October 2011
16 posts
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Juventus are back and they want their old crown
The old saying, Tutta l’Italia contro la Juve – All of Italy against Juve – has had a bit of a hollow ring in recent years. It has been hard for even their most bitter adversary to muster much dislike for a team in Serie B or struggling to get above mid-table in the top flight. There were even those who, whisper it, felt some sympathy for La Vecchia Signora – not that she ever would have...
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Gabriel Batistuta: 100-word hero #4
“It’s that man again, Gabriel Batistuta has scored for Fiorentina!” Peter Brackley used those words so often during Channel 4’s coverage of Serie A they started to sound like a catchphrase. The Argentina hitman was simply so prolific. Signed by the Viola along with countryman Diego Latorre, he triumphed where his strike partner failed. He stayed loyal through Serie B and had a statue...
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Juventus v Fiorentina: The Viola who have stunned...
In the build-up to Juventus v Fiorentina, here are a few from the archives to warm up the atmosphere before kick off…
They are three names that will probably never be written in the Fiorentina Hall of Fame. Their careers with the Viola were not the kind that would turn them into legends on the banks of the River Arno. But mention Massimo Gobbi, Papa Waigo and Pablo Daniel Osvaldo in...
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Serie A and the 0-0 draw - the day the goals died
Table courtesy RSSSF website
Last weekend seemed like a low point in Serie A goalscoring. Five 0-0 draws and just 13 successful strikes in total made for pretty grim reading and a story that flashed around the news wires of Europe. But there was a time when that was pretty much par for the course.
We called it the 1970s.
If you think the seventh round of games in the 2011/12 season was bad,...
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Juan Manuel Vargas joins the list of Fiorentina's...
“Touch wood, nae backies!” - we used to say in the Scottish school playgrounds of my youth. It meant there was no reneging on a deal, no matter how many problems or issues might arise at a later date. I sometimes think Cesare Prandelli may have uttered the Italian equivalent when he left Fiorentina for the Nazionale job.
Read more at Football Italia
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Roberto Baggio: 100-word hero #3
From the boy who fought back from serious surgery to inspire Fiorentina to the veteran who thrilled Brescia and Bologna, he was never banal. The Divine Ponytail or a “drowned rabbit”, Roby Baggio was an icon of Calcio. Outstanding balance, dead-ball ability and vision made him far and away the best of his generation. He skated on ice in Kiev, dribbled round Czechoslovakia at Italia ’90...
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Napoli v Bayern Munich: When Careca, Carnevale and...
They say the homes in Fuorigrotta around the Stadio San Paolo shook as if there was an earthquake that night. Seismic equipment picked up the tremors such was the scale of the celebrations when the Partenopei found the net. Bayern Munich were powerless in the face of such a force of nature.
It was April 1989 and Napoli were en route to coming of age in Europe. The German giants were among their...
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Stevan Jovetic: Fiorentina must give Jojo top...
Forget El Tanque, it’s time to put Jojo at the heart of this Fiorentina team. Left to languish on the flank for much of the match against Cesena, he failed to exert significant influence. Switched to the centre, he almost grabbed three unlikely points for the Viola in a drab encounter. The lesson there seems quite clear.
With a new contract under his belt, Stevan Jovetic is clearly keen...
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Catania v Inter: the shock that echoes to this day
The great pieces of sporting commentary can survive for generations. Sometimes a snappy phrase or saying can even outlive the pundit who first let it play across their lips. Little could the late, great Sandro Ciotti have imagined that his interruption of Tutto Il Calcio Minuto per Minuto (All the Football, Minute by Minute) on 4 June 1961 would remain so significant to this day....
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Roberto Bettega: 100-word hero #2
While classmates dreamed of being Kevin Keegan or Kenny Dalglish, some of us harboured hopes of emulating a grey-haired striker. Roberto Bettega, Bobby-gol, was an idol of UK Italians in the 1970s. Slimline, stylish and deadly in the air he was one of the few Serie A players to get any profile on these shores. His partnership with Paolo Rossi at the 1978 World Cup, that perfect one-two to kill...
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Osvaldo's predecessor - Johnny Moscardini, the...
All this talk of Osvaldo and Oriundi put me in mind of something I wrote a few years ago about a role model for all Scottish Italians…
In Italy they are known as the Oriundi.
They are the footballers born overseas who have played for the country thanks to their ancestry.
Most of them came from the huge emigrant populations of South America as the Azzurri boosted their squads with...
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Giancarlo Antognoni: 100-word hero #1
The word elegant was handed its football redundancy in 1989. When Giancarlo Antognoni gave up the game, the term was surplus to requirements. He had been its embodiment for years. Trophies were few. Loyalty to Fiorentina meant a solitary Coppa Italia, when he could have won more elsewhere. Injury robbed him of the 1982 World Cup final, but he was the architect of that victory. There was...
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