THE WOLF'S DEN - Tana dei Lupi II

[Goduerza]

I try to be more open-minded when thinking about our supposedly new minority owner. The truth is that nowadays you can't win without money, and I think Pallotta has done a very good job off the pitch with making the club a better brand, plus we will be finally building our own stadium, which is just huge. So I believe he's done a good job. I'm not sure it was his idea to hire Zeman, what is he paying Baldini for then? Might've been the Americans' idea to adopt an attacking football philosphy, which isn't a bad idea per se, but poorly executed so far by Baldini with two bizzare appointments. Time for him to redeem himself with a sensible coach now.

You can see that the owners are devising a long-term plan with financial stability as a focal point. And so it should be. And I'm sure it's in their every interest that this team is a winning one, it will make everything they work for every day much easier to achieve. I have faith in this ownership, I think we're on the right path.

[FedaynULTRA83]

[Goduerza]

While I do agree that we could have brought more defenders, I think the ones we brought this summer aren't bad players.

Castan and Marquinhos have been good signings. Especially Marcos. I don't think anyone can deny that. Balzaretti hasn't exactly set Serie A alight, but I think he's a good player and he can offer us more than he has so far. Piris was bad in the first games, but has improved a lot, and did very well vs Juventus against all odds, I don't know why you ignore this. We also got Torosidis who looks like a good player as well. I'm content with that, we'll need another central defender in the summer, and a left-back because I don't think Dodo is one. And I think any set of defenders would have struggled with Zeman's suicidal tactics.

If you don't know, Juan had really regressed in his last years, he was playing really bad and was on a big wage, it was only normal they let him go. And Mexes had already decided to leave when the owners set foot in the club. I feel they're getting unnecessary flak here.

So yeah, I think we've made some good signings for the defence this year, and we'll add more cover in the summer.

[forzaitalia]

Today's line up:

Stekelenburg; Piris, Burdisso, Marquinhos; Torosidis, Bradley, Pjanic, Balzaretti; Lamela, Marquinho; Osvaldo

[Italiamia]

No Totti, no De Rossi and lots of snow. Play the game and adjust. No excuses.

Love the headline here: http://www.repubblica.it/sport/calcio/s ... -53320219/

http://www.repubblica.it/sport/calcio/serie-a/roma/

[FedaynULTRA83]

Haven't been able to watch the match just yet, although I have seen the goals. That FK by Pjanic was pure beauty. Shield! Hurry up and upload the game somewhere!

[maro]

1. No way we get the three points today with either LE or Zedonk in charge.
2. I wonder how gutted Sabre is these days to have missed out on Alvarez and ended up with Lamela.
3. "Alla Pizarro vecchia maniera, ma con più forza fisica."
4. "Sbatte per terra Carmona e Bonaventura e gli fa capire la differenza tra un campione del mondo e un giocatore normale poi porta Contini all’espulsione. Apporto decisivo e commovente." It's nice that these days defending Simone seems to be rather preaching to the choir.

[RomaShield27]

Haven't seen the game meself or any action either, was away for weekend, but good to get the win, wasn't expecting three points from this one. Full game in now.

[RomaShield27]

Only got to watch our game last night, if you could call it that. The download wasn't the best, but the conditions were worse. The team showed good fighting spirit throughout, I thought, and probably just about deserved it. Pjanic and Marquinho showed well, but Osvaldo was once again a bit of a waste upfront. It was never a game for the more skillful runners like Lamela, but one thing you have to say about him is that he never stops. Still not convinced about the three-man back-line, though.

I was just wondering what the feck was going on with this sheik business. The club released an in which they given him a deadline of March 14 to show the money. The man himself says he is a Roma fan. He also says he feels 100% Italian. I wonder if Giovanni will agree?

-----------

Serie A: Roma give Sheikh al Qaddumi three weeks to come up with investment
/ Last Updated: February 25, 2013 3:20pm

Roma have issued a March 14 deadline to an Italy-based sheikh who has proposed a reported 50million euro investment in the Serie A club. The capital city outfit confirmed last week that a preliminary agreement had been reached with Sheikh Adnan Adel Aref al Qaddumi al Shtewi and his company, NEEP Roma Holding SpA, to enter the club "directly or indirectly".

Roma are currently owned by Italian-American company DiBenedetto AS Roma LLC, headed by James Pallotta, who is expected to continue as president even if Al Qaddumi purchases a significant percentage of the club's shares. A statement published on the club's official website explained how the only condition to the closing of any transaction was the effective payment of the full investment by March 14.

The club also confirmed they were in a period of due diligence in which Al Qaddumi's finances were being assessed while issuing the sheikh with the necessary legal guarantees concerning financial assets at the Stadio Olimpico.

