Calcio Catania

[Messinterista]

Discuss all things regarding the Sicilian club Catania here.

[taz]

David Suazo has officially completed his move to Catania after the deal with Cagliari fell apart.

The Inter striker has spent many of the last few seasons on the bench or in the stands at San Siro, then on loan at Benfica and Genoa.

He had been training with his old club Cagliari, but was told to leave after refusing to sign the contract that was proposed.

Novara were also interested, but Suazo has now officially signed for Catania on a one-year contract.

The deal includes an option to extend to June 2013.

[taz]

Catania have announced the signing of striker Gonzalo Bergessio from Saint-Etienne after a successful loan spell for an undisclosed fee.

The 27-year-old impressed in Serie A last season when he scored five goals in 12 matches during a productive spell in Italy.

"Gonzalo Bergessio is a Catania player," said Catania general manager, Pietro Lo Monaco.

The arrival of the Argentina-born marksman to the club has heightened speculation that his countrymen Maxi Lopez could be shown the exit door.

He added: "If Maxi Lopez stayed it would mean we'd be hunting for flies with a cannon, because with him and Bergessio, we'd have two extraordinary forwards," added Lo Monaco.

"In any case, Catania's transfer dealings have not yet finished."

[taz]

Nicola Legrottaglie has expressed his delight after he signed a contract with Catania.

The veteran stopper has been picked up on a free transfer after Milan opted against handing him a new deal this summer.

“I’m happy with this new adventure and honoured to wear this shirt,” the 35-year-old told Itasportpress.it.

“I thank President Antonino Pulvirenti and director Pietro Lo Monaco who have shown that they respect me.

“I told Lo Monaco that I would only sign for Catania because I had the desire to do something important.

“Had that not been the case then I would have just retired. I have the right motivation to take Catania to a position which they deserve.”

The former Italian international has signed a two-year deal at the Stadio Massimino.

Catania were looking for a new centre-back after they sold Matias Silvestre to Sicilian rivals Palermo.

[RomaShield27]

http://www.thefootballexpress.co.uk/201 ... igh-tempo/

Vincenzo Montella experienced his first taste of Serie A management last season when he took charge of Roma after the downfall of Claudio Ranieri, things didn’t quite go to plan though. His record at the club was just about positive, but not enough to convince the new ownership of the former youth coach’s credentials and he was left looking for a new flame in June.

u Liotru: the symbol of Catania
Montella turned up at Catania with positive ideas and, despite his experience being called into question before he’d had a chance to do anything, he has had a relatively positive start to the season so far. However, at one point it looked like the side may have had the carpet swept from beneath their feet before they could even start the season. A disagreement between president Nino Pulvirenti and sporting director Pietro Lo Monaco saw the talent finder, Lo Monaco, attempt to resign before being persuaded to return.

After 13 games last season they had accumulated 17 points, with the help of 4 wins – none of which came away from home – and 5 draws. This season they had already equalled that points tally with one game less, and have already won a game away from home – two weekends ago against Lecce. Quiet confidence would be a reasonable stance to assume. Under the, dour, defensive, and now unemployed, Marco Giampaolo the side scored fewer goals as well – 11 compared to Montella’s 14 – though they had conceded fewer as well. So far so good for the Elephants then.

Tactically, Montella had been expected to retain blind faith in a 4-3-3 formation, but he has shown a great deal of versatility since arriving at the Sicilian club. Catania have turned out in 3 different formations in the last 12 games. The first four games saw the expected 4-3-3 but since then they have played in a 5-3-2 or a 3-5-2. The coach has asked them to maintain a high tempo throughout their games and they have pressed with lots of intensity.


Catania's 3-5-2/5-3-2 formation
Defensive frailties
Catania’s defensive line provides an interesting base from which to begin dissecting the side. The defensive line has been the Achilles heel, or gaping hole, of the side – particularly away from home where they have conceded 13 out of 18 so far. For the majority of the season so far they have played as a back three. They haven’t yet looked comfortable or organised so far this season and this has caused the majority of goals to be conceded. The heavy defeat to AC Milan (4-0) was underlined by the chaos in the defensive ranks whenever the Rossoneri attacked.


Catania's 3-man back line
While Legrottaglie is now 35 years of age, his reading of the game is still very good and the rest of the regular back line are young enough to get about: Giuseppe Bellusci (22), Nicolas Spolli (28) and Giovanni Marchese (27). Communication and organisation appear to be a problem, but there have been some encouraging signs. There was evidence of their flexibility against Fiorentina where they morphed between a back three and a back four. In this instance Marchese (left wing-back) and Bellusci (right centre-back) picked up Fiorentina’s wide players when defending, but Marchese pushed on when Catania had possession.

