Udinese Calcio

[RomaShield27]

Oh deary me poor Udinese, what a disaster.

'Maicosuel’s panenka penalty FAIL (Udinese) v Braga':

http://www.101greatgoals.com/gvideos/ma ... e-v-braga/

[Bagg10]

http://video.repubblica.it/sport/udines ... 831/102211

[Bagg10]

Tuesday August 28 2012

Guidolin: 'It's all my fault'
By Football Italia staff

Francesco Guidolin shouldered all the blame for Udinese’s exit and hinted he could offer his resignation. “Evidently I am not capable of leading a team into the Champions League.”

The Coach spoke with a tremble in his voice and was clearly extremely upset after the 1-1 play-off draw, leading to a penalty shoot-out elimination against Sporting Braga.

“This is causing us enormous pain. I have nothing else to add. I thank my players for giving their absolute all tonight, each drop of sweat and they could not have given more,” said Guidolin.

“I am immensely sorry for me, for the players and for the fans. Evidently I am not capable of leading a team into the Champions League. When you get so close several times and can’t go through, you have to learn from that experience and accept the truth.

“Sporting Braga did better over the two legs, so they deserved to go through. Unfortunately we were incapable of giving more and the Coach has to take responsibility, because a team like Udinese ought to play better.

“I blame the Coach, as the team should’ve been more prepared for this play-off. Sport is raw and cruel, so there is no need to sugar-coat it or make things seem nicer than they are.

“I am going home now to hopefully rest and reflect on the situation. That is all.”

Guidolin was asked whether this meant he was considering his immediate future, but the tactician walked away from the Sky Sport Italia interviewer.

He had already threatened to resign at the end of last season, insisting he was suffering from too much stress and perhaps would not be able to recover in time for the play-off.

http://www.football-italia.net/24427/gu ... l-my-fault

[forzaitalia]

Guidolin really shouldn't be so hard on himself. He's done fantastically overall at Udinese and, if Armero could control/kick a ball properly and Maicosuel didn't take that sh*tty penalty, they may have qualified. All ifs and buts of course but a major reason they reached the CL qualifiers in the first place is down to him....

[Bagg10]

I think he was just trying to take attention off his players (especially Armero and Maicosuel). It'll be interesting to see how they do in serie a this season.

[RomaShield27]

Interesting article on Zola and Watford, feeder club to Udinese.



Italian tells Glenn Moore how he handles unique demands of working with loan signings thrust upon him by Pozzo family who also run Udinese

/ GLENN MOORE / FRIDAY 26 OCTOBER 2012

Takeovers by foreign businessmen have become commonplace in English football but few have aroused as much criticism as the Pozzo family's Watford Experiment. In a few short weeks following the Italians' summer arrival England's original "community club", with one of its most forward-thinking youth programmes, appeared to have become a feeder club for Serie A's Udinese.

The first act of the new owners, who also owned Granada, of La Liga, was to brutally axe manager and ex-player Sean Dyche, who had achieved a highly creditable 11th-place finish last season. Next they sent 10 players from Udinese (of seven nationalities) and two from Granada to Vicarage Road (though described as loanees, being cross-border deals these are technically no-fee transfers). Finally the Pozzos, though having spoken well of Watford's youth system, downgraded the club's EPPP academy application from category one to category three.

This sequence of events has made many people uncomfortable in the wider game, but who better to articulate a defence of the Pozzo method than Zola, one of the English game's most talented and popular foreign players? It thus appeared a Hornets' PR exercise when Zola and his staff, despite returning home at 3am Wednesday morning after a shattering defeat at promotion-chasing Cardiff City, losing in the 94th-minute after two players were dismissed, pitched up at Vicarage Road a few hours later to host a training session for journalists followed by a match.

The event was actually organised by club sponsors Football Manager and the press are there in conjunction with the 2013 edition of the computer game, with several having travelled from overseas. Nevertheless, Zola and his coaches put the media through their paces, then joined in the match with a good humour that belied the previous night's frustrations.

