Things are incredibly quiet today. Where are the Shocking!Transfers? And what was Amauri's agent doing while his client was saying he wouldn't move this winter? Apparently Amauri has learned less than we thought about teasing.

Really, the most interesting stories in the news are two really sketchy ones.

Since their existence, the Italian national team has always worn "Azzurro", the shade of blue that is known in the English-speaking world as "Azure Blue". The color comes from the Royal family of Savoia, and all of Italy's national sports team wear it to this day. That's where the national team got their nickname, "Gli Azzurri".

Funny and odd thing happened in this weekend's game between Catania and Torino. Catania had a free kick from about 25 yards out and Catania attacking midfielder Giuseppe Mascara lined up to take it. Everything looked routine, Torino goalkeeper Matteo Sereni set up his wall, and then something very strange occurred.

Can you believe we shopped around JPA?!

Well, get ready for this one folks.

Óscar Héctor Quintabani, head coach of Colombias treasured NACIONAL, was looking for some extra fire power heading into the Copa Libertadores.

Who did he want? You guessed it.

Angel filled Nacionals need for a quality striker, and was said to be part of the transfer process.

News today is that Antonio Cassano has (with the help of writer Gianluigi Pardo) authored his first autobiography, entitled "Vi Dico Tutto" (I'll tell you everything). And as always, Cassano does indeed tell us everything. We'll have to wait for the book to actually be released (it will be on Italian bookshelves next week, November 19 to be exact) to read everything but some excerpts were released and they are quite amusing and interesting.

Nothing official about the Barcelona game yet, but all indications CONTINUE to point towards a Bulls / Barca game.

RedBullReader reports that the DC United game, scheduled for August 9 at 7:30 will now be moved to Sunday, August 10th.

Early August - get your wallets ready - I am telling you, Barcelona is coming to town!

Alberto Aquilani has been on the sidelines recently because of injury (when is he not injured?) and has been unable to contribute to the Roma revival. But it seems he has kept himself occupied at home by creating his own Facebook account. Facebook, which is immensely popular in North America, has now become immensely popular in Europe, and Italians are starting to catch on to the social networking trend (even professional soccer players).

Since retiring from the calcio world, Roberto Baggio has dedicated himself to his family and has stepped out of the limelight, preferring to live the normal life. Every now and again he'll give the odd interview, and when he does it's always interesting to see what the most skillful player Italy has produced in the last 25 years has to say about the current state of the calcio world.

Today the Serie A 2008-2009 schedule was released. The season will begin on August 31st and end on May 31st. There will be three midweek rounds slated for September 24, October 29, and January 28. The winter break will be from December 21-January 11. Serie A will also come to a halt three times for the National Team, who will be undergoing World Cup 2010 qualifying.

So it seems to be a FIFA rule that each national team manager must submit a mega-list of 50 players that will be available for selection for World Cup qualifying games. I'm unsure about the rules of this list and if/when players can be changed or added (and info about these lists are hard to find, the list was unveiled by a Fiorentina website) but it does show you the players that the national team manager has in consideration.

Roberto Baggio. Giuseppe Signori. Marco Di Vaio. What do all these players have in common? Yes they are all Italian, yes they are all strikers, but the main similarity is that when each of these players went to play for Bologna, their careers were rejuvenated.

There is something about the capital city of the Emilia-Romagna region that just rejuvenates a player's career.

So Lorenzo and Alessio had a good idea for a post, we are going to crown Serie A's Ugliest Footballer. There are quite a few of them, and this is the post where we'll nominate footballers. I'll list some here, and if you have a nomination state it in the comments section and I'll add him to the running.

So, the results are in and now it is time for the Final Round of Serie A's Ugliest Footballer. The footballers with the top 10 votes have made it to this round and now we will vote to see who is definitely the ugliest! Results and new poll after the jump.

Here are the top ten ugliest Serie A footballers, voted by you:

1) Giuseppe Mascara - 39 Votes
2) Sulley Muntari - 31 Votes
3) Zlatan Ibrahimovic - 30 Votes
4) Rodrigo Taddei - 29 Votes
5) Ronaldinho - 25 Votes
6) Rubinho - 15 Votes
7) Emerson - 15 Votes
8) Ivan Juric - 14 Votes
9) Antonio Cassano - 12 Votes
10) Stevan Jovetic - 11 Votes

I think everyone that deserved to be there is there, so that's good.

