Are Our Problems Solved?

I think Gilardino would be even better if he had someone creating goals for him. He does a lot of the holding up work and can finish, but needs some creativity behind him.

I know he has a lot of his critics on this thread, but out of who Italy have, Gila is the best option at the moment.

I am also a fan of Pazzini with or without Cassano. He and Gila would be my centre forwards going to South Africa AS IT STANDS NOW

I thing DiNatale will be going to south africa, in a substitutes role as he does not play a role condusive to our starting formation.
I suppose i wouldn’t mind seeing Pazzini there, problem is as soon as lippi calls back pazzo the calls for cassano from fans/media will triple.
I also think Pazzini made a mistake in backing cassano to be called up, right there he underminded lippi’s choice to snub cassano and sealed his own destiny, he will be called up again, just not while lippi is in charge.

It’s a long season so let’s see how things stand by April and who is still fit, inform by by April.

I am sure there will be suprises but I am 99.9% sure we wouldn’t see Cassano or Pazzini.

Not to worry all! Something mega happened today! We will be saved for the world cup I promise.

Marco Materrazzi came off the bench today for Inter today!

just as a side note to this huge news. Say what you will about Balotelli, but with Super Mario not in the line up, Inter looked uncreative and very poor in the final third. At least that’s my thought.

It’s simple about the Azzurri goal scoring problems. Throw out all the strikers they currently have on the national team.
Call up the following people: Pazzini, Cassano, Foggia, Miccolli. For experience sake bring a healthy Del Piero and healthy Totti. That’s six, if we need a primo punto bring Pelissier and we’re good to go.

I am tired of looking at Gilardino. What a lazy lazy, greedy player. Just poor in everything. Sure he scored today, but he was awful against a team with a little substance.

With all that being said, if Giovinco and Balotelli find a way to get on form and become regulars on their teams they NEED to be brought to the World Cup. I would go with ideally speaking: Cassano, Pazzini, Balotelli, Giovinco, Iaquinta, Foggia.

I would go with ideally speaking: Cassano, Pazzini, Balotelli

Not going to happen under Lippi and Giovinco is a long shot, since he doesn’t even play for Juve.

football-italia did a good job , so you can ready why

Blog: Watching Balotelli, seeing Cassano
There are still question marks over Mario Balotelli. Even after Inter’s 5-0 win at Genoa in which he scored a true striker’s goal, says Peter Doyle
http://www.football-italia.net/blogs/pd2.html

Lippi is strong believer in team spirt and that is why we will not see
Cassano under him.

Marcello Lippi is right to overlook him for La Nazionale. The little team spirit which Lippi has done well to rebuild may struggle to cope with the potential disruption of Cassano
http://www.football-italia.net/blogs/pd2.html

Julian good topic for you. Merits of Team Spirt vs Potential Disruption by player/s

Out of curiosity, and Im sorry for beating this dead horse, but has there been a recent, negative clash between Cassano and Lippi. I agrre that one of the main things that made us Champions in 2006 was our strong squad spirit, but does Lippi think Cassano will really stir up that much shit?

Everything in the last 1.5-2 years out of the Sampdoria camp has seemed pretty harmonious, with no (known) flare-ups from Cassano

Posted from  Canada

Re: Miccolli

Good Player and here is what Conte thinks of him

Miccoli? He is a player of very low quality,” snapped Bari Coach Conte when asked about the testimony.
“Zinedine Zidane and Alessandro Del Piero are footballers. Miccoli is a player, and one of very low quality at that.

By Marco | October 18th, 2009 at 9:26 pm

alex, a coach that loses 7-0 to an english team isn’t much of a coach.
I rate conte very highly,
he should actually be the current Juventus coach, instead Lippi had to insert his puppet.

Italia2006 have you ever seen Miccoli play? When he is on, no one on the field is as good as him. Look at the him vs. Juventus or Roma from this year.