Showered and refreshed Zola then addressed the doubts surrounding the club's takeover. "There are more and more clubs in this country owned by foreign people and they may have different ideas, different ways to run football clubs," he said. "I can understand people may be unsure, but they are putting in their own money and want to do things in a certain way. As long as they improve the club, they improve the community where the club is playing, I don't mind. An open mind does not cause any damage.

"The academy downgrading is a bit that nobody has enjoyed, but I think that is part of the plan because they limit the budget for this year," added Zola. "It is a financial reason. If next year things go well we can go back to what we were before."

Since even Zola admits promotion this season is unlikely that prognosis seems optimistic. Category One academy budgets are in the region of £2m a year, category three is £250,000-£500,000, so downgrading is a significant saving for a club of Watford's size. The celebrated link with the Harefield Academy means Watford would still provide more than most category three academies, but there are inevitably concerns as to the message it sends out.

For the moment, though, academy coaches keen to retain and inspire their charges can still point to first-team graduates, with Tommie Hoban, 18, scoring at Cardiff, Adam Thompson, 20 last month, coming off the bench.

"The academy is brilliant," said Zola. "They do a remarkable job. The boys are used to playing football. When Adam Thompson came on at Cardiff he was very good."

Thompson is one of 30 players Zola has used as he tries to assess a squad bloated to 42 players (eight of whom are now out on loan) by the new recruits while also overhauling the club's playing style and, of course, attempting to win matches.

"The squad is too big," he admits as we sit in the dugout. "There are moments when it is difficult. When you have to pick the squad the day before the game, and there are seven or eight players left outside to train on their own, it is not easy, but there are advantages like now when we have a lot of injuries and suspensions but we still have options."

But there must be problems integrating the inherited players with the new ones, plus summer signings such as Manuel Almunia and Fitz Hall?

"I have a mature bunch of players, although there are moments that are not ideal, of tension when you have so many bodies and can only play 11. But the bond in the camp is getting better and better. There are a lot of languages but the majority speak English and those that don't are learning it."

Six of the 14 that played in Cardiff were "loanees", including both players sent off, Chelsea's Nat Chalobah and Daniel Pudil, fresh from Udinese. But it appears as if most players have been given a chance and the English ones may well have been disadvantaged by Zola's switch to 3-5-2.

A disciple of Nevio Scala, his coach at Parma, Zola wants his team to be adaptable in formation and to play from the back, neither attributes common in English defenders as Micah Richards underlined after Manchester City's defeat in Amsterdam on Wednesday.

"Foreign players are more prepared to take on board different ideas of football," said Zola. "They have been taught since they were young players to have more ideas. English players do have great technique, but only play one way. They know that system and don't want to change it when in football there are so many ways to win a game. The more ways you can play the more unpredictable you are as a team.

"I am asking players to change their mentality, to play in a different way. That does not happen in a month or two. You can do 20 days' training and it goes well, but at the first difficulty players go back to how they achieved results before. As a manager you have to enforce yourself and teach them they will be better players if they do what you say."

This, obviously, takes time and Watford's results have been mixed. They go into today's match against Blackburn Rovers in 15th place, but so tight is the Championship that is only four points off the play-offs. "This year is a transition year," added Zola. "The target is not to win the league or go up, we will have a go, obviously we will try our best, but this year we are trying to find a good balance, learning about the league and getting ready for a better go next year."

Some of the recruits from Udinese and elsewhere will be gone by then, but Watford have always sold their talent, with Marvin Sordell and Adrian Mariappa moving to Premiershit clubs this year. Zola said his staff are his own recruits while he chose some of the "loanees", others he asked for a type of player, and was then given a selection to choose from. "It helps I do not have to go into the transfer market for the players," he said.

