THE WOLF'S DEN - Tana dei Lupi II

[stefano]

[DavidP]

[Lupa]

[aba_bab]

Ding Dong the witch is gone

[p_maldini_3]

congrats.

[AlCapone]

[ASR1927]

UPDATE 2-Soccer-U.S.-led consortium seals deal to buy AS Roma

* Consortium buys 67 percent stake in AS Roma

By Lauren Keiper

BOSTON, April 15 (Reuters) - A newly constituted company led by United States businessman Thomas Di Benedetto said on Friday that it has sealed a deal to buy control of Italian soccer club AS Roma (ASR.MI), subject to regulatory approval.

The announcement ends years of takeover speculation surrounding the indebted Italian club which is now poised to become the only Serie A side with foreign ownership, unlike the much courted English Premiershit.

"Good things don't come easy," Di Benedetto told a news conference at a law firm in Boston. "I never felt that I would give up on the quest for this team."

The new consortium, which is 60 percent owned by Di Benedetto and 40 percent owned by Italian bank UniCredit (CRDI.MI), bought a 67 percent stake of Roma at an agreed price of 70.3 million euro ($101.58 million).

Of that, 60.3 million relates to the purchase of shares at a price of 0.6781 euro each. The stake was bought from Italpetroli, which controlled Roma.

Under Italian law, the consortium would need to make a public offer to purchase the remaining 33 percent stake in the soccer club.

Di Benedetto, who has been a partner of New England Sports Ventures which owns the Boston Red Sox Major League Baseball team and English Premiershit side Liverfekkin'wankscum, wants to attract more local players to Roma.

ROMAN CONNECTION

"If you look around professional soccer today, there are a number of players who grew up in greater Rome," Di Benedetto said during a news conference held jointly with UniCredit chief operating officer Paolo Fiorientino.

"It's our goal to have more of them playing for AS Roma. I think we will put in place the people who will make it attractive for these young men to sign with us."

"Our hope and our objective is to be as successful in Rome as Mr. Berlusconi was with his team in Milan," Di Benedetto added, referring to AC Milan owner and Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Cash-strapped Roma are now managed by former player Vincenzo Montella following coach Claudio Ranieri's resignation in February.

The Italian club lost to Shakhtar Donetsk in the Champions league last 16 last month and are sixth in Serie A, three points behind Udinese, having been runners-up last season.

[Messinterista]

Well done and good luck for the future guys. Italy needs a strong Roma!

[RomaShield27]

Meh.

[Lupa]

Here's the formation projected by Romanews. I don't know if my heart can stand the presence of Doni *and* Loria.

PROBABILE FORMAZIONE: (4-2-3-1) Doni; Cassetti, Loria, N.Burdisso, Riise; De Rossi, Pizarro; Rosi, Menez, Taddei; Totti

[RomaShield27]

I see the tifosi are with all their stars and stripes flags. Seems like quite a lot of them. Guess there might be a big crowd this afternoon all buoyed on by the news of the clubs sale. Traitors. Personally, I still don't quite know what to think or what to make of it all yet. Not much else to say on it for now, really.

More important things to focus on.

LE FORMAZIONI UFFICIALI – (quite early, may not be accurate)



I have faith in Doni and Loria. Ok, I lie, I have faith in Doni, not so much Loria. But lets see how he does. Palermo's line-up is quite ambitious with Pastore behind Pinilla and Hernandez, so he will have his work cut out for him alongside Nicky. Best to keep Loria marking Pinalla, me thinks.

Big surprise is that Menez is in. I like it. Menez in the middle with Totti just ahead of him, and I do wonder if our shape will be more of a 4-4-1-1 today with Rosi and Taddei on the flanks and staying fairly deep in order to combat Palermo's threat from full-back. A nice line-up by Montella. Not all out attack, but adventurous enough. Vucinic deserves to be dropped, but he's a nice option of the bench, alongside Borriellosgayhair. Nice bit of fire-power if things aren't going too smoothly. Forza Roma. Three fuckin points baby, anyhow, anyway, three fuckin points.

[romawi]

Terrible result today. We really could have won this one, but instead we end up losing 3-2. Typical Roma. It's very frustrating considering we managed to beat Udinese last weekend, and got closer to fourth. On the actual performance, we seemed like we were in control through out the entire match, and we were dominating when Menez was still in the game. I thought that Montella got it wrong by taking him off when he did. Menez was a constant threat, and he was actually making runs in behind the defense. Too bad Mirko, DDR, and Menez couldn't put any of those chances they had in the middle of the second half away. Any of those go in, and we're looking at win today rather than a draw.