Something interesting I found: These r the winners of the u-21 european championships who also won the World Cup in Germany ‘06

Amelia, Gilardino, De Rossi, Zaccardo, Barzagli in 2004

Pirlo, Gattuso, Abbiati, Perrotta in 2000

Del Piero(again), Nesta, Totti, Buffon in 1996

Del Piero, Cannavaro, Inzaghi in 1994

Looks like to me by just looking at these stats that a world cup was due to Italy eventually, after all these u-21 champss winning for their respective teams

Italy hasn’t won the uefa u-21 european championships since 2004, and all you youth lovers calling for Lippi to call these new guys like Motta, Giovinco, Balotelli, etc. well they haven’t won anything for their u-21 teams respectively.

I’m not sayin that if you have won u-21 u will def win the world cup im just sayin that history tends to repeat itself and if winning happens when ur young it more often then not happens when ur in ur prime or later on as well.

italia2006 do you have a fetish with me? lol. If you’ve read my comments about balotelli and giovinco I have already indicated that 1. Giovinco needs to see the pitch and 2. Balottelli needs to stop commiting hanious fouls.

About Conte, yes conte is a fantastic coach, a successful coach in the future of calcio. Not everyone gets the opportunity to start at Juventus or Milan. His views of Miccolli are obviously personal or right before a match I read nothing into it. That would be the same as saying that Lippi is a good coach, is he a bad coach because he doesnt select cassano?

About Cassano and Lippi – I remember reading something about this, someone here can clarify it. Lippi’s son is a manager. Someone who was involved in some form during Calciopoli. Anyway from what I recall, I read that Cassano did not take to kindly to Lippi’s son, vis-a-vis he told him to fuck off.

About team morale, blah blah: When you have a player like Cassano you build the team around him. I have a feeling, it’s a small one that Cassano will be at the world cup. Here’s why. Lippi had this problem before, with frankie Totti. Under the Trap system Totti was the center of attention. The end all and be all of the team. If he didn’t work they failed. This was most evident imo at euro 2004. When lippi took over he molded totti into a part of the team, and made everyone equals basically. At the world cup, the team didn’t live and die because of Totti – it was basically because of Matrix j/j – the team became a sum of its individual parts. With Cassano if he was to bring him in during qualifying the team would be about Cassano. What I think lippi will do is bring him on board for the world cup, this way he might hope it wouldn’t be about him, but about the team he brings – just speculation, we’ll have to wait to see how poorly put together this team will be come June

Marco,
Nope, and I was just pointing out what your highly rated coach (conte)thinks of Miccolli.

Italy hasn’t won the uefa u-21 european championships since 2004, and all you youth lovers calling for Lippi to call these new guys like Motta, Giovinco, Balotelli, etc. well they haven’t won anything for their u-21 teams respectively.

Just cause Casiraghi is a shitty excuse from the coach doesn’t mean the kid sucks.

Conte is a great coach and his feud with Miccoli is personal.

@ present midfield is average w/o creativity & forwards are young or inexperienced and rest are average. not a good time for azzurri.

Posted from  United States

FINALLY! I’ve waited for a day like this for quite sometime and finally I can honestly say I am happier with Ciro Ferrara at Juventus. He finally bowed to some of the pressure and started a line up consisting of

Trezequet
Giovinco – Diego – Camro

Albeit, juve scored 1 goal off a header from Chiellini, the game was riddled with great runs, great passes, and a little atomic ant who played great and seemed to gain in confidence as the game wore on. Hopefully Ferrara will learn and continue with this tandum for the forseeable future. As I’ve said many times Amauri is overrated, and I was happy trezeguet started, he looked far more menacing than Amauri has in the last number of weeks. Just a couple small criticisms. With regards to giovinco, what I have noticed is that diego esp. does not pass to him as much as he should. if this team can move the ball around even more we will see far clearer opportunities, furthermore I think that giovinco needs to shoot much more. But we’re ‘hopefully’ on our way to seeing the creation of a new and truly great player.

