Spare a thought for Amantino Mancini. The 29-year-old Brazilian became the surprise protagonist of the January transfer window, leaving Italian champions Inter for their cousins Milan on Monday. He had been flaunted on the market throughout the winter with Marseille even agreeing a deal to take him on loan until the end of the season. But Mancini didn’t give his consent. He only had eyes for Milan.

So when the fax confirming his transfer to the Rossoneri finally arrived, Mancini was understandably ecstatic. “I threw away six months,” Mancini said. “I was about to leave last summer, but then Mourinho called me, telling me that he was going to focus on me… Patience, I told myself, now I’ll turn the corner… I would erase my last year. Now I have turned the page, a new adventure is beginning.”

Mancini then jumped in his car and went for his first training session at Milanello. He had passed his medical, but yet more tests were awaiting him at MilanLab. Mancini was told he was about 3kg overweight, but nothing could possibly dampen his spirits – nothing, that is, unless you exclude the disapproval of Silvio Berlusconi, the Milan patron and Italian Prime Minister.

“I really didn’t understand this move,” Berlusconi said while on a state visit to Israel. “He is another trequartista, whereas what we need is someone who finishes things off by scoring goals. What’s more he has barely played in two years. I did not agree with this signature and I said so to Galliani.” And the criticism didn’t stop there. Berlusconi then took aim at Milan’s recent slump in form. “On Sunday, I go to the San Siro and I see the people around me crying. Imagine how I feel, as I also have to pay the team,” he joked.

But Berlusconi’s disappointment was palpable. Milan now haven’t won since January 24 when Inter beat them in the derby. Sunday’s stalemate in Bologna merely confirms what became apparent against Udinese and Livorno towards the end of last month. Milan are running on empty just when they need to be putting their foot on the gas. They were in touching distance of Inter just two weeks ago, but now the gap separating them from their cousins is a staggering 10 points.

After cutting a cool and refined figure for much of the season, Leonardo appeared to lose it during Saturday’s pre-match Press Conference, so much so that one columnist mused whether he was actually Jose Mourinho in disguise. The Brazilian accused the Press of fabricating stories about Ronaldinho, who had allegedly spent the week leading up to the derby partying in a Milan hotel.

“This week in my view you journalists showed a lack of respect for Ronaldinho. I think the team will emerge stronger because of it,” Leo ranted. “When you publish a story, the pressure is on you to prove it. I saw no footage of this party, so I believe what my player tells me. I don’t need to be a detective in my spare time, I see him train every day and know what shape he’s in. We know if he’s been drinking. We do tests every day and he tells me what he gets up to, so I believe him.”

Ronaldinho came closest to scoring against Bologna, striking a volley against the woodwork. But the former World Player of the Year clearly isn’t what’s stopping Milan from firing again. “The team doesn’t seem to believe in the message anymore. It’s as if Milan have lost the illusion of being immortal,” Mario Sconcerti wrote in Il Corriere della Sera. Arguably the most important component of that illusion is Alessandro Nesta.

Milan have lost just once this season when the 33-year-old has partnered Thiago Silva in defence. Nesta has been absent in each of the Rossoneri’s last three games with a hamstring injury. Alexandre Pato has been missing for longer. The sensation is that both will have to be fit if Milan are to have a chance of beating Manchester United later this month. What’s more, with just one goal in four games, it appears Berlusconi is right. The Rossoneri need a finisher and fast.

Talking points

• It will take some time for Napoli to get over their 3-1 defeat to Udinese on Sunday. Not only did the Partenopei’s 15-game unbeaten streak in Serie A come to an abrupt end, but Walter Mazzarri also missed out on the chance to equal a club record of eight matches unbeaten on the road, which was set in 1989. Morgan De Sanctis was also left devastated. The Napoli goalkeeper went into the game needing to last just nine minutes to break Dino Zoff’s club record of 590 minutes without conceding a goal. Udinese striker Antonio Di Natale scored the first goal of his hat-trick after just seven minutes. He then found the net twice in stoppage time to give the Zebrette a vital win.
• Roma moved into second place with what can only be described as a smash and grab victory over Fiorentina. The Viola dominated their opponents from start to finish, but an 82^nd minute goal from Mirko Vucinic extended Roma’s unbeaten run to a staggering 19 games. They have now won their last eight in all competitions.
• Juventus haven’t won for a month, let alone under new boss Alberto Zaccheroni. The Bianconeri had to come back from behind to grab a 1-1 draw against lowly Livorno. All the talk before the match surrounded Juventus’s switch to a three-man defence, but Zaccheroni insisted that it’s not the system but the interpretation that counts. He did take one positive from the performance, though. “We managed to come back. I believe it is the first time. The fact is that going forward we aren’t dangerous because if the action starts badly, the ball arrives in attack in a predictable way. But we would have lost this game 15 days ago.”
• Jose Mourinho got his revenge over Massimiliano Allegri. The Cagliari boss beat Mourinho to the 2009 Coach of the Year award last week, but Inter demolished his side on Sunday, winning 3-0 at the San Siro. “This is an important victory, especially as it takes us 10 points clear of second place. The results from January gave us so much self-belief and today you could see that we stepped on to the pitch right from the start with a very confident and attacking approach.” Incidentally, Roma’s victory over Fiorentina on Sunday evening closed the gap at the top to eight points.
• Brazilian midfielder Fabio Simplicio broke down in tears after scoring Palermo’s winner against former club Parma. “It was an incredible feeling to score the winning goal. It was even more intense because I scored against the team that opened up the doors to the world for me. It is a disappointment too, as Parma still have a place in my heart.” The match was also an emotional one for Parma boss Francesco Guidolin, who – having been in charge of Palermo on four separate occasions – returned to the Renzo Barbera for the first time since he left the club in 2008.

From Soccerlens.com - Football News

Christmas is a time of excess when people tend to indulge, pouring that extra drink, eating that extra slice of turkey. It has been calculated that your average Christmas reveler puts on a stone during the holidays, making it harvest time for the Fitness clubs.

However, it’s not something that we usually associate with professional footballers. Although it appears that’s just the situation Fiorentina striker Adrian Mutu found himself in over the holiday period. The Romania international was last week found to have twice tested positive for sibutramine, a banned substance that retards hunger.

The 31-year-old who had intimated that he was keen to sign a new contract with the Viola amid interest from Manchester City, Sevilla and Zenit St. Petersburg, has been provisionally suspended, but risks a ban of between three months and eight years if found guilty.

It wasn’t long before some people tried to make capital out of the situation. Lazio President Claudio Lotito called for a re-play of the Coppa Italia Quarter-Final in which Mutu scored twice and made an assist for Fiorentina, as they knocked out the holders in a 3-2 victory on January 20. Having already failed a drugs test after a match against Bari in Serie A 10 days before – a game in which he also scored – Mutu tested positive again.

The knee jerk reaction was to recall the events of 2004 when Chelsea sacked Mutu after WADA banned him for seven months following a positive test for cocaine, an incident that once put before FIFA’s Dispute Resolution Chamber resulted in him being ordered to pay €17,173,990 for breach of contract. A Swiss Federal Court’s decision to delay payment of that compensation in October 2009 was met with a degree of public sympathy.

Fiorentina appear to have learned from that experience. Instead of washing their hands of the player, they have decided to stand by Mutu and that is to their immense credit. Andrea Della Valle, the club’s owner, said: “It’s terrible news and the lad is distraught. He has understood how naïve he was, because that’s exactly what his situation is, he was just naïve. He has given us so much over the years and now we must repay him with our faith. I am certain he was in good faith.”