[RomaShield27]

Great big balls of fuck. Complete fucking disaster. Same old same old, then, typical fucking Roma. So fucking typical that after our miracle win in Udine last week, we just have to fuck this one up. Did we expect anything else?! Ha! It was like Samp all over again. We can't always rely on luck.

Yeh, Vooch should of scored with that chance. Despite the ball bobbling up just before he hit it, despite the poor pass from Menez from an easy position, he still should of gotten over it better and guided it in, no excuses. But he didn't, he missed, it was unfortunate and it can happen to anyone, and its the kind of miss that haunts a player. Its just tough fucking shit.

Despite a lot of possession and lot of the ball, we just couldn't make it happen. It was clear early on to me that it was going to be another one of those days, I was just hoping we'd scrape over the line any fucking way at all. A lot of poor individual performances all round, and typically no grit or determination or desire to fucking win in another key game when it matters most. Just terrible. Depressing. Terrible. Season over. Fuck it.

[romawi]

I think our problem is that we don't have the type of wide players that are not very effective in the 4-2-3-1. Taddei and Vucinic are good, but I think we can do much better in at least one of those spots. And what I mean by very effective, is that their work rate in one of the directions is poor. Vucinic is good going forward (although I think we could do better), and his contributions defensively is poor. The opposite is true for Taddei. Offensively he could be a bit more direct, but this running off the ball is better than anyone else on the team who can play on that side, and defensively he's good. If we're going to continue with the 4-2-3-1 next season, then we need upgrades at those two positions.

[Italiamia]

[Lupa]

Yeah, I thought he served it up on a dish to Vooch, who really should have converted. I commented at the time that after seeing that chance go astray when he did the right thing, Menez would be selfish the next time and try for it himself. I noticed that it popped up on my news feed as 'Another contender for miss of the season' from some site, so yeah, that miss was epic.

I have a friend who is in Italy this week, and I've turned him into a Roma fan. After today's game, which he attended, he won't thank me for that. Welcome to heartbreak city, the familiar territory for Romanisti. I don't refer just to this game, but to what it means to the season.

[aba_bab]

Fuck vooch.. he doesn't even to be deserve to be commented on by me.

What needs to be commented on is fucking Doni... maybe I'm unfairly hating on him.. but has that fucking baboon ever saved a penalty? Like as in EVER in a roma jersey? No really.. EVER?? EVERRRRRRR?? Has he come close??? I remember Del Boy skied a penalty once at the olimpico... and the only Doni penalty save i remember was maybe in the shootshoot against arsenal. And call me naaive.. but Sergio would've saved the third goal no question about it.

We need Doni out.. and Cassetti... most of all we needed that bitch out and she's gone. Roman or non-roman, she mishandled this team, and ran it like a joke. Good riddance

[Lupa]

Doni saved Brazil's ass on penalties in their cup game against Argentina a few years ago. (I can't recall the name of the cup the S American countries play, but it was a good tournament to watch. But other than that, if a penalty is called, I assume it's going in against Doni. Buffon, for all his other skill, is not a good penalty stopper. Apparently J. Cesar is. Or so an Interisti friend says. I don't watch them enough to say.

This team needs an overhaul in skill and attitude for sure.

[RomaShield27]

Do we have a game tomorrow? The Coppa Italia. B'dafeck. Not much enthusiasm for that at the moment. Two teams who's seasons have fallen apart, should be interesting. We should just have a brawl for the craic.

Seven points off 4th spot now, five games left. Have we all given up hopes of that 4th place finish? Meh. Its probably too late, but looking at the we probably still have a chance if we can take our heads from out of our arses and wake the fook up a little. Chievo (h) and Bari (a) are our next two games, while those lazie fucks are against Inter and Rubentus, so they'll likely drop points. The lazie and Udinese still have to play each other, too. Having them ahead of us in the table is shameful, especially considering we completely bitch slap the feck out of them whenever they try to play us. If we can't catch them, hopefully Udinese will get that 4th spot. Not only cos the Burini won't be in the CL, but also because it would be great to see that Udinese squad go into next season with the CL to look forward too and the possibility of keeping all their top players and building on what they have now.

[vtec]

you have a less than 2% chance of overcoming lazio for fourth, and that would pretty much require a catastrophic collapse from lazio. you would need a similar catastrophic collapse from udinese which would give you some 2% chance of beating them as well, but a catastrophic collapse from both teams combined with a perfect ending from roma is just about infinitescimally minute.