Unione Sportiva Città di Palermo

[RomaShield27]

What the fuck is wrong with Palermo? Or to be more precise, Zamperini? What a clown. First of all they let Nocerino go for a paltry half a mil (even if his contract was expiring next summer, its still terrible business), and then there's with Zamperini and the clubs director of Sport. Oh and they may fire the current manager who's only in the job a wet minute and bring back Delio Rossi, again? What madness. How can the Palermo tifosi stand that shit.

[red]

They could be in trouble this season.

They've sold and not replaced Cassani, Nocerino and Pastore (have they replaced Sirigu?).

They've been able to withstand the normal instability in the past because they've tended to have a pretty talented squad, but I don't see that being the case this year.

[RomaShield27]

They signed some Greek 'keeper to replace Sirigu, I think. Never heard of him before. Silvestre is a good signing at the back, although they've also lost Bovo. Come to think of it, they've loaned out both Bovo and Cassani, both to direct rivals (for a top-half kinda finish). What sort of thinking is that? And who knows who'll be in charge when the season finally starts, and how long he'll last. Yeh, its going to be a messy season for Palermo alright.

[forzaitalia]

I see Pioli has been sacked then...despite not having even managed one league match. I don't mind Palermo but I wish them the worst this season just because of Zamparini.

[fiske]

Ok now I see what you were on about a while ago about Zamparini being a bit of an idiot! From what I've read, Pioli wasn't necessarily the best man for the job but that doesn't excuse sacking somebody before letting them play in the domestic league. See he's trying to get Rossi back or Ranieri. Either way, the club really need to pull themselves together if we're going to do well this season. Not a good start at all

[taz]

Hope they get relegated. Delio Rossi is a decent manager and Zaparini says he wants Rossi back but who would really want to go and manage there? They have let go of their best players and not replaced them. If Zamparini wants things done his way, why dont he just register himself as the manager and see how far he goes with the team. You would have thought with the money that they got from the Pastore deal, they would invest that money on quality players but he has failed to do so and in the process lost not only Pastore but also Cassani, Bovo and Sirigu. Key players for the club in recent seasons.

[juventino_italiano]

Palermo are in trouble

[RomaShield27]

Blog: Mysterious Mangia – Palermo’s fourth Coach in five months is an enigma yet, as Rob Paton discovers, one worth getting to know
http://football-italia.net/blogs/rp118.html – Saturday 10 September, 2011

[RomaShield27]

BALZARETTI SET FOR PSG SWITCH
Palermo have revealed full-back Federico Balzaretti will join PSG next season.

http://www.football365.com/transfer-cen ... PSG-SWITCH?
Last Updated: 13/09/11 at 16:29

alermo president Maurizio Zamparini says full-back Federico Balzaretti will join Paris Saint-Germain next season.

Balzaretti has been linked with a move to the French giants ever since Leonardo's appointment as general manager at PSG earlier this summer.

"Federico asked me to be transferred to PSG and I would like to make him happy," said Zamparini. "Leonardo has already asked me about signing him for some time but I told him that, until the end of the season, he will remain with us.

"Meanwhile, we will begin to search for his replacement."

The Italy international joined Palermo from Fiorentina in 2008 and is under contract with the Sicilians for a further two years.

[RomaShield27]

Miccoli leading from the front in Palermo’s promising start

http://www.footballitaliano.co.uk/p6_1_ ... in-palermo’s-promising-start.html?
By Will Cook – Saturday 15 October 2011

Along with President Maurizio Zamparini, Javier Pastore and Josip Ilicic took a large majority of the Palermo headlines last season for their terrific performances in pink. However, that was arguably because the Rosanero’s most influential player sat out almost half the season due to injury.

Palermo’s pint sized Puglian frontman Fabrizio Miccoli started only 17 games for the Renzo Barbera outfit in a season where the Sicilians never really kicked on. Good wins at home to Milan and Napoli and away at Roma and Juventus were littered by defeats to Brescia, Catania, Chievo and notably Udinese. Tellingly, Miccoli did not feature in 10 of Palermo’s 16 defeats, while three of the six defeats he did feature in were away at Inter, Napoli and champions Milan.

Fast forward a year and Palermo find themselves occupying a Europa League spot in fourth position after five games. Miccoli has started four of those games and his side have three wins, one draw and a defeat compared with 12 months ago when the Rosanero were in 14th place with one win, two draws and two defeats when Miccoli didn’t appear once in the opening five rounds.