Al Qaddumi has elaborated on his love of Italy and its football in a lengthy interview with 'Il Tempo' magazine, in which he revealed he had worked as a manual labourer despite his wealthy origins in Qatar.

"I came to Italy in 1980 to study at the University of Perugia," he said. "I was very rich and my father sent me thousands of dollars a month so I could lead a happy life.

"The following year I met my wife and fell in love but my family did not take well to her and closed off my resources. That's why I ended up working as a bartender and as a painter."

With oil companies in Italy and Canada, Al Qaddumi is looking to invest some of his personal wealth in a football club and admitted he had approached Roma two years ago as part of the failed Acquamarcia consortium.

He added: "I've always been a big Roma fan and always intended to invest in Italy. I love this country and I feel 100 per cent Italian and want to stay here.

"I tried to get into the club with Acquamarcia, who proposed full acquisition of the company, but my advisors and auditors advised me against buying the club."

[DCGweez]

http://it.eurosport.yahoo.com/notizie/c ... um=twitter

Calcio - Roma, Alemanno: "Progetto stadio va avanti"
Il primo cittadino della Capitale cerca di tranquillizzare tutti i tifosi giallorossi

Italpress – 49 minuti fa
Mail

"La situazione sta andando avanti, voglio tranquillizzare tutti i tifosi che mi chiedono cosa stia succedendo. Dopo la firma del protocollo stanno lavorando, nel giro di 1 o 2 mesi si vedrà il primo progetto a dimostrazione che questo non è un fuoco d'artificio ma un progetto reale che vedrà la Roma avere un suo stadio di proprietà". Lo ha detto il sindaco di Roma, Gianni Alemanno, a margine della presentazione della Junior Tim Cup in riferimento al nuovo stadio della Roma. (

[RomaShield27]

Surely BS, but I might consider taking €35m for Lamela. Marquinhos untouchable.

Roma, no a 60 milioni per Marquinhos e Lamela
Il Barcellona ne offre 25 per il difensore, il Manchester United pronto all'assalto al Coco con altri 35: il club giallorosso alza il muro. L’offerta del club spagnolo è arrivata scritta, ma il talento brasiliano non si muoverà da Trigoria
Mercoledì 27 Febbraio 2013
http://www.corrieredellosport.it/calcio ... um=twitter

ROMA - La Roma alza il muro sui suoi talenti. Ma il fatto che offerte importanti arrivino o si preparino a piovere su Trigoria è la conferma - se mai ce ne fosse stato bisogno - che la cifra tecnica della squadra di Andreazzoli è importante. Vogliamo dire elevata? Diciamolo pure senza il timore si essere smentiti: Marquinhos, Lamela, Pjanic, più De Rossi, Totti e Osvaldo non li hanno tutti. E non bisogna dimenticare Mattia Destro, che non ha avuto fortuna e non è ancora riuscito a far vedere il grande potenziale che ha.

L’OFFENSIVA BLAUGRANA - L’offerta del Barcellona è qualcosa di concreto, qualcosa di scritto deve essere arrivato. E forse la aperta dichiarazione di fedeltà fatta da Marquinhos lunedì, in favore della Roma, potrebbe non essere stata partorita per caso. Il club blaugrana è rimasto letteralmente folgorato da questo ragazzo non ancora diciannovenne che ha dimostrato di giocare con grande personalità. Alla Roma è costato 4,5 milioni, il Barcellona si è detto disposto a metterne sul piatto 25: sei volte tanto. Era immaginabile che attorno al difensore centrale, straordinario talento scovato nel Corinthians, arrivasse a concentrarsi l’interesse dei giganti d’Europa. Ma niente da fare: il ragazzo giura fedeltà e gratitudine alla Roma. E la Roma non vacilla.

ECCOLI CHE TORNANO - L’altro assalto è annunciato. Forse più che annunciato. E’ pronto. L’oggetto del desiderio è Erik Lamela, l’attaccante argentino che alla Roma è costato 17 milioni un anno e mezzo fa. Chi c’era all’epoca tra le concorrenti per assicurarsi la stella del River Plate? Il Manchester United. E sir tender Alex Ferguson non ha smesso di ammirare il pupillo al quale non è riuscito ad arrivare. Si sa che il manager scozzese è uno che non molla facilmente l’osso. Bene, per Lamela ha fatto sapere di aver fissato l’offerta da fare: 35 milioni. Altro no, senza negare che la cifra qualche sussulto lo ha creato. Ma il club giallorosso vuole tenersi stretti i suoi gioielli. E Marquinhos e Lamela brilleranno ancora in giallorosso.

