Italian Football Thread III

Santander (no, not the bank) scores after 4 minutes. Bologna lead Chievo 1-0, and Chievo are really looking to be the 1st team to be relegated.

Chievo gets a penalty.... which is converted. 1-1.

Cristante scores for Roma. 1-0.

Screw Inter. Hopefully they will start showing true form.

Typical late year Inter collapse. Shame we dropped points to them. :/ Could have done with those 2 pts with our injury crisis.

Lazio vs Sassuolo 1-1 so far, lets hope it stays that way.

As I said, Locatelli took a really good decision insisting on this move. He has landed up with a good project and a good tactical manager and the improvement in his game is so clear to see.

Well done Sassuolo. Held Lazio, that’s a good result for us.

Great result.

Great week for us regardless of the result tonight.

Good to see El Shaarawy doing well again, he would’ve been handy for us on that left side. Shame it didn’t work out at Milan.

General said:

Blue line my favorite thing to do after an inter loss

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Aw, you girls missed me!!

Anyways, poor game by Inter yesterday. Atlanta exposed one of the big problems with this Inter, if you can dominate the midfield Inter just fall apart. Maybe when we have a fit and in form Nainggolan that will resolve this, or maybe Inter also need a top class DM. I suspect its the latter.

bluenine said:

Aw, you girls missed me!!

Anyways, poor game by Inter yesterday. Atlanta exposed one of the big problems with this Inter, if you can dominate the midfield Inter just fall apart. Maybe when we have a fit and in form Nainggolan that will resolve this, or maybe Inter also need a top class DM. I suspect its the latter.

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No, you need a top class manager.

necromancer said:

No, you need a top class manager.

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An upgrade in any area is always welcome. Spalletti did make a couple of mistakes last weekend, but its not like he is under achieving. IMO under SPallettti Inter are more or less performing on par with the quality in the squad, after years of under performing coaches. So I am ok with the coach for now.

if inter started with radja and vrasjko they wouldn't have lost to Atlanta. I still believe that inter is the second best team in the league. Or maybe i dont mean it? Their best team easily rivals jube. spalleti is a world class fodder coach though.

bluenine said:

An upgrade in any area is always welcome. Spalletti did make a couple of mistakes last weekend, but its not like he is under achieving. IMO under SPallettti Inter are more or less performing on par with the quality in the squad, after years of under performing coaches. So I am ok with the coach for now.

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But he’ll never get you to the next level.. for years he has been pretty much a joke in Italy for his random decisions and non collaborative style. I don’t think he has the caliber to lead a top team.


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necro you're being far too biased against inter, spalletti has never been seen as the joke of italy, his roma side played very good football and he's the one that started the faux 9 trend with totti. I'd take spalletti over gattuso any time.

inter's objectives are to stay in the top 4 and go as far as possible in the CL, and qualifying from a group like this is a big deal for them at this stage of their project.

the reason they got destroyed by atalanta is because they just played 2 very hard games vs milan and barca, the players were absolutely spent while the bergamo bums who couldn't pass the EL qualifying stages were fully rested.

if milan had a full healthy squad and didn't play 2 very hard games vs inter and betis, they probably would have earned a draw vs juve.

Spalletti's Roma side, when they were playing well, was the peak of his recognition. His spectacular collapses with the same Roma, in the first stint and well as second stint, were ridiculed a lot in the country. The biggest thing about him is his conviction that some of his ideas are very clever while they really aren't. His teams are volatile.

Yes, he can probably get Inter a top 4 finish, but that's about it. They'll never mount a serious title challenge under Spalletti.

I'll take Gattuso over Spalletti any day.

Soldier_of_god said:

if inter started with radja and vrasjko they wouldn't have lost to Atlanta. I still believe that inter is the second best team in the league. Or maybe i dont mean it? Their best team easily rivals jube. spalleti is a world class fodder coach though.

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If we started with Conti and Caldara we'd have beaten Juventus

Necro, I guess we basically agree - Spalletti is not the coach to take Inter to a scudetto. But he has already got Inter into top 4, and is good enough to keep us there. And maybe go into the KO phase of the CL. IMO that is Inter's immediate objective, so Spalletti is fine.

In a couple of years, Inter can upgrade to a Simeone and challenge for the scudetto.

Soldier_of_god said:

if inter started with radja and vrasjko they wouldn't have lost to Atlanta. I still believe that inter is the second best team in the league. Or maybe i dont mean it? Their best team easily rivals jube. spalleti is a world class fodder coach though.

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I have been an Inter fan for many, many years and am naturally biased towards my club, but even I don't think Inter are that good. Not yet at least. There is still a big gap, which is correctly reflected on the table.

KujaIX said:

If we started with Conti and Caldara we'd have beaten Juventus

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and bonaventura, biglia. We probably won't win away but at home we could beat team. it's certainly possible. Inter honestly could beat jube at home with their best squad is they had a better coach. Unlike most I don't hate inter at all. They are our cousins. Real hatred is towards jube.

milan keeps gattuso if he does well or gets conte next season
inter gets simeone
jube will have allegri
roma has a good coach. forgot his name but yea.

looks good for next season if these transfers materializes.