This is perhaps not surprising considering the striker, shrewdly brought in to replace Andrea Caracciolo’s goals, has done just that, netting a very respectable 50 goals in 108 games during his first four seasons in Sicily, creating a further 23 for his team mates. The presence of the club captain in the Palermo side has visibly lifted the team but his goals and assists were missed equally last year, the Nardo-born striker managing nine and two respectively.

Miccoli has made up for lost time though, hitting the ground running with three goals and three assists to his name already this season. An instrumental performance against Inter, where two fabulous finishes and an assist for Abel Hernandez, saw his side clinch a thrilling 4-3 win in the opening round was followed up a fortnight later by a winning goal and an assist for Nicolas Bertolo in the 3-2 victory at home to an impressive Cagliari.

This weekend provides Miccoli the chance to extend his early season purple patch against Milan at the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza if he is fit. Zamparini described Miccoli’s chances of playing as more no than yes on Wednesday but Palermo caretaker Coach Devis Mangia will be praying he is fit to continue his hot streak and go on to reproduce similar form like he did the 2009/10 season when he bagged 19 goals and created another eight in a campaign which saw the Sicilians almost reach the Champions League qualifying round.

Miccoli, who spent two years in the Rossoneri’s youth team, will once again be expected to lead from the front tomorrow night in Mangia’s favoured 4-4-2 formation. Since Milan’s 3-1 victory over Palermo last November, the Rosanero have beaten Milan in two of the teams’ last three meetings and can count themselves unlucky it was not three out of three given the way they played last time out at the San Siro in the Coppa Italia semi-final. With Milan in the form they are currently in, a meeting with Miccoli and Mangia could prove to be a magical one for Palermo.

[RomaShield27]

http://inbedwithmaradona.com/journal/20 ... ience.html

[RomaShield27]

Good God, there are no words:



Monday December 19 2011 – By Football Italia staff – http://www.football-italia.net/node/13952

Serie A outfit Palermo have confirmed that they have dismissed boss Devis Mangia and his staff on Monday. Mangia, hired on the eve of the new season, has been shown the door after the 2-0 Sicilian derby loss to Catania this weekend.

Mangia was promoted from Primavera boss to first team Coach after the decision to fire Stefano Pioli before this season’s Serie A had even begun.

Palermo have yet to name a successor, but Bortolo Mutti is the early favourite for the Stadio Barbera hotseat.

The outfit are currently 10th in Serie A – 13 points behind leaders Juventus and eight clear of the relegation zone.

[Lupa]

With the hiring of Bortolo Mutti, Palermo have now made 23 managerial changes in the last 10 years (and four in 2011) under crazypants owner Maurizio Zamparini -- a man who makes Roman Abramovich seem patient by comparison.

Making the dismissal of former manager Devis Mangia a bit more memorable than the many others was the fact that the naively optimistic gaffer brought a box of a panettone -- the Italian Christmas bread to his press conference ahead of Palermo's Sicilian derby loss to Catania over the weekend. In Italy, there's a saying that a doomed manager "won't get to eat his panettone," meaning he'll be gone before Christmas. Mangia (whose surname coincidentally means "eat"), thought he was playing a little joke with the press, but he bought his panettone a little too soon. Palermo currently sit 10th in the Serie A table.

Upon removing Mangia and naming his next sacrificial lamb, Zamparini said (via Football Italia):

"I say to the fans to stay calm and have confidence in my work. I'm working like crazy for them. The real fans are seen in difficult moments like this. In football there are ups and downs."

And 23 managerial changes in 10 years. He's definitely right about that "working like crazy" part.

http://sports.yahoo.com/soccer/blog/dir ... sow-wp7586

[RomaShield27]

How do the Palermo fans tolerate Zamperini and all his madness? Its ridiculous. They lose about five key players from last season and were goin to need time to get going again, but no manager can build anything under Zamperini. You would think the fans would protest against him.

[forzaitalia]

I know the results against Cesena and Catania have been poor, but before that Cesena game they had a 100% home win record? He is just ridiculous, Zamperini.

[red]

Why is it to ridiculous to sack a coach who can't even get his team to score a goal away from home?

I happen to think this is a relatively reasonable sacking by Zamparini's standards.

[RomaShield27]

Mangia may not have been doing the best of jobs at the moment, for sure, but thats not really the point for me. Its about giving a manager time to mould his team the way he wants. Mangia only took over a week or so before the season started – after supposed highly-rated Stefano Pioli was fired after only a month or something (a month!) – and so hardly had time to work on tactics, never mind bringing in new players. All this on top of losing some of their best players like Pastore, Cassani, Bovo and Sirigu, and not adequately replacing them. Hiring and firing managers at will is no way to run a football club; a manager should be given at least one full season to work with the team and implement his methods. I like Palermo and think they could have been a real force in the Italian game if a proper manager – like Delio Rossi, say – were given the proper time, but under Zamperini that doesn't happen, and so they're doomed from season to season.