Mutu’s mother, Rodica, has revealed that she gave him some slimming pills from Romania on December 30. La Gazzetta dello Sport understands Mutu started taking them on January 6 after he read the contents on the back of the pack, which read: forest fruits, kiwi, coconut and natural extracts. There was apparently no mention of sibutramine, which was taken off the shelves in Italy on January 22 after tests showed it increased the likelihood of strokes and heart problems.

Mutu has sent the diet pills to the Italian Olympic Committee [CONI] as evidence in his defence. Il Corriere della Sera also reports that he has declined the opportunity to have his samples tested again, which should ensure his case is viewed more leniently.

In the meantime, Fiorentina have already replaced him, causing quite a stir as the January transfer window draws to a close. “Going on the market to find someone of Mutu’s worth now is tough, we’d need a magic wand,” Della Valle said on Saturday. Luckily, he had one in Pantaleo Corvino, the club’s director of sport.

Renowned for bringing the likes of Valeri Bojinov, Mirko Vucinic and Stevan Jovetic to Italy, Corvino only increased his reputation last summer when he sold Felipe Melo to Juventus for €18m barely nine months after picking him up from Almeria for a third of that price. If anyone could do a deal in time, he was the man.

A matter of hours after Mutu’s first positive test hit the headlines on Thursday, Corvino made some of his own. Fiorentina were in talks with Sampdoria about bringing Antonio Cassano to the Artemio Franchi on loan. The Blucerchiati initially dismissed the offer, but when Gigi Delneri dropped him for the second straight week for ‘technical reasons’, the deal was on.

Saturday’s sport section of Il Corriere della Sera led with the headline ‘Cassano wears purple’, citing an agreement with Sampdoria, the player and his agent. “From one excess to another,” wrote one columnist, perhaps referring to claims in Cassano’s biography that after a sex-filled night in Madrid he would get a waiter from the hotel in which he was staying to bring him three or four pastries.

And yet, just as an official announcement looked set to appear on the horizon, Cassano pulled the plug. “I am staying at Sampdoria. I am doing this for President Riccardo Garrone, for ‘my’ people, my team-mates and above all for me. I am staying even if I cannot deny that for a while I saw myself away from all this and what in the last three years has changed my life,” he revealed.

“On Saturday I was given the chance to join Fiorentina. It’s a great club and a wonderful squad that asked me to be a part of their ambitious project until June and also to play in the Champions League. I cannot deny that I considered it, as my prospect of playing at Samp, according to the latest comments from Delneri, have been greatly reduced.”

Having already been knocked back in attempts to land Julio Baptista from Roma and Tommaso Rocchi from Lazio, Corvino didn’t despair. On Sunday he announced Fiorentina had signed Keirrison, the 21-year-old Brazilian striker, from Barcelona on a two-year loan deal with an option to buy him outright for £12m. The former Palmeiras youngster only joined the Champions League holders in the summer to great fanfare after scoring 26 goals in his last two seasons in Brazil.

At the time, Pep Guardiola said: “He is very young. He has very good qualities. The club has decided to sign him, but in principle he will go out on loan. I am not counting on him this season.” It now looks as though Pep won’t be counting on him at all. The question is, will Keirrison come back to haunt him in the Champions League this season? Fiorentina will first have to overcome Bayern Munich later this month for that to happen.

Talking points

• Alberto Zaccheroni’s reign as Juventus manager started with a 1-1 draw against former club Lazio. The 56-year-old, who, incidentally, is only the third person to have coached all three of Italy’s big clubs, didn’t propose the 4-3-3 on which he made his name with Milan and Udinese. Instead, he stuck with a 4-3-1-2 formation that did little to convince anyone that things are about to get any better in Turin. Juventus fans should bear in mind that, while Zac won the Scudetto in 1999, he hasn’t coached since 2006 when Torino fired him after he got just a point from his last eight games.
• Roma’s 2-1 victory over lowly Siena extends their unbeaten run to 17 games in all competitions. Claudio Ranieri’s side were without Franceso Totti, Mirko Vucinic and Luca Toni, but had Fulham bound Stefano Okaka to thank for the three points. Roma are now joint second in Serie A, level on points with Milan who drew at home to Livorno, making it three games without a win for Leonardo’s Rossoneri.
• Bari’s Brazilian striker Paulo Barreto scored for the eighth game in a row against Palermo. The 24-year-old who is on loan from Udinese looks set to earn a big move in the summer with Roma heading a queue of clubs interested in his signature. Having scored against Juventus, Fiorentina and Inter, Barreto is certainly a man for the big occasion and could be a dark horse for Brazil’s World Cup squad. Watch this space.
• Parma saw their match against Inter called off due to adverse weather conditions, robbing Hernan Crespo of the chance to make his second debut for the Gialloblu. The 34-year-old Argentinian re-joined Parma a decade after leaving the Ennio Tardini for then money bags Lazio, who paid a world record £35m for him in 2000. Crespo had found playing time hard to come by at Genoa who negotiated a three party deal this week. The Rossoblu agreed to let Crespo go to Parma if they in turn sent Nicola Amoruso to Atalanta, allowing them to get Robert Acquafresca back from his loan in Bergamo… Still with me?

From Soccerlens.com - Football News

It was billed as a contest between strength and beauty, substance versus style and whenever that’s the case the public generally side with the latter. And that’s why you should never trust the wisdom of crowds as Inter showed absolutely no difficulty in dispatching Milan, the overwhelming people’s favourites.

In the week leading up to la Madonnina only the bookies – yes, those scandalously unromantic types – were prepared to back Inter. Everyone had jumped on the Milan bandwagon, and why not? No one likes a flat-track bully and that’s just what Inter have come to be seen as since Jose Mourinho took over in the summer of 2008.

The momentum appeared to be with Milan. Leonardo’s side had lost just once in Serie A since September 23. Stunning victories like those over Real Madrid [3-2], Cagliari [4-3], Genoa [5-2], Juventus [3-0] and Siena [4-0] were held up in stark contrast to Inter’s own almost robot-like monotonous success.

Through November, December and early January, Inter won four games 1-0. They needed two goals in the last five minutes to beat relegation bound Siena 4-3 on January 9, and had to comeback again last weekend to draw 2-2 at Bari. The title race, which looked well and truly over just a few weeks ago, was wide open again.

Having been in the relegation zone at half-time against Roma on October 18, Milan were now only six points behind Inter with a game in hand. Inter looked riled especially when Adriano Galliani managed to move Milan’s Coppa Italia quarter-final first leg on January 20 to the following Wednesday, giving Leonardo seven days to prepare his players for the derby.

Interviewed by La Gazzetta dello Sport on Thursday, former Inter boss Roberto Mancini issued a rallying cry not to the Nerazzurri but to Milan. “Leo, you can do it!” Mancini roared. Italy boss Marcello Lippi even got in on the act, albeit somewhat indirectly. The World Cup winner is currently touring the country checking up on the players he intends to take with him to South Africa.

He went to see Juventus at Vinovo, Milan at Milanello and then decided to go home, snubbing Inter on the grounds that there simply aren’t enough Italian players there, something with which Mario Balotelli and Davide Santon might disagree. Inter tried to show they weren’t all that fussed. The club’s Argentinian players had a huge barbecue on Thursday, but Lippi had clearly ruffled a few feathers.

“Marcello has made a mistake because I think that the Italian players at Inter, even if they are few, have been hurt by his actions,” Inter President Massimo Moratti told Radio 1. “It seems a little snobbish to me. Moreover, the fact that he went to visit Milan and not us the week before the derby wasn’t a perfect move from a political point of view.”

Mourinho – having already had it out with Lippi in pre-season for tipping Juventus to win the title – dug the knife in a little further, suggesting that Lippi still had bad memories of Inter’s training ground after Moratti sacked him in 2000. He then cut through the hyperbole and laid out some Rafa Benitez-style ‘facts’.

Speaking on Saturday, Mourinho said: “I don’t fear anything about anyone and, if I were able to, I would ask the authorities to re-schedule the game because I would like to play it today. It doesn’t bother me hearing people say Milan play better: we score more, we win more, we have more points. Goals, victories and points: this is what’s spectacular to me.”

Meanwhile, Leonardo played it safe, so much so, in fact, that La Gazzetta went to the trouble of italicizing the words ‘politically correct’ in English. Asked if he was out for revenge after Inter beat Milan 4-0 in Week 2, the Brazilian replied: “This isn’t Mourinho against Leonardo, it’s Inter against Milan and that’s it. And anyway Mourinho and I are different. We come from different backgrounds and we are treading different paths. I am at the beginning of my coaching career. He has won things everywhere. I respect him a lot as a coach and as a person.”

Leo was coming across as a nice guy, saying all the right things just as he would when fulfilling his role as a director for Milan in previous years. But this time he was the manager and comparisons with Gandhi weren’t helping especially when Mourinho is so often likened to Napoleon. After all, whom would you rather have leading you into battle? And maybe that’s where Milan’s downfall lie last night.

Inter took just 10 minutes to establish a lead through Argentinian striker Diego Milito who scored his 12^th goal of the season – his fourth straight in a derby match. Then came the point on which the whole match rested. Wesley Sneijder, Inter’s most influential player, the mastermind of their last derby victory, was sent off after 27 minutes for sarcastically applauding and then swearing at the referee. Milan should have been in the ascendancy. Lucio and Sulley Muntari looked frustrated and were soon booked. Even Moratti entered the dressing room at half-time for a team talk that left Milan waiting out on the pitch for five minutes.

The Rossoneri put a few chances together, but never looked dominant. Inter then landed a classic sucker punch, as Goran Pandev stroked home a lovely free-kick just after the hour mark in his first Derby della Madonnina. Milan were given a lifeline when Lucio handled in the box and got sent off in stoppage time. But Ronaldinho – who has already scored four penalties this season – couldn’t beat Julio Cesar.

Mourinho spurred on the crowd as the final whistle was blown. Inter had won 2-0 with nine men. “I have already understood they won’t let us seal up the Scudetto… I see what is happening here… We proved everything. We proved that the only way we were going to lose was if we went down to six men, as with seven we still would have won,” the Special One crowed.

And that, in a nutshell, is arguably the most important contribution Mourinho has made at Inter. Yes, they arguably played better under Mancini, but now Inter have a never-say-die attitude, a spirit that ensures they are never out of a game.

Earlier this month, Javier Zanetti said: “Inter have great numbers, true champions, but also a lot heart. I am proud of this group. There are people here who never give up, who leave nothing to spare and respect the club and the fans… They say we are the most foreign team in Italy. But I struggle to find a group around the world more attached to their shirt. And this is our winning card.”

It remains to be seen whether that’s enough to end 45 years of hurt in the Champions League. 

From Soccerlens.com - Football News

Anyone visiting Italy last week could be forgiven for mistaking the land of La Dolce Vita for the Wild West, such was the manner in which the country’s press played fast and loose with words like ‘showdown’ and ‘revenge’.

Roma boss Claudio Ranieri was back in Turin for the first time since Juventus fired him with just two games remaining last season. He had never won there as an opposing manager in his 23-year coaching career. But something felt different this time.

Just as in 2004 when Roman Abramovich sacked Ranieri despite Chelsea’s second place finish in the Premier League and their appearance in the Champions League semi-finals, the public appeared to be on the Tinkerman’s side.

Juventus fans, whose curva was closed for racist chanting, staged a protest march from the Fiat Mirafiori factory, and while they weren’t exactly behind Ranieri, they shared his grievances most notably against the club’s board.

Roberto Bettega, the Juventus legend who recently returned as a vice-general manager, didn’t exactly help matters by telling the press he predicted a win for the Bianconeri that would lead to a Milan-like resurgence in the championship.

Ranieri, having been a model diplomat all week, wasn’t impressed. “It got under my skin,” he admitted. But aside from that barb, which, incidentally, was delivered with a laugh, Ranieri handled himself with real class.

He insisted that he held no grudge against Ciro Ferrara, who he trained at Napoli during the 1991-92 season, or the players, even though some of Juventus’s so-called ‘senators’ had called for his head behind closed doors.

No, his beef lay solely with the board. Juventus went into Saturday night’s clash having won just one of their last seven games. If the season started on December 6, the Bianconeri would be fourth from bottom with just six points.

So the question on everybody’s lips was one and the same. Why did Juventus fire Ranieri? That’s a chapter he’s promised to write in a future autobiography, but the fact Roma travelled north in third place and on a run of 11-games without defeat left pundits in no doubt that Juventus’s and not Ranieri’s reputation was the one tarnished by events last summer.

From their seats on the moral high ground, Roma fans were still not without concern ahead of their trip to Turin. The last time Roma beat Juventus away in Serie A came on September 29, 2001, a win that contributed to their first Scudetto in 18 years.

Things certainly didn’t look good when January signing Luca Toni, fresh from scoring his first two goals for the club against Genoa the weekend before, limped off after just eight minutes. Francesco Totti replaced Toni, who is now out for a month, much to his and Ranieri’s discomfort. The Roma captain had yet to appear in 2010 after suffering a knee injury against Parma in December and he clearly wasn’t fit.

That didn’t stop him from making an impact, though. Totti scored a 68^th minute penalty that cancelled out Alessandro Del Piero’s beautiful volleyed opener. He is now seventh in Italy’s all-time goalscoring charts. Totti’s 188^th League goal was also interestingly enough his first against Juventus in Turin.

The turning point came with seven minutes to go, when Jon-Arne Riise of all people raced through clear on goal from the half-way line. Gigi Buffon came out to meet him and made a tactical foul, for which he deservedly earned a red card.

Riise later revealed that at half-time he had a chat with Roma’s chief playmaker David Pizarro. The Norway international explained that he was finding so little resistance on the left-hand side that the pint-sized Pizarro should seek him out. And that’s just what he did in the 92^nd minute, sending a delightful diagonal ball into the box, which found Riise, who left Juventus’s new signing Antonio Candreva for dead, and headed it past Alex Manninger like the ghost of Tore Andre Flo.

Ranieri didn’t know where to look as his players ran under the away curva. Speaking after the game, he said: “I am very happy with what I did in my two years in Turin and now I’m very happy to be at Roma. There is no desire for revenge. It is my first win over Juventus, clearly I needed to get my home team to achieve it.

“I said hello to everyone I met before the referee led the teams on to the field. I won’t salute the directors, no. I saluted Ciro Ferrara, but not the directors.” And off Rhinestone Ranieri went into the sunset, a hero’s welcome of more than 300 fans awaiting him and his team at Rome’s Fiumicino airport at 2:45 in the morning. A victory for one of football’s nice guys.

Meanwhile Juventus fall to sixth, five points behind Roma and the torture for Ciro “Rocky” Ferrara continues. The latest manager said to be about to replace him is none other than Giovanni Trapattoni, the Republic of Ireland boss, who won six Scudetti, a European Cup and seven other major honours in two stints with the Bianconeri.

