The Official Azzurri thread

[tonykart]

Di Natale has already proven that he cannot perform at the highest level. When there is less space, and teams are playing more passive, Di Natale is near useless. Good league player. Can't handle the big stage... no thanks.

[Bagg10]

The Waterboy is ballen.

[Bagg10]

[Carlo Romano]

Tony, if Udinese don't pull themselves out of the hole they're in, it's hard not to see Di Natale being pulled down too so I guess the question is acedemic really...

Bagg, you have some sense of humor!

[p_maldini_3]

[Bagg10]

But seriously...

-----------------------Chimenti

Zaccardo-------Bonera--------Barzagli-----Favalli


Portanova------Marco Rossi---Brocchi---Semioli


---------------Maccarone(C)-----Mascara

[Carlo Romano]

MI...Di Natale is not going to let the capocannoniere title slip from him so easy, getting another goal earlier this evening. I guess if he somehow hangs in there, Lippi will have to pick him.

Bagg, your latest selection really is 5 star!

All good fun! The one sad factor is, there was a time when Mascara might have been worthy of an Azzurri call up. I also seem to remember some years ago there were high hopes of Maccarone before the Middlesborough experience put paid to it for him.

[red]

[San Paolo]

[p_maldini_3]

[Bagg10]

[RomaShield27]

[Bagg10]

[Carlo Romano]

So it seems Lippi is impressed with the way some clubs in Italy are now using the old 3-4-3 system that Zac had Udinese using to such good effect from the early to the mid 1990's. I'd be a lot more comfortable if he was saying things like he had his ideal formation and squad settled in his mind's eye which is where his planning should be by now. Instead, he makes me think he is hoping to conjure a rabbit from a hat!

As Bagg points out, a fair number of our probable squad are used to this resurrected old hat. A 4-3-3 isn't quite the same thing but it still uses the tridente up front and every time Lippi has opened with that, he has had to revert to primo e secondo punti to make things happen...and this is going to change now? We will see in our upcoming friendly, I imagine.

On Iaquinta. It seems he figures very much in Lippi's plans though he has been hors de combat for I think over three months now. I like Iaquinta, in fact one of my moans on XFF three years ago was that I would have loved to see both he and Di Natale at Roma. Recovering from a long injury layoff as we know is a little different from the usual which footballers tell us they need a month or so back playing to get up to speed again. For all our sakes and not just Juve's he better get back playing soon!

[Messinterista]

Roma come first for Brighi - Friday 26 February, 2010

Marcello Lippi will name his latest Italy squad on Sunday but Matteo Brighi has just one thing on his mind – Roma’s game at Napoli.

The Azzurri play Cameroon next Wednesday in one of the tactician’s last chances to experiment before he names his final 23-man squad for South Africa 2010.

Brighi is a contender to make a late surge into the Giro Azzurro following his performances under Claudio Ranieri.

But the midfielder, who had aspirations of being a school teacher, is refusing to allow his concentration to stray away from his beloved Giallorossi.

“I’m not really thinking about the World Cup,” he noted. “I’m just focusing on Roma and that is it for now.”

Brighi has been making more of an impact at club level recently following a number of niggling fitness issues this term.

“I had several little injury complaints which were affecting my training but I am improving and I want that to continue.”

Brighi, 29, has won four international caps to date. His debut came in August 2002 under Giovanni Trapattoni.

His other three appearances only came last year against Montenegro, the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Source: http://www.football-italia.net/feb26h.html

[p_maldini_3]

[p_maldini_3]

[Messinterista]

[p_maldini_3]

[Carlo Romano]

Borriello gets a recall...good.

I'd love to know why it took Milan so long to realise what they had in him, even in fact at one stage being quite prepared to let him go. I remember a few years ago being impressed by him as a youngster when I watched him score a goal for Milan against Glasgow Rangers at Ibrox Park in a friendly and being shocked when he was virtually forgotten about afterward. Despite his success with Genoa, I consider Borriello to be one of a small number of "exceptions" over the years who'd have been better left to mature his genuine talent with a big club like Milan rather than be loaned out. (I could also mention Okaka and Roma in the same context, a sore point with me) Provided they also get playing time, these guys undoubtedly benefit more from training and playing with big stars.

Having Nesta back is a bonus! But I'll say again, I wish Lippi was beyond the stage he is with his preparations. He should really have his formation set by now and only need to think about his final one or two squad places. Instead he now decides to re-try an old system which was abandoned for years and could require him to call up even more different players to make it work. Even if an extra friendly could be "engineered" to allow more experimentation, arranging a date will not be easy at this stage of the league season in terms of player release from some clubs.

Or he could get lucky. We'll only know that when we see it!