Is that unfair to the other clubs in the Championship? Watford fans might argue it is unfair that five of the teams in the division receive £16m in parachute payments while others like Cardiff, Nottingham Forest and Leicester City also benefit from overseas investment. These clubs simply buy players instead of taking them on loan. Nor is Watford's dependence on loanees unique, with Premiershit clubs stockpiling talent. Working the loan market is a necessity for Championship clubs and it has influenced several recent promotions. As for the sacking of Dyche... Unfair it may be but Zola himself has lost his job following a change of ownership, after West Ham were taken over by David Sullivan and David Gold. Zola came ninth and 17th at Upton Park, then was replaced by Avram Grant, who took the Hammers down. "Experiences make you better and that was a hell of an experience," he recalled. "There were difficult moments, but those moments make you better, so that is good."

Now he is involved in another unusual and sometimes difficult experience. The jury remains out on Zola as a manager, and the Pozzo experiment, but both have perhaps been unduly maligned. While most Watford fans are unhappy at the nature of Dyche's departure, and the downgrading of the academy, they are aware the club was heading towards financial meltdown under the previous owners. Now it appears on a stable footing and they are seeing players such Matej Vydra, Almen Abdi and Neuton, who are a cut above what they have been used to. These players may be on loan but so, in recent seasons, were Ben Foster, Tom Cleverley and Henri Lansbury.

What is happening at Watford is not ideal, far from it, but nor are many aspects of the modern game. Until the game's wealth is more equitably distributed and its spending reined in it is hard not to have sympathy with those Watford fans who would prefer to be an offshoot of Udinese than the next Portsmouth.

Temporary Hornets

Player Nationality Parent club

Almen Abdi Swiss Udinese

Matej Vydra Czech Udinese

Steve Beleck Cameroon Udinese

Daniel Pudil Czech Granada

Ikechi Anya Scottish Granada

tender Alex Geijo Swiss Udinese

Marco Cassetti Italian Udinese

G Mujangi Bia Belgian S Liege

Nathaniel Chalobah English Chelsea

Jean-Alain Fanchone French Udinese

Neuton Piccoli Brazillian Udinese

Lars (Joel) Ekstrand Swedish Udinese

Christian Battocchio Italian Udinese

Fernando Forestieri Italian Udinese

[RomaShield27]

Di Natale sorry for 'instinctive gesture'
Saturday November 3 2012 / http://www.football-italia.net/26854/di ... ve-gesture

Antonio Di Natale has written a note to explain why he made the “instinctive gesture in the heat of the moment” to silence Udinese fans.

The captain took his finger to his lips after scoring the last-minute equaliser in Wednesday’s 2-2 draw with Catania.

“It was an instinctive gesture in the heat of the moment at the end of a tough and tense game. In my view, the gesture gained more media attention than it warranted.

“I love Udine, this city, the jersey and the fans who have always made me feel one of them. I owe everything to this club that believed in me and these supporters who always loved me like a son.”

It is still not entirely clear what Di Natale was gesturing against, as some report it was for jeers the team was receiving when 2-1 down to Catania, while others suggest the native Neapolitan heard insulting chants aimed towards southern Italians.

“I am sorry if on Wednesday night someone was offended by my gesture and for that I apologise to the Friulani fans and our splendid curva. I think my personal and professional history proves more than any words how much I care about Udine.

“As far as I am concerned, this incident is closed and I am focused only on helping Udinese to go as far as possible in Italy and Europe.”

[forzaitalia]

Looks like this lot are heading out of Europe, hope they never come back in if this is how they perform.......dire stuff.

[RomaShield27]

Udinese Club Focus: Would The Real Zebrette Please Stand Up
http://forzaitalianfootball.com/2012/11 ... q4.twitter

Francesco Guidolin can no longer recognize his own team. “I am sure this cannot be the real Udinese,” the 57 year old coach told the team’s official website after a 3-0 loss to Lazio this past Tuesday. “We need to find the lost track.”

And he is right. With the amount of players out on loan, and out injured, it is hard to identify the current squad. Even with the cartoonish red lettering on the back of their shirts, the team is not who they use to be.

The Friulano paper Messenger Veneto echoed Guidolin’s concerns, stating the team was “unrecognizable,” and claiming “Udinese hoisted the white flag” in the Italian capital.

