Season Preview: Roma Opening/Recap To say that Roma disappointed last season would be an understatement, like proclaiming that peanut butter and jelly is a somewhat popular snack amongst children. Claudio Ranieri tried to improve his side from the second place finish of the season prior, but was ultimately sacked amongst a midst of horrible results. The low point included a thrashing in the Champions’ League at the hands of the Shakhtar Donestk and throwing away an astonishing three goal lead […]

Season Preview: Chievo Opening/Recap For a side that rarely spends massive amounts of money if any at all, Chievo managed a fantastic 11th place finish last season. Coach Stefano Pioli organized a side that was superb defensively, conceding the fourth lowest amount of goals of all the teams in Serie A- Only Lazio, Napoli, and Milan conceded fewer. Yet the side had an enormously difficult time scoring, totaling a mere 38 goals in 38 games, the fifth lowest in the […]

Season Preview: Genoa Opening/Recap Genoa’s tenth place finish last season could be viewed as a disappointment from a number of angles. Most strikingly, the side had finished a place higher the season prior and could have hoped to fight for a European spot last campaign.  Out went Marco Amelia and in came Eduardo to fill in between the sticks - a move that should have turned out to be much better than it did, given the latter’s solid reputation before […]

Season Preview: Catania Opening/Recap Catania finished last season in a relatively comfortable 13th position, exactly the same as the season before earning a point more in the process- which was a record for the club for the third year in a row. The side featured an exciting mix of stalwarts and rising youngsters, such as Matias Silvestre and Ezequiel Schelotto. Maxi Lopez rather single-handedly carried the strikeforce with eight goals throughout the season, including a match winner against Udinese and […]

Season Preview: Cagliari Opening/Recap Despite a very poor run at the end of the season, which saw the side pick up a mere two points out of their last 6 games, Cagliari managed a 14th place finish. Considering the departure of star striker Alessandro Matri in January to Juventus, their position in the table becomes more understandable. The rest of the strike force struggled to score, with only Robert Acquafresca matching Matri’s tally. Manager Roberto Donadoni was surprisingly sacked earlier […]

Bologna captain Di Vaio (original photo by Reuters) 2010-11 Recap Bologna had a respectable campaign last season, avoiding relegation by five points after being docked a total of three - one for unpaid taxes and two for unpaid wages. Financial difficulties aside, the Rossoblu would have finished tied for fourteenth place without such penalties. The side proved to be one of the more frugal in the league, scoring a mere 35 goals in 38 games while conceding 52, the third […]

Ezequiel Ivan Lavezzi had a long campaign. 31 appearances in Serie A last season for Napoli proved tremendously successful on both a personal and club level, as the player score six goals and fired his side into the Champions’ League qualifying position. He then joined Argentina’s National Team for an ultimately disappointing Copa America, featuring in two group match games as a starter and one as a substitute out of the four matches that the South American team played. In […]

Cliché’s are, well, clichéd, and even that might be a cliché. They stand as the writing equivalent of using training wheels, working well enough to “fall back on” and “get the job done” but preventing any sort of creativity from shining through along the way. Football is full of such terms, and the 24th Supercoppa Italiana helped to reinforce some of the most popular ones. Football is a game of two halves One only need ask Gian Piero Gasperini. In […]

Typical Mirko, it was inevitable wasn’t it? A big game player by design, scoring against one of the titans of modern day English football on the greatest club stage in the world. In fact, nearly every facet of that goal simply oozed of the Montenegrin, an epitome of the way he played. It was his second of the night, and Roma’s third. On a chilly November evening at the Olimpico, everything seemed to be going well for Luciano Spalletti’s side […]

Philippe Mexes is a dirty cheat. He’s a walking red card and a thuggish scumbag; an explosion waiting to happen like that quiet, inevitable interval in between lighting a firecracker and waiting for it to go off. Philippe Mexes is a tremendous defender. Sure, he has a dirty side, but what centerback doesn’t? His expulsions tend to be a bit exaggerated, and what he gives to his team far outweighs his overstated lack of discipline. Loyalty, passion, and aggression are […]

Lazio, perhaps more than any other Italian side, have made some tremendously interesting moves in the summer mercato. “Interesting,” that is, because acquiring two strikers and swapping fullbacks and potentially goalies is quite the gamble, a roll of the dice that could see the club challenge for the top or fall apart into a mess of distraught egos and poor decisions. On paper, at least, it seems as if the capital side have acquired two top-name strikers to lead them […]

Truth in football is dead. The internet killed it. Well, perhaps maybe not dead. But “truth” as it was once known is seemingly disappearing. It should be a rather simple, black-and-white concept: X is true, therefore Y isn’t. Circumstances can change but what is simply is, simply should be. However, this week in football saw quite a few challenges to such a rigid definition. Take, for example, the case of Erik Lamela. The Argentine is hotly sought at in the […]