Here's the calcio news that I thought was most interesting today:
-Luciano Spalletti said that: "Our club can't just go out and buy whoever it wants,
everything has to be carefully done and hopefully we'll have some players that can benefit our
roster. Malouda and Baptista are two targets that we want, but we'll have to see how the deals
evolve.
This has been news in the calcio world recently. When Lazio first met up for pre-season training
in mid-July, coach Delio Rossi made a list of players that did not fit into his plans for the
coming season. These players are: Roberto Baronio (considered as a youngster to be the next great
Italian midfielder, never happened), Simone Inzaghi (Pippo's younger brother who has always been
more technically gifted than Pippo, but not as successful), Massimo Mutarelli (a defensive
midfielder who works hard all game, impressed at Palermo), Tommaso Berni (a young goalkeeper who
was never given a chance), Alberto Quadri (another promising player as a youngster but has turned
out to be an average player), and Guglielmo Stendardo (on loan at Juve last season, a decent
defender who has also garnered interest from Milan and Inter).
He was the surprise call-up to begin with. Everyone looked at Casiraghi's Olympic call-ups and
said with a puzzled look, "Rocchi?" (come on, you know you did it). Casiraghi gave his
explanation, saying the Lazio hitman was an experienced player, a model professional, and an
excellent addition to the Italy side who could score many goals in this Olympic games.
As each week passes Serie A gets closer and closer. This was basically the final week of the
preseason, as this week there are National Team games on Wednesday and then the SuperCoppa on
Sunday, and teams start there normal preparation for the start of Serie A, which will kick-off with
Udinese-Palermo and Sampdoria-Inter on Saturday, August 30th.