However, recognizable or not, there should be no excuse for the embarrassment of the match against Lazio. Prior to the game the Zebrette were on a 6-match undefeated streak. Having just crashed out of the Europa League, it was assumed Udinese would return to Italy focused and determined to make their way up the table, back into one of the qualifying spots they have grown accustom to over the last couple years.

On paper, their season has not been too terrible. With only four losses—to Fiorentina, Juventus, Napoli, and now Lazio—the Friulano side have played some spectacular games, including a late, 3-2 win over Roma, in Rome. That said, it has not been enough to make them Italian contenders; with only three wins and seven draws, it will be hard for a late season catch-up.

And what Udinese are lacking in points, they also lack in playable players. Their current injury roster includes: Paulo Barreto, Mehdi Benatia, Dusan Basta, Diego Fabbrini, Andrea Lazzari, Luis Muriel, and Giampiero Pinzi. The team has been run thin and it is becoming painfully obvious.

It is also clear that confidence is down. Recently a poll on Tutto Mercato Web asked readers to vote for the “strongest goalkeeper in the league.” Former Udinese keeper Samir Handanovic, now at Inter, came in first with 32.08 per cent of the vote, while his successor, current Udinese keeper Zeljko Brkic, came in dead last, with 1.14 per cent.

Which is a shame, because prior to the three goals conceded at Lazio, Brkic had made a save from a penalty kick.

To return to Guidolin’s quote, he is correct in stating that this is not the “real” Udinese. The “real” Udinese – or at least from most recent seasons – is a quick, fast, attacking team. Always one step ahead of their opponent, Udinese used to be fun to watch.

Now they are slow, defensive, and worse of all, scared. Once living up to their namesake—running the pitch like spritely zebras—they now resemble an old horse being put out to pasture. Or, if Tuesday’s game was any indication, awaiting the glue factory.

What the team needs is to find its confidence and find it fast. With a busy schedule coming up over the next three weeks, Udinese are playing five different teams in three different competitions. Meeting Cagliari, Sampdoria and Palermo for regular Serie A matches, Udinese also host Liverfekkin'wankscum for their final Europa League match. On top of that, they face Fiorentina in the fifth round of the Coppa Italia.

The good news is Udinese does not have time to sit around feeling sorry for themselves. The bad news is more games will take a toll on the current squad. Guidolin will have his work cut out for him to keep his team healthy on the pitch, and the Friulanos happy in the stands.

[Rovert36]

http://www.football-italia.net/28324/lo ... speaks-out This man is flat out my hero, wish I was there with him

[RomaShield27]

Yeh, that story made the headlines for being in the Irish/British press were they were saying stuff like "Italian football attendances reaches a new low". The football authorities have to take some of the blame for the likes of this:

“It wasn’t easy, as I had to buy a ‘Fan Passport’ to buy a ticket for an away game and it takes 18 days to go through, so I wrote to Sampdoria in order to make sure it would be alright and they were very helpful."

I know there are more reasons why fans don't travel, but shit like that hardly makes it easy for them.

[RomaShield27]

[RomaShield27]

Posted by Paolo Bandini under Udinese on Apr 08, 2013
http://blogs.thescore.com/counterattack ... evolution/

The revolution began with a good lunch. In the west stand of Udinese’s Stadio Friuli on Sunday, two new restaurants were opened to the public, each offering the same €15 set menu. An antipasto of prosciutto and buffalo mozzarella would be followed a main course of tortellini, then a piece of gubana (traditional Friulian cake) for dessert. A bottle of water was included in the price.

This was a new concept for fans more accustomed to grabbing a pre-game coffee and a sandwich at one of the stadium’s ubiquitous bars, but both restaurants did a brisk trade in the hours leading up to kick-off. As intrigued as they were by this new lunch option, most fans were even more excited by the prospect of what could come next. The opening of these two new outlets represented the first, tiny, step in the club’s plan to rebuild the Stadio Friuli into a modern, fan-friendly stadium.