Another concern for the fans, and quirky decision from Montella, is that Davide Lanzafame has been playing as a right wing-back in the majority of the Juventus loanee’s appearances. Lanzafame has been more commonly known to play as an attacking midfielder or winger and this has shown through in his games for Catania. He isn’t disciplined when tracking back and regularly wanders a long way in-field, on every possible occasion. When Lanzafame hasn’t played, we have seen the 28 year old Argentine midfielder, Mariano Izco, who is only a little more defensively sound. This is a problem position for Montella, a problem he may look to address in January.


Here we see that Marchese has come right out to the left to pick up, while the rest of the defence shuffles into a compact four-man line
An unorthodox midfield
Catania have played with a three man midfield in all of their games this season, but it hasn’t been a conventional three man midfield. The expected make-up of a three man midfield is to have a destroyer, a runner and a creative player. Catania don’t have a destroyer, opting instead to play two creative players – Sergio Almiron and Francesco Lodi – alongside the shuttling Gennaro Delvecchio, usually.

Delvecchio, now 33, has come under a hail of criticism for his, admittedly, poor technique and at times shocking footwork. But the man who enjoyed his best spell at Sampdoria a few years ago has a tremendous amount of stamina, and his ability to get forward into space without the ball that adds to the team’s overall attacking play. Defensively he is the closest they have to a destroyer/defensive midfielder, but his tackling lacks the accuracy necessary for this role.


Almiron breaking into the penalty area, a goal came from the resulting corner
Last season at Bari Sergio Almiron was playing at the base of a midfield diamond. The Argentine can be regarded as something of an incredibly poor and destitute man’s Juan Sebastian Veron. Almiron passes the ball well, his dribbling is also very good – and he’s bald, what more do you want? For Catania Almiron is a player who arrives late into the penalty area looking to get attempts on target or pick up scraps, but he is also instrumental in linking play between the forwards and the rest of the midfield.

The conductor of the side
The star of the midfield trio though is undoubtedly Francesco Lodi. The former Empoli midfielder was nicknamed the ‘Maradona of Catania’ by the Gazzetta dello Sport – a title he has rapidly dismissed as folly, I should add. Lodi has been the Sicilians’ chief orchestrator, and a joy to watch since joining in January 2010.

Lodi possesses the relevant attributes to play in the centre of midfield in front of the defence. According to Massimo Lucchesi’s ‘Attacking Soccer: a tactical analysis’, a central midfielder in a 3-5-2 should have:

“good technical skills, allowing him to organise play” and he will be “tactically intelligent”

From the base of the midfield three Lodi collects the ball and despatches it to all parts of the field. As you would expect, Lodi has the made the highest number of passes attempted of the whole side (680) at an accuracy of 82.8%. They haven’t all been short sideways passes either, with 112 of his attempted passes being long balls of which 90 have been accurate.

His set pieces are also particularly potent, Catania have scored 8 out of 14 goals from set pieces this season. Last season against Lecce he made the difference when Catania were 2-1 down with two goals from free kicks. Lodi admitted that his favourite goal was a free kick he scored against Juventus to level the scores at 2-2 in the 95th minute. Lodi said that it remained his favourite “because I scored it against a champion like Buffon”. Surprisingly, Lodi doesn’t spend as much time as you might expect honing his free kicks:

“When I train during the week, I’ll take more or less ten free kicks, just to keep my foot warmed up”

A robust and diverse attack
Catania’s attack has been what quite predictable, whether playing as a 2 or a 3 man strikeforce. A target man (usually Gonzalo Bergessio , but occasionally Maxi Lopez) flanked by one or two support strikers who will pick the ball up in deeper positions and probe the wide areas.

For the last two seasons much of the responsibility for scoring the goals was on the shoulders of Maxi Lopez. This was a role that often saw him isolated, up to 40 yards away from team mates at times, but he still bagged 19 goals in those 2 seasons. Montella hasn’t chosen Lopez as often as his predecessors, but there have still been rumours linking the Argentine to a mid-season move to AC Milan.


Lopez is very good at holding the ball up and inventing goalscoring opportunities from thin air. He tends to play on the shoulder of the last man and this leads to lots of offside decisions being given against him. His ability to inter link with his team mates is poor though, because his passing isn’t very good. He does, however, produce the odd peach of a goal.

Gonzalo Bergessio secured a permanent move, though, scoring 5 goals in 13 appearances in the second half of last season – vital in Catania’s struggle toward safety. When Bergessio was bought permanently, it appeared that he would be replacing Maxi Lopez – who was due to move to Fiorentina, but while Lopez is still in Sicily, Bergessio has usurped his compatriot’s starting spot.

For Catania Bergessio plays almost exclusively as the most advanced player. Playing on the shoulder of the last man he is able to stretch the pitch for Catania, which contains the opposition defences and produces plenty of space for his midfielders to work in.


