December 2010
22 posts
calcio-nel-cuore asked: So I'm a few days late but happy holidays! All the best for the New Year!
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Away in Firenze
To the tune of a more famous Christmas Carol…
Away in Firenze,
No trophies for years
My lowly Viola
Have caused me some tears.
The cups and Scudetti
Have all passed us by
We’ve been to C2
And asked ourselves why?
But every so often
The Viola awake
With Bati and Baggio
We made others quake.
I love thee, Viola
Though you cause me pain
Your moments of magic
Convince me...
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A fine romance - the strange affair of Rafa...
There is a kind of twisted logic in what is going on at Inter Milan these days. Remember Roberto Mancini? He brought back the Scudetto after an agonising drought and was sent packing. Jose Mourinho? He departed for Real Madrid just a few hours after ending a 45-year wait for the European Cup. So what better way to celebrate a historic Club World Cup than by showing Rafa Benitez the door?
It has...
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Farewell Enzo Bearzot, the man who made Italy...
It takes a special kind of man to run the Azzurri. Tactical vision, man-management skills and a steely resolve are required in about equal measure. Commissario Tecnico Enzo Bearzot possessed all three.
Over nine years in sole charge between 1977 and 1986 he helped to drag Italy out of the dead-end of catenaccio and back to being among the very best in the business. The groundwork he did in...
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Serie A's Scudetto fight: still crazy after all...
As a young reporter, a lifetime ago, I went to one council meeting which dragged on so long that the chairman desperately called time on proceedings with a classic line. “Right,” he said, “that’s it agreed then - we don’t know what we are doing!”. And everyone dutifully trooped out for lunch.
It is easy to share his feelings as Serie A takes its traditional...
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When the Derby della Lanterna lit up the Scudetto
It is the time when Italian football gets up close and personal. A tight, atmospheric ground with the most British-style supporters in Serie A giving their all. The club names may have changed over the years, but the intensity of the Genoa derby remains undimmed.
This weekend the teams go into battle just a couple of points apart after very eventful seasons. Sampdoria have been knocked out of...
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An English 'meteor' in Italy, Jimmy Greaves
It must have seemed like a fine idea. In the summer of 1961, English footballers had only just won a battle to abolish a maximum wage of £20-a-week while big-spending Italian clubs were offering far greater sums. It lured four British players to Serie A. But three of them would be back in the space of 12 months – and none of them would play fewer games than Jimmy Greaves.
Read more at Les...
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The marvelous obsession of Massimo Moratti
It might seem to some like a jumped-up FIFA trinket. To others, it is probably an unwanted distraction in the middle of the serious business of league or continental football. But for Massimo Moratti, the Inter President, the FIFA Club World Cup is a glorious, lifelong obsession.
The boy was brought up with his father’s team winning back to back versions of its predecessor, the...
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That melancholy Monday feeling
I sometimes think I have come to enjoy the smell and anticipation of a cup of espresso more than the actual drink itself. The sense of what it symbolises - an end-of-dinner and end-of-working-day relaxation - is far greater than any satisfaction its bitter-sweet taste can deliver. I am starting to wonder if I don’t have similar feelings about football.
Every weekend, every season, every...
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“We could have turned our season around today but we got our approach to the game...”
– Mario Alberto Santana
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The squelching sound of the Scudetto
Mention the names Lazio and Juventus and the mind will always flit back 10 years to one of the most controversial ends to a Serie A season. The Biancocelesti and Bianconeri were involved in a dramatic, long-distance head-to-head which followers of both sides have never forgotten. The backing track was the soggy squelch of a football plopping onto a rain-sodden pitch.
The 14th of May 2000 saw...
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When every boy dreamed of being Paolo Rossi...
There is an old picture of my cousin which, to my mind, sums up the word ‘Pride’. Aged about six or seven, he has his foot on a ball in his parents’ back garden and his chest is puffed out inside an Azzurri tracksuit. It was one of the first examples of merchandising to emanate from the peninsula and it carried the name of the man every Italian boy wanted to be in the early 1980s – Paolo Rossi....
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Things aren't so bad Chris Hughton, you could have...
In these days of global football information and cosmopolitan players and managers flitting across the planet it is easy to see the lines of difference blurring between domestic leagues. The personnel and practices of the divisions are starting to resemble one another more and more.
That is why I say thank heavens for the sacking of Chris Hughton and reaction to it.
It’s not, I hasten to...
“Mutu is very important for us. I have never abandoned him and I hope he keeps...”
– Sinisa Mihajlovic on the hug that, maybe, buried the hatchet…
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When the Scudetto lived in Tuscany and Sardinia
It seems impossible to consider now, but there was a time when Florence and Cagliari were the venues where the Scudetto got decided. For a brief moment at the end of the 1960s, two upstart provincial sides kicked the traditional powerhouses into touch and stood toe-to-toe for the title. It ended with Fiorentina grabbing their second league crown and the Sardinians their one and only title.
The...
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Italy's Europa League gunslingers hit the...
It was Linda Evangelista who once caused uproar by suggesting that supermodels would not wake up for less than $10,000-a-day. However, it would appear that a similar attitude is prevalent among the Italian sides participating in the Europa League. They are not, to pinch a phrase from lazy football previews everywhere, “Up for the Cup”.
Juventus, Napoli, Palermo and Sampdoria stand...
