One player highly thought of and sought after is Bari defender Andrea Ranocchia, who is one of the hottest defensive prospects currently plying his trade in Europe. Manchester United seen particularly interested along with cross town rivals Manchester City and Chelsea.

The 21 year-old, Italy under 21 international has been in superb form for the newly promoted side as they surged up the Serie A table.

In this aggravating time between the end of the Serie A season and the beginning of the World Cup, we can bide our time by looking back at the past Serie A season. As expected by many, Inter Milan won the title. In my series of posts reviewing the season, however, I want to begin by looking at those teams that surprised the experts.

There isn't many days left in 2010 and that can only mean one thing... a massive New Year party is in the offing, no wait, something much more important than that! The January transfer window. Even the Christmas festivities hasn't stopped the rumour mill from producing a never ending batch of transfer stories and here at Serie A Weekly we pick through a selection of them, so you have an idea of the.

Bari, a city on the heel of the Italian boot, is an excellent market for Serie A and Italian soccer and the type of club that should be a mainstay in Serie A. The metropolitan area is home to over 1.6 million Italians and Stadio San Nicola was one of the modern stadiums built prior to the 1990 World Cup in Italy.

Genoa are a club with high ambitions, and it's been shown this transfer market that they want to contend for a Champions League spot with big name arrivals. It's Genoa president Enrico Preziosi who continues to revitalize the club with intelligent signings like Diego Milito and Thiago Motta from last season, and Preziosi is also a president who keeps youth and financial fair-play in mind.

In mid-July, I posted a story on this site proposing that Bari, if they played their cards right, could be poised for a top six finish. In the intervening four weeks, they lost a top-flight defender and whiffed on a major signing, leaving the club in worse position than they were just a month ago.

Italy's oldest soccer club finished a disappointing ninth last season, and the management has made it clear this offseason that such a result is unacceptable. Disappointing play by a number of key players left the club outside the top six, one year after qualifying for the UEFA Cup and two years after returning to Serie A after a long climb up the Italian leagues.

One Italian national team played a match yesterday, and the results were quite dispiriting. With a seemingly safe 2-0 aggregate lead over Belarus, the Italian U-21 club found a way to lose 3-1 in the return match and be eliminated from the UEFA U-21 championship. The practical result is that the club not only will not have a chance at another U-21 championship, but has been eliminated from the 2012 Olympics.

Italy struggled in the World Cup suffering from a humiliating early exit despite being in one of the weakest groups which included New Zealand. More recently the Italian Under-21 succumbed to Belarus in a surprising manner after taking a 2-0 home win only to see it erased by an embarrassing 3-0 score in Belarus.

Finally this power struggle is over. It was inevitable that the Spaniard was not going to get anything from Massimo Moratti for this January transfer window, and Moratti got fed up with Benitez's strange demands. It all seemed slightly better when Rafa Benitez had guided his team to the World Club Cup title, but after the final against TP Mazembe, Benitez decided to stoke the fire with some strange comments.