Nine days previous on Friday 29 March, Udinese had finally positioned themselves to begin such a project, securing a 99-year leasehold of the communally-owned Friuli as well as the surrounding land. It should go down as one of the most significant days in the club’s history. In return for just €45,000 per year, plus a commitment to spending at least €21.5m on structural upgrades, Udinese had effectively established ownership of their stadium for the next century.

That was some coup. Eighteen months have passed since Juventus became the first team in Serie A to own their home ground, a move which was supposed to spur the rest of the country to action. Since then, however, only one other team had made any real progress towards stadium ownership. Cagliari’s example is not exactly one that others should seek to follow.

The Stadio Is Arenas, a temporary pre-fab structure built with council permission on communally-owned land, was supposed to represent a happy compromise for a club of modest means. Instead it has been an unmitigated disaster. Less than one year after the stadium’s opening, Cagliari are already looking to relocate again after repeatedly failing to obtain permission from the local authorities to open their ground up to supporters.

Udinese ought not to encounter such difficulties. The club does still have one or two bureaucratic hurdles to clear – their planned renovations must still be approved by the Italian Football Federation as well as a long list of local authorities including the fire brigade, police and construction commission. But they also have the stated support of both their city’s mayor and influential figures within the sport’s governing body.

Their project is far more ambitious than the one attempted by Cagliari. Where the Is Arenas was little more than an elaborate piece of scaffolding—a cheap and expedient alternative to the crumbling Stadio Sant’Elia—Udinese intend to create something that will endure for many decades. Artist’s impressions of the ‘new’ Stadio Friuli depict a simple but sleek exterior which draws conscious inspiration from Juventus Stadium.

Its eventual capacity will remain roughly the same as it is now—close to 25,000—but the facilities will be greatly enhanced. All seats will be covered, with heating during the winter, and wi-fi access throughout the venue. Two new Jumbotron screens will be installed and, if demand proves sufficient, further restaurants opened as well.

Six thousand square metres worth of inside space remains unaccounted for in the club’s existing plans, leaving scope for further upgrades to be made in consultation with the fans. Outside the stadium, an Udinese museum will be constructed, and the club is even reported to be considering the installation of two swimming pools.

The Udinese owner, Gianpaolo Pozzo, has stated his intention to have the stadium completed by the end of 2014. Toward that end, the project of renovations has already been split into two separate strands. The first involves eliminating the existing running track; the second involves rebuilding three of the stadium’s four stands.

While the latter stage cannot begin until the club has received all the necessary clearances, the former is scheduled to commence on 13 May, one day after Udinese’s final home game of the season. After removing the running track, the club will relocate the pitch towards the stadium’s west stand—the Tribuna—home to the aforementioned new restaurants, and the only section of the stadium which will remain standing throughout the renovations.

The other three stands, the Distinte and the two Curve, will all be knocked down and re-built from scratch, though Pozzo has stated his intention to stagger the process so that the club can maintain a reduced capacity of around 14,000 at the stadium throughout the 2013-14 campaign. He remains adamant that, unlike Cagliari, his team will not play any home fixtures away from their home ground.

To Pozzo, these upgrades were not so much a question of desire as necessity. “If we hadn’t done this, we would have lost a great part of our support over the next 5-10 years,” he said after securing the leasehold. “It was an essential step. The TV broadcasters are constantly improving their product, so if the stadium isn’t comfortable the fans will stay at home on the sofa, which is more comfortable and costs less.”

There are many factors that have contributed to the falling attendances at Italian football games in recent years, from the increased ease of watching games on TV, or indeed online, to the hostile atmosphere generated by certain groups of Ultras. But Pozzo is unquestionably correct that the shabby state of most grounds has also played a role. At present the Tribuna is the only section of the Stadio Friuli with a roof. Who could blame supporters in the other stands for choosing to stay home on a rainy day – or even a baking hot one?

Similar problems abound across the peninsula, yet in the vast majority of cases nothing is being done to address them. Despite the positive example set by Juventus, most owners simply do not have the resources to construct their own new stadiums. In that regard, the model pursued by Udinese ought to be encouraging.