[FedaynULTRA83]

Great article on Bleacher Report:
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1544 ... esco-totti

Why There Will Never Be Another Player Like Roma's Francesco Totti


It's incredible to think that Vujadin Boskov, a coach with a glittering playing career and a management trophy list that includes titles in the Netherlands, Spain, Italy and on the European stage, should be so forgettable in the Italian capital. The Serbian had won almost everywhere he'd been, including north of Rome in Genoa, where he lifted the Scudetto and the European Cup with Sampdoria. But in the Eternal City, success eluded him. His sole achievement with the Giallorossi was to give a certain player his debut, almost 20 years ago.

In a 2-0 win away at Brescia, Boskov told a 16-year-old local boy to lace up his boots, and two decades on, he's still wearing them. Francesco Totti has become a symbol for his hometown club like few players ever have, and in this age of internationalism and constant results-driven pressure, perhaps no one ever will again.

Today, football does far too much worshipping. Driven by 24-hour media hype and online highlight clips, by the time a half-decent player is in his early 20s, he’s been elevated to demigod. Long-term consistency is no longer important. Sometimes, not even talent is. In the struggle to fill the perpetually expanding abyss that is today’s sports media, donkeys are praised like thoroughbreds.

Searching for the “next Messi” on Google will throw up about 192,000,000 results—all of them nonsense. What’s wrong with the one we’ve got? He’s only 25. And anyway, we’ll never get another Messi, no more than we’ll see the second coming of Maradona or Cruyff.

Every great player is a product of his age, a cultural touchstone created by his surroundings, the style of the day, the support he gets and no small amount of serendipity. An injury here or a drinking binge there and Voilà—you’re looking at Adriano and Michael Owen instead of Rivaldo and Gary Lineker.

Francesco Totti’s story is the stuff of football fairytale, even if by today's reductive, win-driven standards, it might not seem so at first. He’s only lifted the Scudetto once, and has never been at a “big” club [for big, read English, or at least one of the top two Spanish sides]. He's never won the Champions League. He’s never even won the Ballon d’Or. But vacuous talk of big-money moves, trophies won and individual awards all miss the point when it comes to true greatness. They're too easily quantifiable. Try as you might, you can’t count talent, or tally up ability.

God’s gifts are not something that can be explained in numbers. John O'Shea has almost as many medals as Franz Beckenbauer, after all, and while Maradona never won a Champions League, Djimi Traore did. To appreciate a player's true worth, you must see past the medals. To know true greatness is simply to look on it. Like true love, you just know when you know.

As the Corriere dello Sport‘s Alberto Polverosi put it (in Italian, here), Totti's talent has an immense, almost reckless, natural quality. And it's been on constant show for the world to see, ever since 28 March 1993. Call it an Indian summer, or a swan song, but this season we’re seeing a revival of one of the last great fantasisti, and football fans around the world should rejoice in that, because there's no one else like him.

He’s not the quickest, or the strongest. He’s prone to injury, and at 36, who knows what the future holds for his aging bones. Others players are less idiosyncratic, and throughout the season will be more prolific. But his game’s never been about prolificacy, even though he’ll soon be Serie A’s second highest goalscorer after spending half his career in midfield. His gift has always been the ability to create, when no one else could.

So far this term, he's slotted as many successful through balls as Juventus' much-lauded Andrea Pirlo and Arsenal's silky Santi Cazorla—combined. His football is about invention, wonder and no small amount of genius.


Too often, modern football forgets this. In fact, it does more than that; it belittles it. In one famous attempt to lure Daniele De Rossi to Manchester City, Roberto Mancini is said to have used Roma's captain as a cautionary example. "Do you want to end up like Francesco Totti?" he asked, before adding: "a great player who never won anything?"

Roma fans who remember that rare Scudetto in 2001, or the way he played so exquisitely during the 2006 World Cup with metal bars holding his ankle together, might disagree. But they'll probably point to a hundred other personal moments, too, when Totti's brilliance brought a much-needed goal, a lift to his team and a smile.

They'll tell you he's one of the all-time greats, and they're almost certainly right. But who cares? Comparing great talent only serves to insult and cheapen their art. Totti's art has been to entertain and inspire a city for two decades and to dazzle crowds around the world. It's not every player, after all, who gets standing ovations from the opposition's fans.

No one else could replace him. Here, he’s fuoriclasse—beyond classification. He is, as the announcer in the Stadio Olimpico puts it, both the No. 10 and the No. 1.

[red]

I stopped reading when the article said Samp had won the European Cup.

[FedaynULTRA83]

[RomaShield27]

Hmm, it does say the European Cup alright. Lots of typos in that. The journalist must have a lot on his mind.

[DCGweez]

Lets see you lot get published online anywhere....

Don't listen to 'em Collie. Way to 'rep Totti.

[AS Collie]

[AS Collie]

[maro]

[maro]

Oh, and seriously, you write nicely; fuck the haters.