THE WOLF'S DEN - Tana dei Lupi II

[Carlo Romano]

[maro]

Carlo, I don't think you're the only one who thought Inter were swapping Ibra for a better player. I think I've said a couple of times over the past two or three years that I thought Eto'o, of all players, was the one who'd make the single greatest difference were he (in a world of fantasy football) to be signed by La Magica. Still, I can't see how swapping Borriello for Ibra in the starting 11 doesn't make Milan a quite different proposition. Apart from anything else, his ability to hold the ball up will allow their old legs a bit more time to catch up with the play.

[maro]

Man it's good to see Del Neri on Rubentus's bench - it's a perfect match. I deeply dislike that knob and so he seems beautifully to embody all that's evil in Rubentus. Fuck em all.

[maro]

Now if only they'd sign John Terry and Darth Maul, or whatever that freaky dude with the double-headed light-saber was called.

[Lupa]

I hadn't seen this feature gazzetta before.

Interesting graphic shows how central the pizza man is to our play, but one thing I noticed is how fine the line is between him and Vooch compared to others. (you have to choose 'Flussi Gioco' to see it)

[maro]

Bari play such lovely football these days. They're so well coached. They have such a clear, sure pattern of play and today had the guts to stick to it even when Rubentus pressed them back and put them under pressure - they just kept the ball on the deck and moved it around. It was pretty wonderful to see from a team with their resources. Only one gripe then - that Cerci was a dick and didn't go to Bari when Ventura was so adamant he wanted him. Cerci's an idiot. He'd have had such a chance to shine and develop there - he'd have been given opportunities and such a clear sense of how he had to play it would have suited him perfectly. I doubt he's the right kind of player (clever enough) to shine at Fiorentina, though he will certainly complement a true striker like Gila more than the clever players like Pizza and Totti. When Jovetic is back, though, I can't see him fitting in at all.

[maro]

I don't quite understand what you're pointing to, Lupa.

[Lupa]

[maro]

Sorry - I hadn't quite understood how to read the image. I see what you mean now. Riise, it seems, is his out-ball down the left. It is interesting, actually, how much more often it's DDR who's the one looking for the miracle ball through to Vooch from deep. That might be a function of his more often playing to the right of Pizza and so making that more of a diagonal ball than a straight one.

[zafferano]

I offer neither pay, nor quarters, nor food; I offer only hunger, thirst, forced marches, battles and death. Let him who loves his country with his heart, and not merely with his lips, follow me." ~Giuseppe Garibaldi
Italiamia
YES italimia and the bastard of the nord follow him and fuck CALABRIA
for ever
and kill and hang calabrians by the thausands and stole and destroy
everthing they had .A FACTORY employng a 1000 people closed end moved up nord
the first in the world to use 40 working hours , and many countrys
even germans tray to copy the structure .And since then the biggest emigration the world
ever see start .25 milion of italian emigrate ,all from south and most calabresi
unfortunately history is written by the winners .
think again about that cunt of GARIBALDI

[Jamoldo]

[Jamoldo]

Ed - is there any way to make the "bolded" stuff even more prominent. It's very light - see my quoted above

[Italiamia]

[Deini]

If we can sell Doni to Benfica, Marchetti or Rubinho will replace him.

And can we please get rid of Baptista please??????

[p_maldini_3]

[maro]

I was chatting with a Neopolitan girl at work a couple of weeks ago and she was telling me about a book she'd just finished reading about the violence done to the south as part of the 'Risorgimento'. It had given her a new sense of her own difference as a southerner. I've forgotten the title of it, but I think it came out very recently and I'd like to read it if anyone has any suggestions for what it might have been. I shall ask her, but she's just graduated and so moved away.

'moldy, as I have long maintained, to my mind Ranieri is a standing joke only to those people (almost invariably Premierhite fans) who know next to nothing about football and aren't interested in thinking. They will trot out the cliches about Ranieri's Chelski as opposed to Moaninho's - without noticing the enormous difference between the two squads the two men had at their disposal (the difference, quite precisely, between what Mark Hughes had at the beginning of last season and what Mancini has now). Ranieri's joke of a Chelski got knocked out in the semi-finals of the CL (admittedly because of some horrific decisions by Ranieri - no getting away from that) with players like Jimmy-Floyd Hasselbank, IfI'daGoodJohnson, and that speedy but rubbish Danish fuck Jesper Gronkjaer as key starters. The difference in quality the following season was colossal. Roman A also, I am sure, only decided to buy Chelski because the previous season they had managed to qualify for the CL, pipping Liverpuke by beating them in the last game of the season at Stamford Bridge. That in itself was a fine achievement for the club - which all too often tends to get forgotten now that the new generation of fans takes for granted Chelski's place at the high table of European football.

So, the joke comes from those people who have very little sense of what Ranieri actually achieved at the club and who have completely forgotten (never knew) the details of the history they're talking about. And then the third factor is that he's a joke in England because his English was kind of quaint and jumpy. No doubt their Italian (and Spanish) is much more fluent. I have always had reservations about Ranieri - tactically I've always thought he was a bit of a fiddler and I thought Abramovic was right to sack him as he wasn't quite good enough for the club as it was about to come. I was also then not at all surprised that he struggled when he went on to Valencia. That's not quite the same thing as saying he's a standing joke, though. And one thing that I don't think has ever been questioned is the man's dignity and integrity and style. And this, for me, matters - it mattered with Spags too. Moaninho's lack of class I've always thought was an embarrassment to his clubs. People liked his humour for a while, but in the end you have to conduct yourself with more style than he does. The Interisti may come round to this way of thinking over the next couple of years as his insecure jibes at Ranieri, no doubt, continue to come in. It says an awful lot about the world of modern football when a man who does very well with consistent class and dignity is considered by some to be something of a standing joke while someone who does extremely well with a consistent lack of class is widely believed to sweat ambrosial nectar from his nuts.

[maro]

The premise of this piece I agree with very strongly:
http://www.romanews.eu/news.asp?newsID=7098&pag=66

[Italiamia]

Tommaso, it does not take a book, or a brief history lesson to assess, reassess, or come to terms with being an Italian from the South. Unification was not an easy thing for Italy and some would argue that the country is not really unified even today. When you have the separationist, crypto-fascist lega nord dominating the electorate in the north of Italy, how can any Italian, let alone southern Italian, not feel that the divide between the north and south remains an open wound. Hell, we can't even agree on where the south ends and the north begins. Some say everything south of Roma is south; but people consider Abruzzo south as well as Roma.

Hey shinpin, why should I beat up on briz? It would be grossly unfair of me to take advantage of the poor man.

[maro]

Yes, gio, but this book did cause this thoughtful, intelligent girl to reconsider her position in relation to Italy and to Naples hence my interest in reading it.

[Deini]

So we also lin ked with Boriello, we want to loan him from Milan. He also has options to go to City or Rubentus.

Transfermarket closing tomorrow. We gonna make some transactions or is this all?

About Clessidra, if they do take over, they want only 20% of Roma. Rumoured entrepeneur to join them is Malago. I also heard the name of Caltagirone today.