Gonzalo Bergessio gambles on the ball over the top as soon as Almiron receives the ball

Here we can see the space created by Bergessio's run because the defensive line has had to retreat in case a ball is played over the top into an empty-half pitch. Almiron passes to a midfielder in acres of space.
A willing runner, who is always ready to gamble, Bergessio doesn’t have blistering pace but makes up for it with superb movement and anticipation. A lot of his goals come from tap-ins because he arrives to meet a cross before the defenders have picked out its trajectory. His 5 goals for Catania last season depict this perfectly.

As well as these poaching tendencies, he has also done very well when holding the ball up and often drifts to the right wing and looks to cross once his team mates arrived. His crossing needs a little more work before he can be satisfied with that skill.

Diamond in the rough
Fans of most mid-table clubs have little to look forward to on match days. Alejandro Gomez, though, is reason enough for anyone to get excited. The 23 year old Argentine joined from San Lorenzo before the start of last season and has been a fixture in the side since. Gomez won the U20 World Cup in 2007, together with the likes of Emiliano Insua, Ever Banega, Maxi Moralez and Angel Di Maria.


Alejandro Gomez all alone in the opposition half confronted by 3 players, he skilfully evades their challenges and is able to win a free kick outside the 18 yard box
Gomez has played just behind the striker and on the right of a forward three this season. The short (164cm) forward is a wonderful dribbler of the ball, with two very quick and skilful feet. He can play his way out of trouble and has provided the second highest number of key passes for the side, though he has just a single assist to show for it so far.

Conclusion
Montella’s first real go at management has been a pleasant and successful surprise so far. The youngest manager in the division has been able to get his side to adapt and play in various formations and at a high tempo. It remains to be seen whether he will retain Maxi Lopez in January, but Bergessio appears to have filled the void anyway.

The fixture list also looks very good for them now that they have played six of the top sides: Juventus, Inter and Napoli at home as well as Fiorentina, Lazio and Milan away. The upcoming games, though, will be against the teams they usually scrap with for positions in the mediocre nether regions of the table. If Catania fail to win enough of these games Montella will come under some considerable pressure, but if they remain focused a top half finish should be the goal for the rest of the season.

You can follow Rocco Cammisola on twitter (@rcammisola).

[taz]

Catania have agreed to loan Argentine defender Pablo Alvarez to Zaragoza until the end of the season.

The 27-year-old has struggled to impose himself at Catania since his arrival in 2008, making just six Serie A appearances since the start of the season.

He joins Zaragoza with the task of helping the Blanquillos avoid relegation as they sit at the bottom of the table, with a mere 12 points from 20 matches.

Nevertheless, Catania have signed Lazio goalkeeper Juan Pablo Carrizo on a six-month contract, with aim to make a more permanent deal in the summer, depending on performances.

The 27-year-old custodian has been unable to make his mark at the Stadio Olimpico, spending the last two seasons on loan at Zaragoza and River Plate.

[RomaShield27]

Bandini: Catania on the verge of the Promised Land

http://blogs.thescore.com/footyblog/201 ... ised-land/
Posted by Paolo Bandini under Serie A on Mar 20, 2012

On Monday night in Catania, Nicola Legrottaglie stood before a crowd of 500 people in a disused industrial plant and promised them eternal life. Perspectives on whether or not the player had lost his mind may depend on your religious persuasion. Legrottaglie was hosting the first meeting of his newly founded Paradise Mission – an evangelical Christian prayer group – in Le Ciminerie, a former sulphur refining complex which has since been converted into a convention center.

What we can say for certain is that Legrottaglie had already taken many of those in attendance to paradise. Just one night earlier, in fact, when the defender’s late winner against Lazio sent the city into paroxysms of delight. “Clamoroso al Cibali” (Sensation at the Cibali) was the headline in Gazzetta dello Sport on Monday, the same words famously used by the commentator Sandro Ciotti to describe the Sicilian side’s derailing of Inter’s title hopes with a 2-0 upset back in June 1961.

This victory might not have represented quite such a shock (although third-placed Lazio did boast one of the best away records in the league) yet the context did indeed render it sensational. Catania, who started the season with the stated aim of avoiding relegation, had just crossed the 40 point threshold with 10 games to go. Never before had the club accrued so many points (41), so many victories (10) and so few losses (seven) this far into a top-flight season.

By the end of Sunday night, the club was level with both Inter and Roma in sixth place, though the latter would win their game in hand against Genoa the following evening to pull back clear. Even then, they were too late to prevent the inevitable questions from being raised. Wasn’t it Roma who had dismissed Vincenzo Montella in the summer, so as to make room for Luis Enrique? How was it that their cast-off was achieving similar success on a fraction of the budget afforded to the new man?

