After this summer's UEFA U-21 Championship, the current cycle will end and a new cycle
(2009-2011) will start, which will result in a new Azzurrini team being put together because the
current players will be too old to be eligible. Therefore in preparation for the qualifiers in
September, Casiraghi is using next week's friendly vs.
Juve Stabia are a club from Castellamare di Stabia, a town outside
of Napoli (also the birthplace of Fabio
Quagliarella). Juve Stabia, or the Vespe (bees) as they are nicknamed, have always been a club
that bounced around the lower divisions, never reaching the paradises of Serie B and Serie A.
In honor of the national team break, I thought the video of the week should be national
team-themed. Here's a great little video I found on youtube, which goes through the history of the
national team in 3 minutes and shows us that we too are part of the national team (L'Italia siamo
noi=We are Italy).
After seeing Marcello Lippi's latest national team call-ups this Sunday, the big question all
over Italy has been "Where's Cassano?". The media has written articles on it and are
severely questioning Lippi's decision to leave out El Pibe di Bari yet again. It really is
mind-boggling how Lippi can leave Italy's most talented player at home watching the game from his
couch.
Today Lazio and Juventus went head to head at the Stadio Olimpico in the Coppa Italia semi-final
1st leg. Marcello Lippi was on hand to witness the match, and both sides were for the most part
first choice (Del Piero and Buffon were rested for Juve). Lazio started with: Muslera,
Lichtsteiner, Siviglia, Cribari, Kolarov; Foggia, Ledesma, Matuzalem, Manfredini; Rocchi, Pandev,
while Juventus went with: Manninger, Grygera, Mellberg, Chiellini, Molinaro; Marchionni, Sissoko,
Tiago, Nedved; Amauri, Iaquinta.
A couple of years ago (2004 to be exact), Sicilian side Messina were promoted from Serie B and
returned to Serie A for the first time since the early 1960s. This is also the same time Palermo
were promoted to Serie A for the first time in a long time so all of Italy was surprised to see two
Sicilian sides in Serie A in the 2004-2005 season (it's not a surprise anymore, as Palermo became a
stable Serie A side and they were joined by Catania).
So yesterday I was browsing around Italian Goal.com (the only version of goal.com worth reading
since they just post articles from other sources instead of making stuff up like the english
version), and I came across this article. It's almost every week that we constantly hear complaints
from all teams about referee errors.
So today is the start of spring break for me, and I'm taking a little vacanza, so I won't be
around for a week. However I will be back on Monday, March 16th to bring you the Serie A Weekend
Round-up. So since the blog will be dead for around a week, I'll leave you with some random Italian
soccer videos that I had lying around my youtube favorites to keep you busy while I'm gone.
Remember the whole fiasco a couple of months back when Brescia striker Davide Possanzini and
Napoli winger Daniele Mannini were suspended for a year for showing up 15 minutes late to
post-match drug testing? Well, they both can breathe huge sighs of relief as today TAS suspended
the decision, allowing Mannini and Possanzini to get back on the football pitches.
There have been many players in Italy who are hyped by the media and pundits and in the end they
never really amount to nothing in their careers, or just have average careers when they were
expected to become superstars. You can look back over the past 10 years and see how many players
have been given the "failed promise" label.
Filippo "SuperPippo" Inzaghi scored his 300th career goal this weekend. Many people
don't appreciate Inzaghi. They say he has no technique. They say he really doesn't know how to play
football. They say he always dives. They say he always complains. But what they don't realize is
that Filippo Inzaghi is one of the greatest strikers of the modern era.
Yet another refereeing error. Napoli should've went up 1-0 with this play. At least it would've
made yesterday's game more interesting. Full results after the jump.
Bologna-Cagliari 0-1
Scorers: 45´ Acquafresca (Cag)
Report. Player Ratings.