KujaIX said:

If we started with Conti and Caldara we'd have beaten Juventus

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biglia and bonaventura were far bigger misses


we don't know how good caldara is and how conti will look like after nearly 1.5 years of injury

bluenine said:

Necro, I guess we basically agree - Spalletti is not the coach to take Inter to a scudetto. But he has already got Inter into top 4, and is good enough to keep us there. And maybe go into the KO phase of the CL. IMO that is Inter's immediate objective, so Spalletti is fine.

In a couple of years, Inter can upgrade to a Simeone and challenge for the scudetto.



I have been an Inter fan for many, many years and am naturally biased towards my club, but even I don't think Inter are that good. Not yet at least. There is still a big gap, which is correctly reflected on the table.

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Yeah, if that’s the objective, then Spalletti could deliver it. But if I were a fan, I’d be annoyed at continuing to stay at the level you are for a couple of years knowing full well that there is an embarrassing 5-1 defeat around the corner, with all the talent you have in the squad.



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I have a feeling necro is mad at spalletti mainly for the mockery serie A fans suffered since roma got thrashed 7-1 by united back in 2007

roma smashed barca 3 0

Sage said:

I have a feeling necro is mad at spalletti mainly for the mockery serie A fans suffered since roma got thrashed 7-1 by united back in 2007

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Do you actually think I pay attention to noobs' opinions? Not now, not in 2017.

It's more likely because I listen to 5 podcasts every week run by Serie A crazy Italian commentators and I read Gazzetta and Corriere articles almost every day. Spalletti is not considered highly by anyone serious in calcio and a lot of people would rejoice if he fails.

And most importantly, whenever you evaluate a manager, the most important part is not tactical.. not by a huge mile these days. Any manager can get good tacticians in his staff. Football is analyzed and planned to such detail these days, and Italy particularly continues to be obsessed about tactics, that I'm sure there are excellent tactical coaches in the staff of even an Empoli.. as Andreazzoli's football proved last season.

The only thing that really matters for a high level manager these days is man management. And that's not just management of the players, but also the club and the media.

This factor is what convinces me that Gattuso will become an excellent manager over the years. He's very very likeable, by all parties involved - players, media, club. Every few weeks you get a Milan player talking incredibly highly of Gattuso. Sure, some of this might be club-planted PR, but there are private conversations that have been spoken about so many times in the past weeks where Suso, Bonucci, Higuain have all basically said how good Gattuso is in getting the best out of his players. He's brutally honest in press conferences and doesn't mind admitting his faults and how far he has to go to become a great coach. He is pretty much the second coming of Ancelotti in terms of personality, who probably remains the most personable man in Italian football. Ancelotti's tactics have never been particularly innovative, but he knows how to handle calcio.

And Spalletti is almost the opposite. There are always grumbles around Spalletti. The media openly dislikes him thanks to his treatment of them and will not lose any opportunity to turn on him. His squad, I'm sure bluenine would agree, does not have 100% happy guys through and through. And even serious fans, like bluenine just demonstrated, see him as a stop-gap option to keep them in a good spot for a couple of years.

I have no doubts that what makes a great manager at the highest level these days is man management or better put, stakeholder management (stakeholders being players, media, fans and the club). Tactics can only get you so far. De Zerbi, Gasperini, Giampaolo and Andreazzoli have better tactical minds than Allegri, Ancelotti, Spalletti and Gattuso. What's the point? Nothing.

bluenine thinks he's a stop gap because he probably thinks there is a chance for conte who is obviously a step up, but if conte rejects them, they can't do any better.

gattuso is a good man manager but his tactics are poor, yes you need to be a well rounded manager to take a club to the next level but as of today, his tactics aren't close to good enough.

right now we are simply scrapping by thanks to suso brilliance and very good fitness levels (credit to gattuso and his staff) at least in comparison to past milan sides.


where were inter before spalletti took over? they didn't finished in a CL spot since 2010-2011.

personally I never take the opinions of journos seriously, IMO they don't know more than a fan who watches football regularly so what makes them the go to? and in the end of the day journos are fans who are going to have their favorites and guys they dislike, so I precisely wouldn't listen to journos who hate spalletti because he doesn't like them or "treat them well"

I personally need to see the player before I make a judgement, that's why I'm quiet on tonali and paqueta and was vehemently against the signing of sms, an article on a player/coach doesn't convince me.

There are journos and there are journos. There are those who work behind their desk putting out article after article along predictable fan-oriented briefs, and then there are those who travel with teams, sit in the curva and have deeper insights into what's going on in a club. If you follow the opinions of the latter guys, you often find good stuff.

I agree about rating players of course. Tonali is one of those who's obviously talented, but it would be too soon to say anything about him till we see how he functions in a serie a team. SMS is again a player who has done immensely well in Serie A for two seasons. To me, it's obvious he's incredibly tired after a demanding season that went on till week 38 in terms of tangible goals Lazio could accomplish, and then a world cup. It's exactly like how dog-tired Modric looks these days (and during the world cup). If you've seen him for two seasons and still deny his quality, that's just short-sightedness.

Gattuso's tactics are more than adequate to compete in top level football. But clearly we don't agree on that.