Aside from that, Alessio, you said it with regards to Conte and Miccoli. Anyone who suggests conte’s feud with Miccoli is a result that he is a bad coach needs to check himself at the door and watch some daytime soaps. Conte is going to be a future azzurri coach – at least I can hope.

Deleted – Daryl

What nonsense? Has anyone actually watched Real Madrid play? Again you can only do so many step overs before you look rediculous. Football is not won by 2 overpayed players, it is won by the whole package. Real Madrid’s defense is an utter joke, and Milan took complete advantage of it in Madrid. I saw this obvious flaw when they played Toronto FC in August. While Ronaldo did some stepovers and hogged the ball, Toronto FC scored against them, just so you know a Serie C3 team could dispose of Toronto FC with utter ease. So Milan winning is no surprise to me. What is a surprise is that people thing RM are really that amazing, close down their attack, have a speedy counter and you will win.

w/o ronadlo real madrid r crap & benzama is overated

Posted from  United States

ital/juve 1-0 Maccabi. buffon bailed out juve. w/o him juve draw.

Posted from  United States

w/o inefficiency in front of goal, juve wins 3-0. woohoo

i have to agree with just about everything Marco said … and that goes back about three months …

except that Foggia is an attacking mid at best and not a striker, though i believe he is a must for the team in 2010; Cassano is really looking better as a player, but i am still not convinced; and though Gilardino really should not be seen in blue again (i don’t care how many he has scored recently), i am not sold on Miccoli. he is very good but i need to see more of the season because Floccari and Pelissier could also bring some interesting things to the team.

it would seem Lippi is getting a bit closer to fielding a team like many here would like to see but i hope there are more changes to come before we head to s.a.

By stallion_targeted_by_daryl | October 21st, 2009 at 4:05 pm

about time

Posted from  United States

Lippi thinks he have had to build a new squad from 2006 according to his latest comments;“We need to increase our self belief and understand our strength because we have had to build a new squad from 2006.” WoW, really WoW I am so amazed by his way of words when speaking to the Press. He does not convince me much and it was wrong totally wrong to bring him back to coach Azzurri. So what Italia qualified to World Cup 2010, Italy always does that, Italia qualified to Euro 2008 under Donadoni, so what is next that is the most important right now? It is obvious that Italia needs quality players espcially strikers. Lippi’s squad is in trouble when they go to South Africa next summer, Lippi will fail and he will blame the fans and press for that, when he is asked he manuevers with his answers according to the point of strategy of the question, he has no convincing plan for the Azzurri in WC 2010. So my answer to your question Mr. Paul, is No big NO, our problems are not solved, when you and most of the people in here who write to you think and analyze real good, logic statement says Italia has no quality striker at all at the moment. Funny thing is Abete the President of FGIC is waiting for the authorities to hand in Amauri the Italian Passport, even Amauri is not a quality striker and he scored one goal last week after a long period of time, God only knows when will he scores again! so does Amauri can solve the problem? NOOOOOOOOOO, lately there are reports about calling Zarate since he’s already got Italian Passport. Where do these people come from I certainly have no idea, instead of focusing on Italy’s most talented and skilled players and Italy has lots of them the men at the top of the Italian Football Organization Abete and Lippi are calling after aged, unproductive, less-skilled players. So in this ocasion I announce that the problem is not solved and it will not be solved.

I’d be interested to see what Gilardino would do with someone creative (Cassano, say, or Giovinco, or even friggin Totti) behind him. He always looks bad when he’s being counted on to create scoring chances, but if he has someone else to set him up, he’s dangerous. It’s a different level of soccer, but for Fiorentina, playing front of Mutu or Jovetic, he’s always a threat. Sure, Pazzini et al would be nice, but let’s not get down on someone who hasn’t been placed in a situation in which he can play his best.

Posted from  United States