[RomaShield27]

Palermo at the crossroads of Serie A survival
http://www.footballitaliano.co.uk/p6_1_ ... um=twitter

By Lorenzo Vicini / Wednesday 18 January 2012

Nearly eight months ago, Palermo took the pitch in front of 40,000 adoring fans with a Coppa Italia title on the line. The team had earned success with starlets such as Javier Pastore, Salvatore Sirigu and Antonio Nocerino bolstered by a group of veterans like Mattia Cassani, Cesare Bovo, Giulio Migliaccio and Fabrizio Miccoli all led by a respected and intelligent tactician in Delio Rossi. Despite losing the final, the Rosanero had a steady core of talented and gritty individuals that could keep Palermo playing at a high level for seasons to come – if kept in tact. After an offseason of tremendous change, the Sicilians now find themselves at the crossroads of Serie A survival, only six points above the relegation zone with the second half of the season about to start.

Palermo owner Maurizio Zamparini spent the summer overhauling his team. Bovo, Cassani, Nocerino, Pastore and Sirigu were all sold and Stefano Pioli was brought in to lead the squad. The tempestuous Zamparini axed Pioli after a summer of disappointing results and Primavera Coach Devis Mangia was put in charge. Challenged with taking over a team he had no part in putting together, the unproven Mangia far exceeded expectations – even setting a new club record for most consecutive wins at home to start a season. But like many of his predecessors, once the young Mangia ran into a rut, he was axed by the Palermo patron.

Under the direction of Bortolo Mutti, the Rosanero have not managed to return to winning ways, earning only one point from three games. Rumors circulated after Sunday's defeat against Chievo that Mutti would be sacked with Mangia being re-instated; yet, Zamparini exercised patience by publicly supporting the Palermo coach despite expressing his worry over the lack of positive results. Given the short leash by which Zamparini operates, the weekend's match against Genoa could be the last chance Mutti has before he is also shown the door.

And therein lies part of the problem. With the club already operating without a true sporting director (Sean Sogliano resigned two months ago), Palermo have been handicapped in the winter transfer window. While the signing of Italian international Emiliano Viviano is a boost to the goalkeeping corps, the position was hardly a weakness with Francesco Benussi and Alexandros Tzorvas playing adequately. The Rosanero have sought to bring in reinforcements such as Arevalo Rios, Angelo Palombo and even Luca Rigoni but the only midfielder on the verge of arriving is Bari captain and Mutti man Massimo Donati.

With only a couple weeks left before the transfer window closes, Zamparini needs to address the needs of the team in addition to whether or not the club will continue with Mutti at the helm. Much like Mangia was forced to work with players brought in specifically for Pioli (Francesco Della Rocca and Edgar Alvarez), the risk is that another tactician will be forced to deal with players brought in at the behest of Mutti. In order to ensure safety, Zamparini must decide whether or not he can make do with Mutti for the rest of the season or whether someone else gives the Rosanero the best chance for success. The next few weeks will be critical for the future of Palermo. The hope is that Zamparini will make the right decisions for the safety of a club that was on the precipice of greatness just a short time ago.

[taz]

Palermo have officially loaned defender Mauro Cetto out to French side Lille until the end of the season.

The Argentine joined over the summer, but has struggled to make an impact and disappointed during his few Serie A appearances.

Lille confirmed they have taken Cetto on a six-month loan with no option to buy.

This is a return to Ligue 1 for Cetto, who played for Nantes from 2002 to 2007, then Toulouse from 2008 until he came to Palermo.

[RomaShield27]

Miccoli awaits Palermo sign
Friday February 24 2012 / http://www.football-italia.net/node/16031?

Fabrizio Miccoli has made Palermo history, but admits his contract renewal is out his hands. “It depends on the club.” The ‘Pocket Striker’ is a key figure in the squad, but it’s not clear how much longer he’ll be at the Stadio Barbera.

“I am very happy to have become Palermo’s record goal scorer, as I married this project because I firmly believed in it. Now I want to continue like this without stopping.

“I see many people who respect me and this gives me a lot of strength, as they help me do well for Palermo and for myself.

“At the moment our objective is to reach 40 points, then we’ll make the most of the remaining games to achieve something satisfying.

“As for my future, I am relaxed, as I have a splendid rapport with President Maurizio Zamparini and have another year left on my contract.

“A renewal depends on the club, but I can say my priority is Palermo.”