THE WOLF'S DEN - Tana dei Lupi II

[Italiamia]

I am fairly sure you use it in other contexts because you love the word. Yes, if a player wants to make a pass, he needs someone to whom he can pass it. Then, he needs someone to pass it to who can actually put the ball in the net. It seems Roma has too few passers, and takers of passes, and certainly, scorers who can take a pass from the players who want to pass. Therefore, Roma has no profondità.

You follow?

[maro]

No. I don't follow. But then that's because the logic doesn't hold. That Roma lacks profondita' is true, but isn't a logical consequence of the fact that we have too few passers, takers of passes and scorers.

[DavidP]

[maro]

Aye, Davit. Depth to the attack; making the pitch big by making runs in behind.

[Italiamia]

[Italiamia]

I am not sure I can explain this in English. Tactically, I suppose I would explain it from the standpoint of not thinking in terms of only a vertical game in attack. [l'idea di attacare sempre e solo verticale] However, it's easy to say we want to make the pitch big, but I think the opponent may have a bit to do with how a squad approaches a given match tactically. Attacare la profondità se possibile altrimenti cercare l'ampiezza. So it becomes a question of profondità vs. ampiezza, (depth vs. width)depending on the opponent. Help me out here, Tom, I do not know how to say this properly. I do not think we need to be dogmatic about profondità.

[maro]

i thought i was banned from talking about it? i would explain it in terms of the opposite of compactness - defences want to be compact because that squeezes space. this is what moaninho's sides are exceptionally good at. when you attack, on the other hand, you want to make the pitch big: defend narrow, attack with width. similarly, when teams defend the want to keep their midfield and defensive lines close to one another while attacks want to pull them apart - so, for instance, that there's space for a creative player to play between the lines. a team can do this by defending deep, but then this comes at the cost of being able to get their fullbacks out and of making their midfield run another 10 or 15 yards to support their forwards. the ideal for a defensive team is for the opposition to have no pace and no-one running in behind. this means they can play a high line, keeping defence and midfield close to one another while still then being able to get the fullbacks out. a team who only plays in front of you lets you do this. players who make runs in behind give the attack profondita' - force defences to drop off, force defenders to follow runs away from the ball and so create space for others to play.

[maro]

one of the reasons barca keep the ball so well, for instance, is that teams always defend so deep against them because they're terrified of being played in behind. push up and they will cut you to ribbons with their pace. sit back and they'll keep the ball until it's death by a thousand slow cuts.

[maro]

Yeah, the principle is to make the pitch big, but you make it big by exploiting all of its dimensions - width as well as depth. You want to stretch things - across the pitch and up and down the pitch when you have the ball (mk made a comment earlier in the season about Pique saying that in one game Guardiola had Barca's CBs picking the ball up on their own goal line, trying to draw the opposition out and make the pitch big that way). The standard English team thinks profondita' is about long ball, about getting the ball forward as soon as possible, which is clearly not what we're talking about. What we're talking about is making the rectangle that the opposition's 10 players are trying to defend as big as possible. Playing your wide players wide creates space through the middle; getting your high players to make runs in behind creates space for short passes.

[maro]

Where did your post go, gio? The yeah was in reply to it . . . wherever it's gone.

[Italiamia]

[Lupa]

Over on the offside I saw this vid posted. A little video tribute to Burdisso. Si gioca come si vive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhnxOdwb ... e=feeduNew

[red]

[arthurfonzarelli]

[maro]

Fonz, I don't understand the point of those clips. The first is a very cynical, quite controlled first yellow, no? The second one isn't passion-loaded and petulant either. And no-one would argue that Walter hasn't gathered his share of red cards over the years - you could find a fair collection just from his time at Real. In fact I'm trying to do the opposite with Philippe - trying to find incidents to represent what is a much broader evaluation of character. When the going gets tough, Philippe's response is passionate rather than tough.

[ASR1927]

Viviano wants to join Roma.

Bologna goalkeeper Emiliano Viviano is co-owned by Inter, but admits “it’s true Roma want me and I’m happy to join them.”
The Italy shot-stopper is at the centre of a tug of war between the two clubs who share his contract.

Viviano has made it clear he would not relish a move to San Siro if it meant acting as understudy to Julio Cesar.

Bologna are asking for €10m to release their remaining 50 per cent, but Inter are reportedly not prepared to pay that, so the matter could go to a blind auction.

Even if one of the two clubs takes him on a permanent basis, Viviano could still move on to Roma.

“It’s true that Roma want me and I have already told those who are taking care of these things that I’m happy to join them,” he told the Corriere dello Sport.

Meanwhile, the Giallorossi continue their attempts to snap up Arsenal defender Gael Clichy and ought to have a meeting in London this evening.

At the same time, Roma directors will talk to Liverfekkin'wankscum about goalkeepers Alexander Doni and Julio Sergio.


Sorry it's my first time posting from an iPhone so formatting may be dodgy.

[maro]

pffffft. Posting from an iFone? I think that may be a banning offence.

[forzaitalia]

Clichy, eh. A lot say he is error prone, but more importantly we don't really need a left back with Riise and Crescenzi there.

[ASR1927]

[maro]

Viviano would be great - investing in some Italian future - though there are some pretty clear obstacles to the deal. I thought when the Julio Cesar rumours came out that it made no sense from our perspective - the stories then were that he was on the way out of Sphincter because Viviano was on the way in. Why wouldn't we just take a chance on Viviano ourselves? We shall see.