Pozzo has estimated the club’s expected initial outlay on renovations at just €26m. Raising such a figure should not be beyond most top-flight teams, especially when doing so brings the promise of enhanced revenue streams in future. The Udinese owner has promised that the new stadium will be a “seven days a week” operation. At present, most venues sit empty except on game days.

Indeed, the leasing out of stadiums benefits the local authority, too. While Udinese’s rent might seem modest the city council will incur no more maintenance fees, and as part of their agreement with the club are granted use of the facility for 15 days each year during which they can host concerts and other such events that might further benefit the city. The new stadium has been designed in such a way as to allow the city to increase capacity to 33,000 for these types of events.

The Mayor of Udine, Furio Honsell, meanwhile, argues that the positive impact of football itself should not be underestimated. “It is always emotional to open something new in a space which has witnessed as many magical moments as this stadium,” he told reporters after helping to formally open the new restaurants at the Stadio Friuli. “Football should be a release which helps us get through these tough [economic] times.”

It is for all these reasons that the Italian Football Federation are understood to be highly enthusiastic about Udinese’s project. Although they cannot formally pass judgement until studying the club’s detailed plans, development officer Michele Uva, one of the body’s foremost voices on stadium construction, has let it be known that he considers Udinese’s approach a model for others to follow.

As good as that sounds on paper, however, the reality is that it might not easily be copied. Udinese have been able to take this step only because they happened to find themselves working with an extremely co-operative local authority. Honsell won his position as mayor in 2008 on a ticket which included the explicit promise of helping Udinese to upgrade the Stadio Friuli.

Even so, the process wasn’t straightforward. Talks began between the club and Honsell as early as 2009, yet it still took two years for both parties to reach agreement on the 99-year lease. Then, just as they were preparing to sign a contract, the courts intervened, insisting on an open and public bidding process for the lease. Honsell duly obliged, but then the first round of bidding had to be abandoned after details of Udinese’s offer leaked into the public domain.

Only after a second round of bidding did Udinese formally win the leasehold. That was in July 2012, but it took a further eight months before the contract actually got signed, as tweaks were made to the proposal. Between petty squabbles and bureaucracy it had taken four years to reach agreement between two parties that were sold on the project from day one.

“It seems like Columbus’s egg now, but we were fighting for 10 years to make this happen,” said Pozzo. “Honsell achieved a bureaucratic miracle … We have put forward many projects over the years; everybody was supportive with their words, but then nobody did anything.”

If that truly is the case, then what hope could there be for a team which did not enjoy such cordial relations with the local authorities? It is such considerations which have prompted so many to stall on the stadium issue. Many owners and directors continue to insist that they are simply waiting for the Italian government to pass the much-discussed Stadium Law which was supposed to remove some of the bureaucratic hurdles to the construction of new venues.

In reality said law has been lost in the system for so long now that it is hard to keep faith in it ever being passed. It requires only approval from the senate at this stage, but between Italy’s present political turmoil and the country’s enduring economic difficulties it is hard to imagine it becoming a priority any time soon. As La Repubblica’s Fabrizio Bocca noted a while back: “Born with the best intentions, [the Stadium Law] has done nothing but worsen the situation.”

As tempting as it is, then, to imagine that Udinese’s success can pave the way for others, there are still many obstacles to that ever being the case. The only sure thing here is that this remarkably well-run club has achieved another coup. Serie A’s teams recorded combined losses of €292m last year, yet Udinese turned an €8.8m profit. Only Napoli, with profits of €14.7m, posted better financial results over the same period.

Udinese have proved that their model of developing young talents before selling them on can be a sustainable one as they’ve turned a profit in four of the past five years. The club will now be on an even stronger financial footing going forwards, able to rely on the increased game-day and commercial revenues that stadium ownership brings.

“The new stadium will bring us new resources, better wages, longer contracts,” said Pozzo. For a team has already punched above its weight in recent seasons, finishing fourth in 2011 and third in 2012, that is a wonderful place to be.