May 2013
8 posts
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Why Pescara v Fiorentina is more than just another...
A football match means more when you know someone who supports the opposing team. It gives a little extra importance to the outcome when a friend or family members is pulling for exactly the opposite outcome to yourself. Back in the mid-1990s, games between Pescara and Fiorentina felt like a personal derby match for me.
The reason was a simple twist of fate. I had been writing for Football...
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The wee problem of taking your child to the...
Image via freedigitalphotos.net
The guttural roar rattling the toilet wall leaves no room for doubt. It erupts, explodes and then gradually dissipates into prolonged applause. An announcement - also muffled by bricks and mortar - is greeted by a second wave of cheers. And then, THAT look, from son to father.
“We’ve missed a goal, haven’t we Dad?”
There is a familiar...
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Serie A round-up: Racism, laser pens and a...
Maybe there was a full moon over the San Siro on Sunday night. Some kind of collective madness seemed to sweep across both Milan and Roma and their respective supporters. On a weekend which had been full of mellow and melancholy farewells, they gave it a frenetic and frustrating finale.
Whatever the reason, the bozos were out in force inside the stadium. Giallorossi supporters were warned for...
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Genoa v Inter: how the Griffin finally lifted a...
Few fans present in the Stadio Luigi Ferraris had seen such a result before. It had been more than three decades since their favourites had managed to win a home Serie A match against Inter. But, in May 1991, Genoa ended that long-running hoodoo in swashbuckling style.
It was a case of the upstart side against the established elite. Just a couple of seasons earlier, Giovanni Trapattoni’s Inter...
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Sir Alex Ferguson versus Serie A - how he got to...
“When an Italian tells me it’s pasta on the plate, I check under the sauce to make sure. They are the inventors of the smokescreen.”
“They come out with the ‘English are so strong, we’re terrible in the air, we can’t do this, we can’t do that’. Then they beat you 3-0.”
Thus spake Sir Alex Ferguson in his assessment of Italian football. It is a...
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Serie A round-up: Juve stroll home
Only in Italy, perhaps, could they even argue over basic arithmetic. On all official calculators the answer shows as 29 but, for those encased in black and white, it reads as 31. Regardless of which running total you prefer, there was no arguing that the collective skills of Juventus added up to worthy winners of yet another Scudetto this season.
It was clinched with a low-key display in a party...
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The Grande Torino team's final game before tragedy...
It is 64 years ago tomorrow (4 May) since the disaster which claimed the lives of a legendary Serie A side. The day before, they played their last match ever…
There is still something poignant about reading that report on 90 minutes of football. It was only a friendly, and it ended in rare defeat for one of the greatest sides in the history of the Italian game. Less than 24 hours after...
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April 2013
19 posts
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20 Great Italian Games interview with Get Football...
The Italian game is something more than just a game, it’s like your favorite show with ups and downs and emotional roller coasters. It has it’s villains and heroes and all the drama you could ask for in a sport. So that’s why when passionate Viola fan Giancarlo Rinaldi’s latest e-book, “20 Great Italian Games” came out on Amazon, I just had to buy it and learn more about the beautiful history of...
Serie A round-up: Javier Zanetti's injury caps a...
It’s usually wrong to read too much into any individual incident during a football game. The tendency is to charge them with a significance from surrounding events which they simply do not possess. Nonetheless, it was hard not to watch Javier Zanetti being stretchered off in Sicily without feeling it was somehow emblematic of Inter’s season.
The crack in his Achilles tendon felt like the final...
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Gone in 220 seconds: Torino's lightning comeback...
By Giancarlo Rinaldi
In a long and glorious career which brought about every honour in the game, Dino Zoff has few regrets. But one of his hardest defeats to take was a Turin derby which his legendary Juventus side lost in the blinking of an eye. Needless to say, it is a match which has entered Granata folklore.
Back in the spring of 1983 - as so often in the history of Italian football - there...
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Audio: Giancarlo Rinaldi and 20 Great Italian... →
A wee chat with Forza Italian Football about what makes a game great, who the greatest players have been and why Venezia did not appear in this first edition of classic matches.
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20 Great Italian Games: feedback pours in from...