Montella himself would likely have little time for such questions. Interviewed by Corriere dello Sport back in November, the former striker, much loved for his achievements as a player in Rome, said he had been unready for the role. Despite achieving extraordinary success as coach of Roma’s Under-15s by winning all of his 21 games in charge that season, Montella had experienced a mixed few months after replacing Claudio Ranieri as manager of the senior side in February last year. The team were fifth when he took charge, and finished sixth.

“I believe it would have been a mistake,” he told Corriere dello Sport when asked if he felt Roma should have given him more time. “I wouldn’t have said no if they’d offered the job to me, but I asked the directors not to put me in an embarrassing situation. I would have said yes but in a place like Rome it is difficult for the false-starts of a young manager to be pardoned.”

Such words may just be a coping mechanism of course, a way of laughing off a painful episode, yet humility has been a characteristic of Montella’s young managerial career. “Tactics interest me little,” he insisted when first handed the reins at Roma yet since then he has shown himself to be more astute in this department than might reasonably be expected of one so inexperienced. Already at Catania he has got his team to a point where they can be effective playing out of either a 4-3-3 or a 3-5-2.

His initial decision to utilise the latter was, in fairness, a pragmatic response to the tools at his disposal. Montella quickly realised that a four-man defence was impractical for a squad so short of talent at full-back and instead midfielders such as Mariano Izco and the on-loan Davide Lanzafame were converted into makeshift wing-backs. Imperfect ones, certainly, but effective enough in a league where few teams boast genuine attacking width.

Marco Motta’s arrival on loan from Juventus in January then allowed him to shift back to a four-man defence. That the right-back has thus far looked a drastically better player than the one seen in either Rome or Turin over the last two-and-a-half years speaks well to Montella’s man-management.

The real stars of the show have been elsewhere though, with Legrottaglie not only matching his record scoring tally with his fourth goal of the season against Lazio, but also putting in defensive performances of the highest calibre, while Francesco Lodi enjoys his most effective season just behind the attack. The Argentinian trio of Pablo Barrientos, Alejandro Gómez and Gonzalo Bergessio have offered significant creative input. Reaching desperately for the appropriate words to describe the former in a recent interview, the sporting director Pietro Lo Monaco simply blurted out: “Barrientos is football”.

Lo Monaco himself might be the real star of this show as the man behind the transfer policy of a club who not only boast one of the lowest wage bills in Serie A, but have also been one of very few clubs in the division successfully turning a profit. The club has moved on players such as Juan Manuel Vargas, Jorge Andrés Martinez and potentially now Maxi Lopez (Milan paid to take him on loan and have an option to buy at the end of the season for €8m) yet continued to find viable replacements.

Montella, for instance, has Catania just five points shy of their all-time points record (46) in Serie A, but that mark was only set last year in a season which started with Marco Giampaolo on the bench and finished with Diego Simeone. The previous record had been set just a season earlier through the combined efforts of Gianluca Atzori and Sinisa Mihajlovic, and the one before that by Walter Zenga in 2008-09.

The club, in other words, has shown consistent year-on-year improvement regardless of who is picking the team. Little wonder Antonio Pulvirenti should be so quick to make amends when Lo Monaco attempted to resign in July. The team owner had been angered by Lo Monaco’s public suggestion that he was considering joining a consortium to buy Salernitana but would not countenance allowing the director to leave, describing him as “our Messi”.

Deserved praise, but this Messi has done all he can now for this season’s campaign by putting together the best team he could. Now it is up to those players and their manager, Montella, to see how far this sensational season can go.

“Our first objective was safety; now we have reached 40 points, we will set ourselves the target of reaching 50,” said Legrottaglie on Monday. “After that, why not aim for Europa League qualification?” One way or another, he is determined to guide the people of Catania through to the promised land.

[Lupa]

I was intending to post that here, but I got distracted when I saw that Bandini had blogged about Borini last week. Nice to see Montella getting some recognition, even if they are quick to point out that Catania had been on the rise. I'd *hate* to see Montella at Inter, but don't think he's crazy enough to do that. I could see him going to Samp at some point, but oddly enough right now he'd be better off at Catania.

[Messinterista]

I hope he leaves them and they get relegated next year.

[RomaShield27]

Don't like Catania, Messinese Interista? I wonder why that is...?

Likewise, Lupa. I would hate to see him go to the likes of Inter. I'm not so sure he would take the job, though, even if offered. He said himself he wasn't quite ready for a high-pressure job like Roma and Inter would be much the same, if not worse, and he's better off continuing to learn his trade a smaller club.

He's continuing to make great strides at Catania and I hope it continues and then eventually one day perhaps we'll see him back at Roma. Not only is he doing great things with Catania but the way he conducts himself and speaks to the media and deals with issues is all very professional and admirable.

[Messinterista]

Just a little hate for them. Seeing them do so well makes me sick