One of the Italians to move abroad this summer was World Cup winning fullback (and team barber) Massimo Oddo. The 32 year old right back had a nightmare season last year. He wasn't himself at all, he played poorly, all his crosses ended up in Row Z, and he found himself left out of the national team set-up, missing Euro 2008.

In the present state of modern football with the physical nature of the game becoming more important than the technical nature, there seems to be less and less room for the fantasista, a player that has always been the focal point in the Italian game. The fantasista is the player with sublime technique, the player that you pay to watch, the one that can change the game at any second.

Mysterious, unnamed German newspapers are reporting today that transfer window man-whore Rafael Van Der Vaart is on the verge of being sold to his most determined suitor Juvenetus, though he wouldn't actually leave Hamburg until the summer. If true, this would be a massive coup for the Old Lady who, after (allegedly) getting rejected several times already this week, will have successfully beaten off (so to speak) most of Europe for the Dutchman's services.

Bright and early this morning, it was reported that Torino had more or less given up on their dream of bringing Cristiano Lucarelli back to help them score some damn goals, and were turning their eyes elsewhere. It's not surprising, then, that today's La Gazzetta tells us that Parma, one of Toro's two main rivals for the big man's services, are on the verge of solidifying an agreement with Shakhtar, and that Lucarelli is due to arrive in Italy any day now.

With Dejan Stankovic returning to full training earlier this week, and rehab and fitness work for old men Luis Figo and Patrick Vieira apparently going well back Milan while the team were away partying in Dubai, Inter are reportedly reevaluating their move for Atletico Madrid midfielder Maniche.

The Sans-Mutu Viola Are Just Fine

You know, just in case a huge offer for Mutu swoops in this summer and it like quadruples his wages and la Viola can't possibly refuse that much money. But that would never happen, no siree.

In case the purple-tainted apocalypse does arrive, however, Papa Waigo and his short shorts seem to be filling in mighty fine on the scoresheet, and P.

Today, the Italian Olympic team advanced to the Toulon International Tournament Final, defeating Japan 5-4 on penalty kicks in the semi-final. The Japanese frustrated the Azzurrini for 90 minutes, and Casiraghi's side dominated, but couldn't finish chances. Italy looked dangerous when the ball fell to the feet of Sebastian Giovinco (who should be voted best player of the tournament), but he squandered chances and chances he created were squandered by other players.

Big rumor from TuttoSport today (which is a Turin-based paper) claiming that Juventus have struck a deal with Sampdoria to bring Antonio Cassano to Torino this summer. Cassano has always been linked with a move to Juve (Bari had given Cassano two options, Juve or Roma, and Cassano chose Roma because it was a better city) and then the Bianconeri have always shown a certain interest in El Pibe di Bari the past few years.

If you find yourself watching the Serie A game of your choice this Sunday and start yawning (not due to tiredness but due to the boredom of the game), try and find a way to switch over to Napoli-Sampdoria. With Ezequiel Lavezzi leading the Partenopei and Antonio Cassano leading the Blucerchiati, there should be fireworks.

Happy Thanksgiving (or Tacchino Day) to all the Italy Offside readers! Enjoy your day and eat lots of food! I tried to find a picture of an Italian turkey, this the best I could do (or google image search could do), a turkey with the Italian name for turkey next to it.

This now leads me to my bad Italian calcio Thanksgiving joke:

Which Italian soccer player's favorite holiday is Thanksgiving?

That's going to have to wait until 2009, though, because Luis Figo's agent is talking about the MLS rumors, and has more or less said they're crap. Which, obviously, could be Clever Agent-Style Deceit, but also could mean there's nothing going on right now. Whatever it means, the agent and and Figo himself clearly have shared talking points, because they both refer to the stories as "suppositions" or "speculation," rather than "fabrications," or "fantasies" or, say, "lies.

Since we don't have a Catania blogger, there's not as much talk around here about their Peruvian beast, Juan Manuel Vargas as there probably should be. RomaChris and I both pimp him whenever we get the opportunity, but when you play for a small club and for a decidedly non-glamorous national team, it's hard to get much attention.

•Last year, Chelsea were among the clubs tracking Marek Hamsik, but they weren't willing to pay Brescia price and the Slovak went to Napoli for €5.5 million, where he's turned in a stellar first half. The 20-year-old has been so impressive, in fact, that Roman Abramovich is supposedly readying a bid of €16 million for his services, just in time to help fill the giant hole being left in Chelsea by the African Cup of Nations.