With my new e-book 20 Great Italian Games topping the football charts at Amazon for a little, I thought I’d publish a bit of the early feedback from Twitter. If you don’t have a copy yet you can get it here in the UK or here in the United States.
Thanks so much to all who contacted me, and apologies to anyone I missed out. Here are some of the comments. Please rate/review at Amazon...
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The Gentleman Ultra: Book recommendation: 20 Great... →
thegentlemanultra:
The drama, passion and controversy of Italian football is world renowned. Over the years it has thrown up countless classic encounters between its top teams. Giancarlo Rinaldi has picked out 20 of the best featuring the likes of Juventus, Milan, Inter, Napoli, Roma, Lazio, Fiorentina and…
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Calcio classics: 20 Great Italian Games on sale
I Classici del Calcio - 20 Great Italian Games now on sale via Amazon for the Kindle or using the Kindle App. Just £1.53 or $2.99 for a stroll down memory lane to the times when Diego Maradona, Michel Platini, Marco Van Basten, Jurgen Klinsmann, Gabriel Batistuta and the likes rocked Serie A. You can order your copy here.
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Milan and Napoli draw: does it underline Juve's... →
My round-up for Football Italia featuring great goals from Josip Ilicic and Erik Lamela, a calamitous blunder from Stefano Sorrentino and a gratuitous mention of Barolo…
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Is Stevan Jovetic a good fit for Arsenal? →
Something with a bit of input from myself and the excellent Steve Amoia about how Stevan Jovetic whether could succeed in England. In the hope, of course, that we never actually find out…
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Milan v Napoli: when Silvio Berlusconi and Diego...
It was a game which would become, in the space of a few years, a Scudetto classic. But, back in April 1986, the teams involved were still under construction. What magnificent edifices Diego Maradona’s Napoli and Silvio Berlusconi’s Milan would ultimately become.
This springtime clash was one of the first games for the Rossoneri under new ownership. The media mogul had only just...
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March 2013
12 posts
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The Slap: what if Delio Rossi's attack on Adem...
It was not the kind of incident which you really want to be seen as the defining moment of your career. An instant YouTube sensation which has the footballing world scrabbling to see the footage. Yet Delio Rossi’s opening a can of whupass on Fiorentina’s Adem Ljajic firmly threatened to overshadow anything either man achieved on the field of play.
For the manager, it was the...
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Malta v Italy: Mario Balotelli breaks the slumber...
If the Brazil match was an espresso, then this was camomile tea. After the nerve-jolting rush of a comeback draw against the five-time World Cup winners, came a sedate and soporific victory over Malta. Nobody will have had much trouble dozing off after events at the Ta’ Qali Stadium.
It would be hard to blame the Azzurri for that. An early penalty won by Stephan El Shaarawy and converted by...
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Stevan Jovetic: Fiorentina's man in demand looking...
It is the fate of every great player at a middle-rank team to be the subject of constant transfer speculation. The dawn of 24-hour rolling news has only cranked up the rumour mills of Europe even further in recent years. And few players feature more often than the man who hopes to torment England on Tuesday, Stevan Jovetic.
Almost from the moment he signed for Fiorentina, the talk of a move...
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Malta v Italy: when Franco Baresi played...
I still look back and wonder what, exactly, he was thinking. Franco Baresi, one of the greatest defenders in the history of Italian and, therefore, world football had decided to play volleyball on the edge of his penalty box. His use of the hand was so blatant it seemed to take everyone, even the match officials, by surprise.
Spectators, at least those of a blue tinge, blinked in disbelief and...
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Italy v Brazil: Mario Balotelli caps a cracking...
Football friendlies, as that bloke off MasterChef might say, do not get tougher than this. When Italy take on Brazil they put their previous World Cup victories on show like Michelin stars. Judging by their clash in Geneva, they can still produce some gourmet stuff.
It was a match to rip up all the stereotypes you might have about the two teams involved. In the first half in particular,...
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Francesco Totti's impossible dream - could he...
Image via Repubblica.it
“Watch out, Piola, I’m coming!”.
As he slotted into second spot in the all-time Serie A top scorer’s table, Francesco Totti could not resist looking one step further ahead. Having just joined and then passed Gunnar Nordahl in the Capocannonieri rankings, why not harbour one last, crazy dream? But how likely are his chances of bridging the 48-goal...
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Serie A round-up: Maybe, maybe Mario...
There are some questions we will probably never know the answer to. What is the meaning of life? How many Coaches will Maurizio Zamparini sack in his lifetime? Why did Juventus sign Nicolas Anelka? These are the kind of queries which it is hard to furnish with a satisfactory response. And, after Sunday’s Serie A clashes, we could probably add another poser to the list. What might Milan have...
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Bologna v Juventus in the days of Gigi Maifredi's...
The late 1980s was a time of coaching revolution in Italy. Few have forgotten the transformation enacted by Arrigo Sacchi at Milan or Zdenek Zeman’s cavalier Foggia side. Not so many remember Gigi Maifredi’s little masterpiece at Bologna.
His move to the Rossoblu job in the summer of 1987 was little more than a footnote on the sports pages. He had successfully taken Ospitaletto to...
The Gentleman Ultra: Viola Memories by Giancarlo... →
thegentlemanultra:
Even now, the memory still hurts. We were winning 6-0 and it did not matter a jot. Results elsewhere were sending us to Serie B and there was nothing we could do. Radios around the Stadio Artemio Franchi confirmed the dreadful news.
The first cut was definitely the deepest. I have seen…
A painful season, still fresh in my memory…
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Lazio v Fiorentina: days of the dancing feet of...
They were the kind of players who could dance around defenders. If the battering ram of Gabriel Batistuta let Fiorentina down they turned to their mesmerising feet. One May day in Rome, Luis “Lulu” Oliveira, Manuel Rui Costa and Edmundo ran riot.
In truth, that Lazio against Fiorentina clash in 1998 was all about motivation. The Viola needed the win to clinch a place in the following season’s...
February 2013
14 posts
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Napoli v Juventus: packing the balconies to see...
When Juve come to town, you take whatever vantage point you can. In spring 1958 in Naples, they packed behind the goals and onto the balconies of properties overlooking the stadium to get a glimpse of the all-conquering Bianconeri. In the hope, of course, of bringing them down a peg or two. These were the days when John Charles and Omar Sivori (pictured below with Giampiero Boniperti) - perhaps...
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Serie A round-up: Inter spoil Silvio Berlusconi's...
It could have been the perfect week for Silvio Berlusconi. Defeat Barcelona, win the derby and emerge victorious in the Italian elections. He may yet get two out of three – but a tenacious Inter denied him a triumph in the Madonnina.
Nothing could have looked less likely in the first half in the San Siro as his Milan team bossed a pulsating clash. A sweet, outside-of-the-foot finish from Stephan...
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Inter v Milan: the greatest goal-spree the...
It was a time when most tales were told in black and white. The fledgling Italian democracy was struggling to find its feet under Alcide De Gasperi. At cinemas, the hot ticket was for Il Mulino del Po based on Riccardo Bacchelli’s epic family saga of the same name. And, in the remote countryside, the bodies left by the Second World War were still being found.
In the football world, Serie A was...
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Fiorentina v Inter: me, my quarter carafe and...
This time, it was personal. I was a man on a mission, my goal to see Gabriel Omar Batistuta score for Fiorentina. Of course, he did not let me down.
It was November 1995 and the Viola were one of a bunch of sides trying to keep pace with league-leading Milan and Parma. It was Roy Hodgson’s Inter who were coming to town but they were sitting in a pretty miserable midtable position. The...
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Juventus v Fiorentina: Alessandro Del Piero and a...
If the match had been a meal, then that goal was its grappa moment. A searing, stinging conclusion to help digest what had gone before. And, depending on your colours, it left either a brutish burning sensation or a gentle afterglow.
Everything about the game seems, now, like a prelude to such an exquisite finish. But although it was part digestivo for an epic encounter stuffed full of goals,...
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Holland v Italy: Marco Verratti saves the...
Italy friendlies should come with a health warning because they can seriously damage your faith in the Azzurri. Even the most incorrigible optimist would find it hard to be upbeat after most of their international Amichevoli. And they left it until injury time to give fans anything to smile about in Amsterdam.
For about 80 minutes, the boys in blue were going through the motions. Lacklustre and...
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