As the title reads, former Portuguese international and ex-Mourinho pupil Costinha plays for
Atalanta and is probably the biggest waste of money in all of Italian football today. Back in the
summer of 2007, Costinha's contract expired at Atletico Madrid. Atalanta thought they were making a
real steal signing him, as be brought a wealth of international experience to their midfield.
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The Gazzetta dello Sport is arguably the most famous sports newspaper in Italy, selling more
copies than rivals Corriere dello Sport and Tuttosport. It is world famous for it's pink pages and
has been printed in pink since 1899. The current head editor of the Gazzetta, Luigi Garlando, has
always been a critic of Lippi since his return to the national team, has always been pro-Cassano,
and doesn't understand why Lippi hates to answer questions at press conferences.
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Recently, it was reported everywhere that Christian Vieri was hanging up his boots. Vieri, at
one time one of the most feared strikers in all of world football, had given all he had and was
going more and more into a decline, so he it looked like he wanted to finally call it quits at age
36.
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I know, the Cassano-National Team debate is getting old and boring. But this was too funny. In
the 5th minute of the game yesterday, a fan ran onto the pitch wearing a t-shirt with the Superman
logo and with the words "Cassano in Nazionale" (Cassano on the National Team). He jogged
around the pitch for a while and then made his way off the pitch and was promptly arrested.
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The Italy U-21's continued their very disappointing qualifying campaign with another loss, this
time away to Hungary. The Azzurrini needed a win to get back on track, but now qualification is
getting more and more difficult. The Hungarians won 2-0, with goals coming from Nemeth and Koman
(both players played on the Hungarian side that knocked the Italy U-20's out of the U-20 World Cup
last month).
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Since Lippi has taken over the national team for a second time, the big question has always
been, "Why aren't you calling up Antonio Cassano?" Cassano has widely been recognized as the best
Italian player at the moment and there is no other talent in Italy that can even reach his level at
the moment (maybe an in-form Totti).
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Fairly good week for goals, as only one game finished 0-0 (Catania-Napoli, but ask Takayuki
Morimoto about that). The top scorer table is still wide open, as Di Natale started strong but now
has cooled off so he remains at 9, while Hamsik is second with 7 and that's impressive for a
midfielder.
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Milan has really jumped up the table these past few weeks. After the horrible start where
everyone condemned the Rossoneri to a season of misery, Leonardo's squad has made a complete
turnaround, finally playing well and becoming contenders once again. They now find themselves 5
points behind leaders Inter and only 2 behind Juventus and saying the word Scudetto shouldn't be
met with laughter.
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One of the players playing extremely well at the moment is Genoa fantasista Raffaele
Palladino. Palladino has always been a player that could do things with the ball that
others could only dream of doing, but he never had the consistency to show that talent at a high
level.
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Roma-Inter from May of 1999 is another highly entertaining game from one of the most
entertaining Serie A seasons of all time. The 1998-99 season had 3 leaders of the table (for the
first part of the season it was Fiorentina, who were winter champions but were then hurt by the
injury of Batistuta, then Lazio, who looked on their way to the Scudetto but fell off form towards
the end, and then Milan who surprised everyone and stole the Scudetto on the last day).
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A few nice goals this week, but nothing extraordinary. Giuseppe Mascara scored one of his
trademark wonder-goals, and Marco Borriello got back on the scoresheet with 2 goals (the second a
nice scissor kick) after almost a year. Diego Milito got back to his scoring ways as well after
being absent through injury, and Mirko Vucinic finally scored his first goal of the season.
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Napoli won vs. Juventus in Torino for the first time since November 20, 1988, when Maradona's
Napoli won 5-3. Since then, there had been 11 wins and 5 ties, and Napoli hadn't scored in Torino
since March of 1998. This Napoli side has been rejuvenated under Walter Mazzarri, and they have
shown they have a never say die attitude that keeps them working for the full 90 minutes.
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Fabrizio Miccoli has really become the undisputed leader of Palermo. The diminutive fantasista,
or il Romario del Salento as he is so aptly nicknamed, has been putting in great
performances this season and had a great year last season, and it looks like he has finally found a
place to show all of his talent.
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Although we are only 10 games into the season, Klaas-Jan Huntelaar is starting to look more and
more like a big flop. 15 million euro were spent on the Dutch striker, and even if he reaches 5
goals this season it would seem like a big achievement. Sure you can say that he needs time to
adapt to a new style of play, new language, new culture, but it's already November almost and we
still have not seen Huntelaar's name on the score sheet.
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I didn't put up a Weekend Round-up yesterday because I figured with the midweek round tomorrow,
it would be pointless to update everything twice. So we'll dive in straight to Goals of the Week.
Not as great as last week, but still some good goals, especially Daniele Mannini's one-time volley
vs.
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