Talking points

• Marcello Lippi raised a toast to himself last week, as Gigi Delneri, the Sampdoria manager, decided to drop Antonio Cassano for ‘technical reasons’ ahead of Sunday’s match against Udinese. Without a win in eight, it was clear something had to give at Marassi and unfortunately that something was Cassano. Rumours circulated that the Bari brat had a bust-up with Delneri at Samp’s training ground in Bogliasco earlier in the week, claims that were strenuously denied by the club hierarchy on Friday. “We have spoken and I have explained my ideas to him, but there has not been a clash, we had a pleasant chat as men. I want strikers who know how to press. It’s a normal choice for a coach and it’s normal on the part of a player to accept it, like Antonio has done.” Delneri was vindicated as Samp won 3-2. Cassano’s replacement, Nicola Pozzi, scored the Blucerchiati’s crucial equaliser. Oh, how long ago that day in October must feel when, minutes after Italy’s 3-2 victory over Cyprus, Lippi rounded on the fans for booing the team and invoking Cassano’s name!
• In an interview with La Gazzetta dello Sport last week, Bari striker Paulo Barreto admitted that his two biggest wishes are to spend a day with Kaka and play for Brazil. He’s a step closer to doing just that after scoring his eighth goal in his last seven matches. What makes the 24-year-old Brazilian’s feat all the more impressive is that his goals have come against Napoli, Juventus, Udinese, Fiorentina, Inter, Genoa and Bologna.
• Serse Cosmi, the gravel-voiced, baseball cap wearing, Livorno manager quit on Sunday, citing ‘disagreements’ with Aldo Spinelli, the club’s president. He’s the 13^th managerial casualty in Serie A this season, although the circumstances surrounding his resignation are unclear. Cristiano Lucarelli, the Livorno talisman, said that Cosmi apparently told the club’s old guard he was quitting on Thursday in spite of Sunday’s result. “You can understand where the problems lie. The fact the Coach already had a statement ready shows you this has been in the air for a while and that’s it not an instinctive decision.”

From Soccerlens.com - Football News

Giampiero Ventura doesn’t take kindly to being called the grandfather of Serie A, but having just turned 62 the journeyman Bari manager has to go that little bit further in proving himself otherwise. Speaking ahead of Inter’s visit to the San Nicola on Saturday, Ventura offered a veritable master class in machismo.

“Change the record, it’s just not funny anymore,” he smirked. “In training camp I got my abs out to show you what I am made of. I just finished an exertive cardio test: I’ll only tell you that I broke the bicycle pedals. I explained to the doctor I had only just started warming up. And I am the so-called ‘dean’ of this League.”

Well, Ventura may not be a dean in the academic sense, but with 27 years of coaching experience and over 800 appearances on Italy’s benches, he’s certainly capable of handing out a lesson or two. And that’s just what he gave Jose Mourinho for the second time this season on Saturday night.

Without Andrea Ranocchia and Sergio Almiron, the team’s two most influential players, and four other regulars Bari were quite harshly given up for dead. The fact they had won their last five matches in a row at home, including a 3-1 victory over Juventus, was somewhat criminally overlooked.

It perhaps shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise then when Bari went 2-0 up, admittedly scoring twice in three minutes from the penalty spot early in the second half, but completely dominating proceedings all the same. Unprepared to change the way they play a second string Bari side persisted with the 4-2-4 that has brought them so much success this season and had more possession and more shots on target than Inter, much to the delight of 58,000 screaming home fans.

Inter managed to scrape a 2-2 draw and were also justified in feeling aggrieved when Leonardo Bonucci wasn’t sent off for bringing Goran Pandev down in the area with 15 minutes to go, an incident that resulted in a penalty and Diego Milito’s equaliser. But the overwhelming feeling in Puglia was that Bari had won. In fact, in four games against Italy’s traditional top three this season, Bari remain unbeaten.

And yet it was never supposed to be this way, or so the suits in Italy’s TV studios would have you believe. Bari dominated Serie B last year, winning with four points to spare, ending an excruciating eight-year exile from Italy’s top-flight. But then they imploded, allowing Antonio Conte, the manager who inspired their promotion, to walk away amid reports that Juventus were about to hire him.

The Matarrese family were looking to sell the club and had all but walked away when a €25m takeover led by the Texan Tim Barton collapsed. As the new season approached Bari looked as if they would start their long-awaited return to Serie A without a manager, an owner and even a sponsor.

The club’s fans were left shaking their heads, wondering if they would ever see a night like the one just over 10 years ago when a 17-year-old Antonio Cassano scored a wonder goal to give Bari a famous 2-1 victory over Marcello Lippi’s Inter. But somehow they rallied. In fact, Bari’s director of sport Giorgio Perinetti worked nothing short of a miracle.

First, Perinetti hired Ventura who was greeted with a great deal of scepticism given his time with local rivals Lecce. The last time Ventura had been in Serie A didn’t exactly inspire confidence either. Messina fired him after a run of five defeats and only one win against the already relegated Treviso. However, Ventura’s stock had risen again with Pisa who he had led to the Serie B play-offs in 2007 playing a thrilling 4-2-4, something Conte admitted to replicating at Bari. Only Perinetti had the foresight to recognise that Ventura would fit in seamlessly at the San Nicola.

For his second miracle, Perinetti would build a squad capable not just of consolidation but also revelation in Serie A with the paltry sum of €7.2m, signing no fewer than 16 players either on loan, in part-ownership or on free transfers. Four players arrived from Genoa, most notably Ranocchia and Andrea Masiello, both of whom have performed so well as to attract attention from Juventus, Inter, Chelsea and Manchester United. Three more came from Udinese and two each from Sampdoria and Juventus, showing once again that who you know is just as important as what you know in the world of Italian football.

As the second half of the season begins, Bari lie 10^th in Serie A just five points off third place. The question is, can they improve upon their best ever finish in Serie A, a seventh place in 1947?

Twist in the Milan Derby

Fixture lists often cause controversy, no more so than in Italy. Back in December when the Big Freeze practically brought Italian football to a standstill, Inter decided to play Livorno in sub-zero temperatures while Serie A’s other teams, including Milan consented to postpone their fixtures. Inter’s gutsiness looked to have given them an edge, as they would have a less congested fixture list in January when the postponements were rescheduled.

In practice, it meant Inter would have the week before the Derby della Madonnina completely free while Milan would have to play Udinese on the preceding Wednesday to make room for the postponement of their match against Fiorentina, something Adriano Galliani didn’t like at all. So he called Maurizio Beretta, the League’s President, and got the fixture moved much to Inter’s annoyance.

Jose Mourinho and Massimo Moratti are incensed not only because it means the risk they took in December didn’t pay off, but it unfairly gives Milan the chance to better rest their players ahead of the derby, which is particularly significant given the gap between the two teams is now just six points and Milan still have a game in hand. If Milan beat Udinese and then win the derby, they will draw level with Inter at the top of Serie A.

Talking points

• Ronaldinho has helped Milan get back into the title race. He scored a hat-trick – the first of his career – in the Rossoneri’s 4-0 victory over Siena at the weekend. The 29-year-old has now scored five goals in two games going into next weekend’s all-important derby and preparations couldn’t be going any better, as Leonardo explained. “The derby comes at the right time and the fact the two teams are so close in the table puts even more focus on this match. We are going through a wonderful period of form, but only time will tell how far we can go.”
• Meanwhile, it emerged that Juventus’s 3-0 victory over Napoli in the Coppa Italia on Wednesday was a false harbinger of hope. The Bianconeri lost 1-0 away to Chievo for the first time in their history. Giorgio Chiellini, the team’s talismanic defender and future captain, lamented the fact Juventus haven’t had a single shot on goal in Serie A for three games. He also said there have been “too many shit performances.” The Bianconeri are now out of the Champions League places and face Roma next weekend, giving Claudio Ranieri the chance to get revenge on the club that fired him last season.
• Talking about Roma, the Giallorossi systematically destroyed Genoa 3-0 at home thanks to Luca Toni who scored his first two goals for the club. The 32-year-old combined really well with Mirko Vucinic to extend Roma’s unbeaten run to 11 games in Serie A. Ranieri’s side move up to third in the table, although the Giallorossi remain 11 points behind League leaders Inter.
• Alberto Malesani looks increasingly likely to become the 13^th managerial casualty of the season in Serie A. Siena are four points adrift at the bottom of the table and have conceded 12 goals in their last three games. Expect new owner Massimo Mezzaroma either to bring back Marco Giampaolo or take a punt on Gigi Cagni, who is now more famous for his blog than helping Empoli qualify for Europe in 2007.
• The Derby delle Due Sicilie between Palermo and Napoli ended in a stalemate, but it was arguably the game of the weekend. Fabrizio Miccoli missed a penalty to win it for Palermo while Napoli preserved their unbeaten run in Serie A, which stretches back to the beginning of October.

