currently in Cagliari.
I’d only checked for weekend games so was kicking myself while looking for a restaurant last night to see the Sampdoria team coach parked outside a hotel surrounded by police blue lights. Plenty of Samp clad kids with mobiles at the ready and bingo out come the team. Only 40 mins before kick off which was a surprise though after consulting our tourist map it doesn’t look far to the ground.
Hunger won out as we had no idea about tickets etc. Fuming.

[ursus arctos]

That’s highly unfortunate.

There aren’t any Sardinian clubs in Serie B or C this season. There are four in Serie D, but the closest is Castiadas near Costa Rei. If you are still around at the weekend, your best bet is likely the Eccelenza (regionalised fifth tier), which has a purely Sardinian group with several clubs from the province.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Cassano's problems as a football seem to be paralleled by his problems in general. About 80% of being a modern footballer is combining with your team mates, with the shit you can pull off yourself being the remaining 20%. Being good at the 20% will get you quite far, but being shit at the other 80% can basically kill your career.

[White No Sugar]

To Ursus. Thanks but we’re flying back to UK on sat morn. When checking I’d assumed it’d be a CL/EL midweek. Even more upset than last night now.

[ursus arctos]

Ah well.

It has happened to all of us who have tried to mix football and travel.

[danielmak]

Cassano seemed most interested in being a teammate when he was doing well. I was at the Milan-Parma match a few years back (everything is a few years back for me these days) when he returned to Milan. He had a good match, which drove the Milan fans nuts. But he did have a knack for doing well against his previous clubs. I remember him having a wonderful game against Roma when he played for Samp, basically knocking Roma out of the top spot a week or two before the end of the season and Inter won it.

Roma won big on Wednesday. Pastore scores his second brilliant backheel this season. It was basically a repeat of the first, which is unbelievable. Under scored a cracker in the first two minutes as well.

[White No Sugar]

Even more upset now as I’ve just noticed the club shop/ticket office is two mins from our b&b. We could’ve made it if we’d known and it was still open 40 mins from KO. They’ve some rather nice Champions 68/69 mugs available which answered the question I’ve been intending to google since arriving. Fuming.

[ursus arctos]

That was their only title, and the only one by an insular club.

Peak Gigi Rival

[danielmak]

Roma with a big win in the derby, although Lazio looked good. I was hoping to follow watching that game with Juve-Napoli but didn't have time with MLB excitement.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

So has this story received much coverage in Italy? It got a mention or two in the English press today. but this story has been out for a couple of days.

[ursus arctos]

It's been reported in the serious papers, but la Gazzetta have given much more attention to his denunciations and threats to sue the victim.

Tuttosport, the Juventus house organ masquerading as the sport paper for Torino, appears to have ignored it entirely.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

You mean like when they threatened to sue Der Spiegel last year? That article would suggest that Der Spiegel have yet to hear from the lawyers of gestifute

[ursus arctos]

The latest threats post-date the article, but yeah

[ursus arctos]

Excellent thread from one of the Spiegel journalists (click through to expand and read)

https://twitter.com/derWinterbach/status/1046478115734720513

https://twitter.com/derWinterbach/st...78115734720513

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Hmm, every premier league football club, and I suspect a lot of the championship clubs have some sort of employee, whose job is basically to deal with this sort of incident. Richie Sadlier was saying on second captains that when he was a young player, an agent tried to get him to sign on saying that when he got in trouble, the agent would be able to make it go away because of his relationship to the media. which stunned him even as a young man. It seems to me that this could be the first of many of these complaints. Football has a fucking massive historical child abuse scandal bubbling away in the background at the moment (in the way that virtually every organization that was in charge of children in the past has) but that could all be brushed away by pointing to long dead chairmen, or people who no longer have anything to do with the clubs in question. But if this story is the tip of the iceberg and leads to a footballmetoo sort of thing then who knows where we might end up.

[ursus arctos]

Well, someone paid 375K to make it go away, but they couldn’t keep their mouths shut.

[Sporting]

Why was the 60,000 capacity Napoli stadium only filled with about 37,000 for the visit of Liverpool last night in what was an important and in theory an enticing CL match? Is it something (or everything) to do with ticket prices?

[Kevin S]

That's about ten thousand more than they get for their Serie A matches.

[Sporting]

I know that Napoles isn't known for being a particularly rich city.

[Kevin S]

Well, low attendance at matches is a bit of an issue for the Italian league generally too. Only the four clubs from Milan and Rome plus Juventus have crowd sizes that would fit in the top half of the Premier League. From Napoli down to the 20th Serie A team you are looking at Championship-sized attendances, or lower.

Ipswich have been in the second tier for 16 years in a row now, and haven't won a Championship game this season yet. They are still drawing bigger crowds than Parma.

There's a lot of reasons why, I think. The stadia are ancient and uncomfortable, built with state money for the 1990WC and with the clubs unable to upgrade them in the time since. The presence of ultras - I speculate - could put a lot of families off visiting, especially when the TV coverage has reached a saturation point (they have no blackout as in the UK for example).

So prices probably play a part but I think there's just been a shift in people finding it more pleasant to watch the games on TV instead. Ironically, as I've seen someone point out, the full stands and noisy crowds you get in a Premier League match make the TV product more appealing and hence help to drive up the prices broadcasters are willing to pay to show it.

[George]

Attendances had been falling for some years before Calciopoli publicly played out. Another thing that should be noted is that all Serie A (and many Serie B) games were bring broadcast live on PPV by the turn of the millennium, which would have persuaded many to start staying in front of the TV at home. Additional to that was the ease with which the encryption systems of the two satellite networks that shared coverage at the time (TelePiu and Stream) could be bypassed. Why pay when you don't have to and many didn't. Pirate card usage was rife. I've no idea how bad the problem is now since the Sky Italia consolidation.