By all accounts, the game against Cameroon didn’t go well. I didn’t see it firsthand (I love the Azzurri but there’s no way I can get up at 5 AM and actually be brain-active enough to pay attention). But apparently, it sucked.

The Azzurri Olympic squad played their final pre-Olympic friendly today, against Beijing Hong Deng. And they wrecked them 4-0. Now I know what you’re thinking. It’s a friendly, and we all know friendlies don’t really count. And yeah, Hong Deng isn’t, say, Barca or Chelsea-so this result may not seem thaaaat great. So you probably [...]

I’m back from vacation, which ended waaay too soon for me. But I’m back, rested and ready to go. It seems I missed a crapload of news club-wise (Roma were this close to getting Mutu but Fiorentina pulled out in the last second?!?) but there doesn’t seem to have been any huge national team news. [...]

(Yay for crappy puns based off of crappy movies)

Yeah, I’m as pumped to see him back at the helm as you are. A competent Italian national team coach? Feels like 2006 all over again
When Lippi finally gets in gear and picks his squad for the next game (which I think is a late August friendly), [...]

Because Luca Toni is getting old and just won’t cut it anymore.

So yesterday we recapped some of the more positive things that came out of Euro for Italy- the rise of Chiellini and the birth of a new, attack-minded team (At least for some of the tourney. Note: this “attack minded team” is not the team we saw against Spain. That was a defensive team.) Today, [...]

I just can’t wait for the Euro to start. This little diet of mini friendlies here and there isn’t quite enough to satiate my appetite for International soccer. I’m in full International tourney form with a week before being able to blow my lungs out cheering on our favourite blue boys. I have exhausted all [...]

The young’uns won the Toulon tournament today on the back of a 1-0 win today, with Seba Giovinco being named tourny MVP for simply being head and shoulders above everyone and no one all at the same time.
Pablo Osvaldo got the goal on an absolutely brilliant ball from future Azzurri superduperstar Daniele Dessena, and [...]

Pierluigi Casiraghi is using the annual Festival de Toulon football tournament in France as testing ground for the upcoming Beijing Olympics. The good news is that the young Italians are responding very well, 6 goals For and only 1 goal conceded so far on top of 3 victories over USA,Turkey and The Ivory [...]

Ok, Ok, don’t castrate me. After Nesta and Totti comes Balotelli. No shows isn’t about crazy talented players of azzurri past (get ready for some Baggio action), it’s about who’s not going to Euro 2008 and Mario isn’t going. Super Mario Balotelli is a force to be reckon with. At 17 years of age [...]