From Soccerlens.com - Football News

Two players supposedly very close to hanging up their boots in the summer helped put Italy’s Old Lady in a retirement home last night. Alessandro Nesta, the 33-year-old with the bad back, and Ronaldinho, the two-time former World Player of the Year said to be now well past his best, were simply inspirational in Milan’s 3-0 win over Juventus that effectively ended the Bianconeri’s already slim chances of winning the Scudetto.

La Stampa quite rightly called it: ‘the show of the survivors’. Nesta played just 13 minutes last season, an all-time low even for a player who went into the current campaign having only played 44 games since the 2006 World Cup. Chronic back problems meant he spent much of the last four years in Miami, seeking specialist treatment, which, when found to have worked little, persuaded Milan to recommend Nesta have potentially career-ending surgery.

Reflecting on that dark period of his career, Nesta told La Gazzetta dello Sport in September: “It hurt a lot to be away from the pitch. The worst moment came when I suffered my last setback last winter. I thought everything was finally in place and instead came the relapse. Milan made me anxious with this story of an operation. It seemed like a risk that I didn’t need to run. Now I appreciate even the most boring things about football, like being in training camp. I want to start again well.”

And start well he did. Milan Vice-President Adriano Galliani doesn’t recall ever seeing Nesta play as well as he has so far this season. The Italian media are clamouring for him to come out of international retirement, something Nesta has absolutely no intention of doing. “That chapter’s closed. If it were only down to me then I would play for the Azzurri again, but I won’t take the place of someone who has earned it through qualification.” Perhaps Francesco Totti should listen to his former Lazio rival.

As for Ronaldinho, the 29-year-old Brazilian looks to have finally rediscovered the smile that was so often a harbinger of his best form at Barcelona. Ronie set up Nesta’s 29^th minute opener and then scored twice to put the game beyond Juve, and put himself into contention for a return to Carlos Dunga’s Brazil side. It’s little wonder La Gazzetta dello Sport chose a shot of Ronaldinho with a beaming buck-toothed smile straddling Nesta’s ‘bad’ back as it’s lead picture in this morning’s paper.

Speaking after the game, he said: “I am happy. I always play and I feel good physically.” La Gazzetta dello Sport also added that, “while Juventus-Milan is not a global derby as defined on TV, it certainly is a game that many people watch. Probably even Dunga. And the door to the World Cup opens a little bit more.” Asked about his chances of going to the World Cup, Ronie replied: “Right now Milan are all that’s in my head. I want to make the Milan fans happy and win something with this team.”

Whether Milan win the Scudetto or not will depend a great deal on the outcome of the Derby della Madonnina later this month. The Rossoneri are eight points behind League leaders Inter with a game in hand, albeit one against Fiorentina. But the sensation is that no matter how good Milan are currently playing, their poor start to the season and Inter’s unrelenting consistency will ultimately tell in May.

Inter showed on Saturday by twice coming back from behind to beat Siena 4-3 in the 92^nd minute just how determined they are not to relinquish their title. Jose Mourinho fully appreciated that the victory was nothing short of psychological gold dust, telling Sky Sport Italia: “We knew Milan and Juventus were incredibly happy at the 87^th minute, fairly happy at the 88^th and at the 93^rd maybe some televisions were thrown out the window.”

It remains to be seen whether that, and Sunday’s defeat to Milan, their heaviest at home in Serie A in 13 years, results in Juventus showing Ciro Ferrara the door.

Talking points

• A number of Italian clubs have expressed concern for their players at the African Cup of Nations in Angola, following the attack on a bus carrying the Togo national team through the enclave of Cabinda on Friday. Udinese have moved to secure the return of Kwadwo Asamoah, the 21-year-old Ghana international midfielder, who is due to play in Cabinda in Group B along with the Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso.
• Just when it appeared Lazio had sorted out their issues, putting a three-game unbeaten run together, a bombshell arrives from Argentina. After calling out Mauro Zarate, Lazio manager Davide Ballardini faced the wrath of the player’s brother. “Ballardini should apologise, otherwise at the end of the season Lotito will have to choose between Mauro and the manager”former Ancona flop, Sergio Zarate raged. It didn’t take long for Ballardini to reply: “I am certainly not the one who should be apologising. I would do it all over again.” Luckily for Ballardini, Sergio Floccari, Zarate’s stand-in, appears to be the signing of the January transfer window so far, having scored three goals in his first two games for the club.
• Napoli are still unbeaten since Walter Mazzarri took charge on October 6. Sunday’s 1-0 victory over Mazzarri’s former side Sampdoria, sent Napoli third and with Andrea Dossena joining from Liverpool, the Partenopei have the strength in depth to make a push for Champions League qualification.

From Soccerlens.com - Football News

Much like one of the festive season’s now ubiquitous pantomimes, Serie A’s return from a winter break had everything; villains, heroes, a dose of magic, the absurd and some inexplicable stupidity doled out by the usual suspects.

Set on the public holiday that is the Epiphany when a mystical broom-wielding witch known as La Befana does her rounds of the peninsula, leaving a piece of candy that looks suspiciously like coal in every household, it didn’t take long for millions of Italian football fans to discover who had been good or bad over the last 17 days.

Serie A kicked off just after breakfast at the ungodly hour of 11:30am, perhaps before La Befana had even reached Sicily. The game’s timing had it’s fair share of problems, no more so than when it came to preparing the pre-match meal.

Julio Cesar, Inter’s Brazilian goalkeeper, said: “I had just woken up when I had to eat scrambled eggs, rice and chicken. The beauty of it was that I wasn’t even hungry.” Luckily, he managed to keep it down, something Ronaldo, Adriano and Maniche also would undoubtedly have had no problem doing were they still at the club.

His team-mates struggled, though, and throughout Inter’s gritty 1-0 win away to Chievo it looked as if several players were suffering from violent indigestion. The only thing festive about the whole affair was Jose Mourinho’s Christmas tree formation, which gave Patrick Vieira a charitable final starting appearance and Goran Pandev a debut following his free transfer from Lazio.

In all, 44 fouls were committed, nine players received bookings and most tragic of all Cristian Chivu ended up in intensive care after a clash of heads with Sergio Pellissier left him with a fractured skull and a dangerous haematoma pressing on his brain.

The focus should have fallen on Chivu’s health. His injuries have been compared with those sustained by Ferrari’s F1 racing driver Felipe Massa last year. The Romanian is now expected to be out for three months and Inter’s medical staff expect him to make a fully recovery. Unfortunately, as is too often becoming the case, it was Mario Balotelli who stole the headlines.

The 19-year-old scored Inter’s only goal of the game, but was whistled by the Verona crowd for going to ground far too easily. By all accounts, there were no racism in the chants, but Balotelli took act with the fans and clapped them sarcastically as he was substituted late in the second half.

As he collected his Man of the Match award, Balotelli couldn’t resist having the final say. “Every time I come here, I understand that Verona’s people disgust me even more.” The remark caused outrage. Minutes later, Mourinho defended not the player, but Inter’s hosts. “Verona is a very beautiful city. The club is well managed, educated, with a good trainer. In short, I like the people here. They are having a good season and if something happens in the stadium it’s nothing. Let’s not make a drama out of this.”

Wishful thinking, Jose, for it wasn’t long before Verona’s mayor was on the line. “Balotelli is an immature and presumptuous young lad. He will never be a champion,” Flavio Tosi explained. Chievo President Luca Campedelli said: “He cannot be allowed to offend the city. Professionals have to know how to accept the whistles. If Balotelli doesn’t then he is wrong. There were only whistles. I, for one, didn’t hear any racist booing towards him. It’s not the colour of the skin that’s the problem, but the attitude he has on the pitch.”

Editorials in Italy’s most respected newspapers took Balotelli as their subject this morning. Beppe Severgnini, the well-known Interista columnist from Il Corriere della Sera, wrote: “If the referee and the linesmen had been the Three Kings they might have looked up at the wandering star and said: is this really why you brought us here?”

There are two things we can take from this affair. 1] Balotelli has to decide whether he intends to become a top class player or, as Franco Arturi wrote in La Gazzetta dello Sport, remain an adolescent at war with his environment. 2] Chievo fans may not have launched racist chants towards Balotelli.

Indeed, they are perhaps only guilty by association with neighbours Hellas, who have been forced to play behind closed doors twice in the last two years for racism. But Balotelli has been specifically targeted in Cagliari, Bologna and Turin this season, which reinforces the point that it’s time to decide upon a punishment that really hurts clubs for the actions of a few Neanderthal supporters.

Talking points

• Inter’s victory preserves their eight-point lead at the top of Serie A and made their coronation as winter champions for the fourth year in a row all the sweeter. In 77 years two thirds of Italy’s winter champions have managed to win the Scudetto.
• Juventus returned to winning ways after a three-game losing streak in Serie A. The Bianconeri travelled to high-flying Parma and came away with an ugly 2-1 win. Ciro Ferrara is safe for another three days at least until after this weekend’s match against Milan. If Juventus lose, it has been widely reported that the club’s new vice-general manager Roberto Bettega will bring in Guus Hiddink.
• Bolstered by the arrivals of David Beckham and the star of Ghana’s Under-20 World Cup win, Dominic Adiyiah, Milan look the most likely to challenge Inter this season, although it might already be too late. Leonardo’s side came back from a goal down to smash Genoa 5-2 last night with even Klaas-Jan Huntelaar scoring his first goal at the San Siro. The Rossoneri have a difficult January ahead with Juventus up next, then Siena, Inter and Fiorentina.
• Napoli are unbeaten since Walter Mazzarri took charge of the club on October 6. Wednesday’s 2-0 victory over bogey team Atalanta sees them leapfrog Roma into fourth place and pundits are tipping them to qualify for the Champions League. Hometown hero Fabio Quagliarella scored yet another screamer, his seventh of the season so far.
• Roma drop to fifth after throwing away a 2-0 lead in stoppage time. David Pizarro put them ahead from the spot against Cagliari despite being hit by a paper bomb as he left the field at the interval. Simone Perrotta then doubled the Giallorossi’s advantage, but the Sardinians came back and equalised through Roma legend Bruno Conti’s son, Daniele, who has now scored three goals against his father’s alma mater. Bruno called him “ungrateful” and a “degenerate” after the game. In jest of course.
• The Italian FA’s disciplinary commissioner has opened an investigation into reports that three Torino players bet on their side’s match against Crotone on November 28. Torino lost 2-1 and the defeat cost Stefano Colantuono his job. The case has eerie hallmarks of the 1980 Totonero scandal that led to Milan and Lazio being relegated.
• Mantova President Fabrizio Lori has been criticised for paying his players and not the workers he employs in his factories. Lori is famous for being something of a playboy after picking up fines for, among other things, parking his supercar illegally on some of Italy’s most beautiful piazzas and racing his motorboat up and down Venice’s Lido.

From Soccerlens.com - Football News

Christmas came early for Serie A, although not as Italy’s football fraternity would have wanted. The Italian FA were forced to postpone 10 matches up and down the country on Saturday as snow created conditions that Il Corriere della Sera described as ‘Siberian’.

While some just shrugged their shoulders in the quintessential Italian way, taking the chance to stuff down another piece of panettone, Milan Vice-President Adriano Galliani cut a Scrooge-like figure, huffing and puffing in the cold air and doing his level best to put the red in Rossonero with his rosy baldhead.

He didn’t give two hoots about the snow – it could have been yellow for all he cared. At stake here, he said, was something much more important than Christmas – the honour of Italian football was being slighted, it’s image damaged yet again.

“The game has not been postponed because of the cold, but for the obsolescence of Italian stadiums,” Galliani raged, as if just off the phone from angry TV execs. “I was at the Stadio Franchi [in Florence] and saw up close that the pitch was in perfect condition, a resplendent green. That’s because there is a heating system and the ice left no trace.

“But the stands in Florence, much like in Bologna and almost all our stadiums, are out in the open. The consequences are inevitable. The ground is iced over and the authorities do not feel prepared to let the game go ahead with risks for public safety. We made an inevitable decision.

“I am too old to win this battle. They played everywhere else in Europe this evening. The problem is the stadiums. We need to change the grounds. There is nothing else to say. Merry Christmas,” Galliani signed off, although a ‘Bah Humbug’ would perhaps have been more appropriate.

Galliani has certainly taken it upon himself in recent years to fight calcio’s corner more than anyone else, whether it be in terms of TV rights or more recently the UEFA co-efficient, so while he is often a polarising figure, a cause championed by Galliani is often in Italy’s and not just Milan’s interest.

Italian stadia have come under great scrutiny over the last few years, perhaps no more so than in 2006 when UEFA snubbed Italy’s bid for Euro 2012 and Filippo Raciti, a Sicilian policeman, was tragically killed during a riot outside Catania’s ground. Not for the first time, the English Premier League was held up as a model of progress both on and off the field.

Deloitte’s annual football rich list has always strongly advised Italian clubs to invest in privately owned stadia and to move away from dilapidated grounds run by the council that don’t bring in any money and represent a burden rather than a blessing on the balance sheet.

Galliani is wrong to single out Fiorentina for criticism, as after Juventus, who have already started building an eco-friendly stadium, the Viola have arguably done the most to address this problem, getting planning permission for an ambitious football theme park admired by Real Madrid that would include a new improved ground.

Inter, Roma, Genoa and Cagliari have also released architect’s drawings of prospective new stadia, but without funding or cheap credit any development will be top heavy, as Italy’s smaller clubs are in more financial trouble than ever.

As more snow falls on the peninsula, the debate shows no sign of cooling, especially with this weekend’s postponements causing an unenviable fixture pile up. Milan are justified in feeling the most aggrieved as Saturday’s match with Fiorentina is now expected to fall on January 27, just three days after the derby against Inter.

However, as is often the case, one man’s sorrow is another man’s joy and fortunately for Pasquale Marino the snow might just have saved his job. The Udinese manager was told last week that a fifth defeat in six games would spell the end of his time with the Zebrette. Sunday’s game with Cagliari was one of those snowed off and Italy’s most attacking coach got the reprieve his attacking brand of football deserves.

Talking points

• Ciro Ferrara shrugged off claims made by Guus Hiddink’s agent that Juventus had been in touch with his client. “When I saw a drop in temperature so similar to the climate in Russia, some doubts did enter my head”Ferrara joked. A 2-1 defeat at home to Catania now leaves Hiddink with the last laugh.
• If there were any doubts regarding Inter’s status as the team of 2009, their stats at home surely put them to rest.  The Nerazzurri went unbeaten at San Siro for the entire year and haven’t lost there in Serie A since March 22, 2008.  All the more remarkable is the fact Javier Zanetti participated in every one of Inter’s 37 games in the League, playing 90 minutes in all of them.
• After just over a year out of the game, Roberto Mancini was formally appointed the manager of Manchester City. Controversy aside, Mancini’s coaching CV makes interesting reading. Yes, he won three Scudetti in a row with Inter, but his greatest achievement lies with Lazio and Fiorentina who he guided to safety and a Coppa Italia each. Question marks remain over his temperament. He lost the dressing room in 2008 after he resigned only to go back on his decision following Inter’s Champions League defeat to Liverpool. The team then blew a massive lead in Serie A and almost lost the title.

From Soccerlens.com - Football News

A week is a ridiculously long time in football, no more so than in Italy. Last Sunday, the Ferrara household woke to headlines like, “It’s all true”, and, “The championship starts again”, after Juventus fought hard to record a gutsy 2-1 win over Inter in the Derby d’Italia. Flash forward seven days and the sports papers landing on Ferrara’s doorstep couldn’t look any more different; they couldn’t read any worse.

“Juve, it’s all gone black”cried La Gazzetta dello Sport, which was mild to say the least considering the reaction from Turin based daily Tuttosport. “Ferrara, it’s over,” roared the front page. Like an accident waiting to happen, few of Italy’s football writers could pass up the chance of reminding Ferrara of the fateful words he uttered just the day before at Juventus’s pre-match Press Conference.

Defending himself against reports that he was about to get the sack following Tuesday’s 4-1 loss at home to Bayern Munich – Juventus’s biggest defeat in Turin since 1967 – which knocked the Bianconeri out of the Champions League, Ferrara said: “There have been some constructive and fair criticisms following our elimination. However, some have been a bit on the heavy side and I don’t like that. I’m confident enough to return them all to sender. My little black book has been open for some time.”

A little black book, eh? Didn’t that come back to haunt Ferrara after Saturday’s 3-1 defeat away to newly promoted Bari, for like a smartly dressed elephant, the Italian journalist never ever forgets. “How many chapters will Ferrara write in his little black book when he watches that match again?” Tuttosport wondered. “Where is Ciro Ferrara?” La Gazzetta asked rhetorically, knowing only too well that “he’s lost inside his little black book.”

While black was undoubtedly the theme of the day, the colour left on Ferrara’s mind was unequivocally red; the red of Bayern Munich and the red of Bari. Two defeats in five days laid bare the failings of a Juventus team that was not only supposed to take the race for the Scudetto down to the wire but also make a good impression on the continent at the very least. Unhelpfully dubbed the “Newventus” by recently elected President Jean-Claude Blanc at the start of the season, Juventus can only consider themselves truly new in the sense that they struggle both for substance and style.

Bari deserved their win, outplaying Juventus even though they were without the influential defensive pairing of Andrea Ranocchia and Alessandro Parisi. The Galletti changed the interpretation of their game, not their attitude while Juventus, who were without the suspended Felipe Melo and the injured Momo Sissoko, once again looked confused perhaps in part because of Ferrara’s decision to drop World Cup winning trio Mauro Camoranesi, Alessandro Del Piero and Fabio Grosso.

But while some of the blame for Saturday’s defeat lies on Ferrara’s inexperienced shoulders, the responsibility for Juventus’s woes is not solely his and for that reason many fans hope he sees out the rest of the season. In fact, the majority of them feel the board is the most culpable for all that’s rotten in Turin.

The state of the Bianconeri has often come under scrutiny following the Calciopoli scandal in 2006, but ambitious plans for an eco-friendly new stadium, well-balanced books and third and second place finishes in Serie A have to a large extent papered over the cracks in the board’s ability to differentiate clearly between what constitutes success as a business and success as a football club.

In reality, the project is very brittle as illustrated by a few superficial but nevertheless meaningful facts. Juventus changed managers just five times in nineteen years under legendary President Giampiero Boniperti. That trend didn’t change under his successors, the notorious Triad headed by Luciano Moggi, who went through three coaches in twelve years. It was a point of pride in Turin, another way of saying Juventus always get it right, they always win. Not now, though. The Bianconeri have gone through three in three years.

Ferrara’s appointment was justified in the wake of Pep Guardiola’s unprecedented success as a rookie at Barcelona, but many felt there was little point in firing Claudio Ranieri just two weeks from the end of the last campaign. Slowly but surely, people are beginning to realise that the Tinkerman worked something of a minor miracle in helping Juventus finish second in his debut season.

To then leave Ferrara without an assistant of experience and constantly remind him that no more slip ups are palatable after each defeat, leaves the Juventus board in the firing line, as does its treatment of Roberto Bettega, the Bianconeri’s legendary former striker, who looks all set for a stunning return to the club after being burned by the current board in 2007. Bettega emerged largely unscathed from the Calciopoli scandal and continued to serve as a technical director until the end of Juventus’s first season in Serie B when his contract expired. Blanc and the then Juventus President Giovanni Cobolli Gigli decided not to renew it despite his place in the club’s history, partly because of his involvement in a trial into alleged “administrative doping” at Juventus in the 1990s. Bettega and Juventus were cleared of any wrongdoing on November 24 and the board has decided upon an embarrassing volte-face.

That’s behind the scenes. What’s there for all to see are Juventus’s forays into the transfer market. The Bianconeri spent over £50m in the summer, mostly on two Brazilians, namely Diego and Felipe Melo. This column firmly believes the former will come good eventually, such is his class, but the latter deserves more scrutiny because Juventus paid £18.5m for a player who cost Fiorentina just £5m the year before.

Melo is an expensive flop especially given he missed ten games through suspension last year, later reduced to eight on appeal. Juventus were definitely in the market for a midfielder during the summer but initially focused their efforts on Udinese’s Gaetano D’Agostino, specifically because he is a ball-playing regista capable of starting and finishing moves. Yet they balked at his price tag, which incidentally was £3.5m lower than Melo’s. Strange then that the board rubberstamped a deal that a] wasn’t cost-effective and b] was completely unnecessary as Melo is a midfielder with similar characteristics to Momo Sissoko, and Christian Poulsen, players who break things down in the middle of the park.

Add into the mix, the fact Juventus then sold Fiorentina both Marco Marchionni and Cristiano Zanetti, the Bianconeri’s only natural regista-style midfielder, and it’s even harder to hold the board beyond reproach. It’s really starting to look like the so-called “Newventus” needs an old hand. So don’t be surprised if Bettega tempts Marcello Lippi to either help Ferrara or replace him outright after the World Cup next summer.