•Holy crap, Alberto Aquilani made it through a match! Quick, wrap him and cotton wool and put him away until the weekend.

•As Jeremy reported this morning, Cagliari are doing their level best to convince themselves (and anyone else who cares) that Pasquale Foggia isn't leaving the club.

Like clockwork, the Karim Benzema To Milan story has come back around, again thanks to something the kid himself has told the press. Two months ago, Benzema included Milan on a list of teams that he said, rather romantically, "make him dream." And, this time, the story is a similar one: Now an old man of 20, Benzema spoke to La Gazzetta yesterday and, during the interview, made the rather spectacular error of again combining in the words "Milan" and "dream.

Osorio promise #1 of 2 Western Hemispherically Oriented signings?

Check.

Oscar Etchevarry is now a Red Bull. For reals.

The Atletico Nacional vet has been with the Bulls most of the preseason, which answers the question "When will our signings have time to gel with their teammates?

For the past few days, many newspapers have been making predictions about what Roberto Donadoni's final roster for Euro 2008 will look like. These rosters are purely speculation and shouldn't be trusted at all. Although yesterday, the newspaper Informazione reported that television channel Antenna 3, a television station based in Lombardia, "discovered" Donadoni's real preliminary roster of 29 players.

Yes, as the title reads, A.S. Bari is up for sale. For whoever does not know, Bari is a port city in Southern Italy and is the capital of the Puglia region. It is considered the second biggest "piazza" (behind Napoli) in Southern Italy. The club has a long history, and throughout the '90's was a yo-yo club, going up and down between Serie A and B.

For all those who have Serie A fantasy teams, here's a tip for you: Don't pick Fabiano Santacroce. Who says? Santacroce himself! The Italy U-21 defender (who has an Italian father and a Brazilian mother) is one of the most promising defenders in all of Italy, and has drawn comparisons to Alessandro Nesta.

Maradona, Caniggia, Sensini, Balbo, Chamot, Simeone, Redondo, Batistuta, Crespo, Veron. The list of great Argentinian players to grace the pitches of Serie A can go on and on. And pretty soon we might have to add another name to the list: Mauro Zarate. The 21 year old striker is on fire, leading the Serie A scoring charts with 6 goals in the first 5 games and giving defenders nightmares.

They may spend most of their time making things up, but it's hard to deny that the people at Marca have a way with words, even when those words are fed through Google translate. Today, they're banging on again about Milan's obsession with one Sergio Ramos, something they seem prepared to do every two months, just to keep things interesting.

•As Roswitha pointed out in the comments, it's being reported that Inter are preparing to make Luis Jimenez's move to the club permanent by buying him from Ternana. Given Jimenez's performances since Mancini was forced to give him a chance this seems pretty much inevitable, but there's no indication in the press of when it's going to happen; whenever it does, the price is said to be around €10 million.

Despite the rise of young players like Cristian Molinaro and Giorgio Chiellini, and resurgent old men like Nicola Legrottaglie, even the most passionate Juve supporters will agree the team could use a big time defender or two to shore things up at the back.

As of this morning, Christian Riganò is still in Spain. He's stuck on the bottom of La Liga with the hapless Levante nine points behind their nearest rivals with a goal difference of -22, twice that of the next-worst losing week after week, and not getting paid. Everyone at the club has already given up hope, and they're on the verge of crashing out of the Copa del Rey, too why ever would he want to leave?

I'm irredeemably biased when it comes to Bobo Vieri, but based on the first half today, I think anyone could see why Cesare Prandelli prefers him to Giampaolo Pazzini right now: He plays simple and smart and, mostly importantly links up really well with Adrian Mutu, who is indesputably the focus of the Fiorentina attack.

•Even though we're still months from the start of Euro 2008, it's evidently not too early to think about World Cup qualifying, as the schedule of qualifying fixtures was announced today (and how delightfully optimistic of C4 to illustrate their story with a picture of Roberto Donadoni).

So now that the season has come to a close, let's get everyones opinion on who was the best at everything. We'll use the Oscar del Calcio format, so be sure to choose:

Best Italian Player
Best Foreign Player
Best Young Player
Best Goalkeeper
Best Defender
Best Midfielder
Best Striker
Surprise Player of the Season
Best Serie A Player (Best Overall, Foreign or Italian)
Best Coach
Most Surprising Team
Most Disappointing Team
and if you want, your Serie A Best XI

My picks after the jump: