Future Italian Superstars Part 3: Lazio and Chievo

Today we turn our attention to the capital of Italy, Rome, and the city of Verona. Before we get to that, though, a quick note on the title. When I first started these, all the players nominated by the offside bloggers were young and hadn’t received a call up yet. Thus, they were “Future superstars”. But now we’re seeing more of a mix of older, overlooked guys and younger players. Which is absolutely fine and cool, since I did ask for either or both. So while these guys might not be future superstars in the sense that Giovinco might be, they could still be future callups. For the sake of consistency, I’m going to keep the title of these posts as they are. I just wanted to clarify why the title might suggest that all of these guys are young, and they don’t necessarily have to be.

Here’re the players Cathal from the Lazio blog thinks we should call up:

“Here’s the 3 guys I would call-up:
1. Pasquale Foggia
2. Cristian Ledesma
3. Tommaso Rocchi

Foggia is clearly being watched by Lippi and Marcelo is said to be a fan of Ledesma’s too. Rocchi is an old dog for the hard road and would be a worthy consideration too.

Please forget De Silvestri, we fans worship him but he has done nothing to merit the Azzurri.”

Rocchi’s an interesting name on the list- he went with us as our sole overage player to the Olympics last year, where he injured his leg. Given that we lack a true prima punta up top, should Lippi give Rocchi another chance?

Mostafa from the Chievo offside concedes that his team don’t have many young Italian players, but nevertheless has a couple of nominations:

1-Simone Bentivoglio – Middle
He’s still 23, got a lot of energy and a goal for chievo which doesn’t count for much, but he will have alot of time to improve untill the world cup comes around and he will be 25 by then, but i still think you could find better players elsewhere, here is a video in itallian about him, but sadly … me no speak itallian. So you would make use of it better than me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxkIlxglSv8 He also appeared 14 times for the azzurrini, and don’t forget he started his career 2004 at juve’s primavera so he’s not a bad kid, still he would need time to become great, and IMO Roma’s Brighi is a far better player overall, and he’s also young
2-Luca Rigoni – Middle
This one is 24 started in 01 with Vicenza, and played 11 games up till now with chievom and got us 1 goal http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttq046t0Xd0 , but sadly that’s about it, he’s consistiently good but not Azzurri Quality

I group these two teams together partially because I heard back from both bloggers around the same time, but also because these are two teams which aren’t represented in the Azzurri often at all.

I’d like to thank all of the offside writers who have helped me out thus far- you guys responded really quick and truly, I appreciate the help. I’d love to get 2-3 from every Serie A team nominated, though, so if any other offside blogger is reading this and hasn’t gotten back to me, please contact me.

And once more: if this all seems overwhleming- if you’re freaking out about all the names I keep throwing it- don’t worry. I’ve got it covered. After we get through all the club blogs I’ll do a list of all the players mentioned, with my take on who should get called up and who maybe doesn’t really deserve it.