Talking points

• Inter extended their lead at the top of Serie A to five points even though they didn’t win. The Nerazzurri drew 1-1 away to Atalanta, but the game wasn’t without incident, as Jose Mourinho allegedly pushed a reporter who was standing near the team bus.
• Milan suffered their first defeat in all competitions since September 23, losing at home to Delio Rossi’s rejuvenated Palermo. The Rosanero won 2-0 and Milan boss Leonardo had few qualms with the result. Asked to explain the loss, the Brazilian said: “It’s just that we ran into a Palermo side that played better.”
• A southern derby of sorts between Napoli and Cagliari was the game of the weekend. It ended 3-3, although Cagliari thought they had won it, coming back from 2-0 down to lead 3-2 in the 89^th minute. Mariano Bogliacino grabbed a 96^th minute equaliser for Napoli, but the biggest talking point was Ezequiel Lavezzi’s sending off. El Pocho appeared to deliberately kick the ball at Massimiliano Allegri in the 95^th minute after the Cagliari manager failed to control another ball going out of play, perhaps in a bid to waste some time.
• Fiorentina were another high-profile casualty, losing 2-1 away to Chievo. The Viola were physically and emotionally spent after Wednesday’s victory over Liverpool at Anfield, which guaranteed they finished first in Champions League Group E.
• After months of speculation, Luciano Spalletti was appointed by 2008 UEFA Cup winners Zenit St. Petersburg. The Tuscan tactician resigned from his position with Roma in September after four very successful years in the capital. “I don’t go out looking for the best contract, but so I can work in the best way for my club, to build a project that can bring Zenit a stable future both domestically and in Europe”he said.
• Catania fired Gianluca Atzori and hired Sinisa Mihajlovic, but that decision couldn’t stop them sliding to the foot of the table on Sunday. The Elefanti lost 1-0 at home to fellow strugglers Livorno, but Mihajlovic is confident they can survive. The Serb said: “I cannot reprimand my players for anything, as they gave it all they had and Livorno won the game with their only shot on target.”

From Soccerlens.com - Football News

Alberto Cerruti, La Gazzetta dello Sport’s chief football writer, was unsparing in his analysis of Saturday evening’s much-anticipated Derby d’Italia.

“Juventus win with a splendid goal and Inter lose, seeing their lead reduced to four points over Milan and five over the Bianconeri. But above all Italian football loses: for the low level of play, for the nervousness of its interpreters, starting with Mourinho getting himself sent off after Juventus’s first goal; for the incivility of the fans who chanted the usual hateful chants against Balotelli.”

Cerutti didn’t stop there and nor should he have, for Italian football’s showpiece event was comparable with a street fight, a brawl between two opponents whose fierce rivalry has become even more undignified in the aftermath of the Calciopoli scandal three years ago. In fact, the only thing pretty about the whole affair was its 2-1 result, which, as Cerutti noted, reopens a title race that looked increasingly one-sided just over a week ago.

The world’s television cameras would have been better served if they had trained their lenses on Milan instead, who are now unbeaten in 13 games in all competitions following Saturday’s spectacular 3-0 victory over Sampdoria. What makes this run all the more remarkable is the fact Milan were in the relegation zone when they came out for the second half against Roma on October 18. Now the Rossoneri are in second place and unlike Inter and Juventus, they have a clearly defined identity predicated on attack and attack alone.

It took Leonardo’s men just 23 minutes to dispatch of Samp; finding inspiration from the 1982 Brazil side, the rookie coach certainly deserves props for showing the courage to play a 4-2-3-1 formation with five attacking players and just one holding midfielder screening the defence.

Speaking to La Gazzetta dello Sport last month, Thiago Silva, the Rossoneri’s impressive young centre-back, said: “I always like to win, so it’s good like this. We’re the most Brazilian side in Europe. Actually, I have never played in a Brazilian side with a similar formation. It’s a little more tiring, but even for defenders it’s entertaining because it’s not enough to rely on organisation alone… I like a lot the fact everyone goes on the attack because it mean they have trust in Nesta and I.”

Silva touches upon two interesting themes in that statement. One: Leonardo has succeeded in completely changing the club’s philosophy in a very short space of time; under Nils Liedholm Milan learned how to play zonally; under Arrigo Sacchi they learned how to press. Those ideas were developed further under Fabio Capello and Carlo Ancelotti, two coaches who played under Liedholm and Sacchi respectively. Leonardo has brought something new to the table and the tactical laboratory that is Milan continues to reinvent itself.

Two: Silva mentions the 33-year-old Alessandro Nesta who, among with Dida and Ronaldinho, was considered finished, already consigned to the Dinosaur’s graveyard that is Milanello. Ronaldinho was fantastic on Saturday, setting up Milan’s first two goals on his way to collecting the Man of the Match award, but Nesta is arguably the centrepiece of this reborn Diavolo.

Going into this season, Nesta had played just 44 league games since the World Cup in 2006, suffering from chronic back problems that required a career-threatening operation earlier this year. His only appearance in Serie A last season was a 13-minute cameo in the final game of the campaign against Fiorentina. He has now started 13 times in Serie A, scoring two important goals and is being urged to reconsider his decision to retire from international football.

Nesta’s story is certainly heart warming and Milan’s football heart racing, but, the question is, can the Rossoneri maintain a credible title challenge from now until May? Many pundits feel they have rode their luck over the last two months, scoring very late goals to beat relatively modest opposition like Chievo and Catania.

Italian football’s intelligentsia is also far from convinced. Arrigo Sacchi, the last man to win back-to-back European and Intercontinental Cups, has always believed a football team produces its best when all the parts perform in harmony like an orchestra. He has looked down on Milan’s recent success, dismissing it as the work of four soloists.

But perhaps the biggest threat to Milan’s season lies closer to home in the dressing room. After a rough pre-season and an equally uninspiring start to the campaign Leonardo finally persuaded his former team-mates to buy into his ideas. However, it must be said that those ideas, which are perceived as being so revolutionary, have already caused a degree of unrest with Rino Gattuso, the club’s talismanic vice-captain, expressing his dissatisfaction at a lack of regular first team football despite being injured.

While the going is good, Leonardo can keep Gattuso quiet relatively easily with the sheer force of his ideas, but if Milan suffer a dip in form then the revolution is unlikely to be bloodless, in fact, it might even be resisted.

Talking points:

• While fights broke out in Turin, Reggina and Ascoli showed that “fair play” does exist in Italian football. During their match on Saturday, Reggina defender Carlos Valdez pulled a muscle while on the ball and tried to put it out of play only for Ascoli’s Vincenzo Sommese to sweep it up and score, sparking a vicious scuffle. Reggina’s Andrea Costa then hit Sommese and was sent off.

  But Ascoli, seeing the error of their ways, ultimately decided to let Reggina equalise, standing still while Biagio Pagano advanced and put the ball past Mario Cassano. An investigation has now been launched.

• There were fireworks literally before, during and after the Rome derby. Francesco Totti called into question Mauro Zarate’s status as a “champion” and with good reason, too. The 33-year-old went into the derby having scored nine goals in Serie A, the same total as the entire Lazio team. His new 10-year contract also ensures he earns just half a million a year less than all of Lazio’s strikers combined as well.

  The game itself was mired by flares thrown on the pitch, which caused play to be suspended for a period in the first half. Ultimately Roma full-back Marco Cassetti settled the match, scoring the only goal of the game with 11 minutes to spare. Without a win since the second week of the season, it’s now practically inevitable that Claudio Lotito will sack Davide Ballardini.

• The prodigal son came home in the summer, but Fabio Quagliarella hasn’t endured the best of times since leaving Udinese for Napoli. The 26-year-old has thrown a strop for being substituted, complained about having to resist the mouth-watering culinary temptations of his hometown and to make matters worse suffered a frustrating goal drought, which, thankfully, came to an end on Sunday with a brace in Napoli’s 3-2 win over Southern rivals Bari.
• As if the notion of fair play had not been challenged enough over the weekend, it has also been reported that Parma defender Christian Panucci told Genoa President Enrico Preziosi: “I’ll smash your head in,” after the two sides drew 2-2 at Marassi on Sunday.

  Preziosi had already been involved in a row with his opposite number at Parma, Tommaso Ghirardi, refusing to shake his hand and shouting: “He stole my money.” Preziosi then apparently crossed paths with Panucci in the stadium’s underground car park where the pair had a few choice words to say the least.

From Soccerlens.com - Football News