One of the players playing extremely well at the moment is Genoa fantasista Raffaele Palladino. Palladino has always been a player that could do things with the ball that others could only dream of doing, but he never had the consistency to show that talent at a high level. Palladino is now an important part of Gian Piero Gasperini’s Genoa side, and he’s the one that can make the difference up front for the Rossoblu. It looks like now at the age of 25 he has finally reached the point where he can be consistent enough to show his incredible skill.

Palladino grew up in the Juventus youth system, and in 2004 was sent on loan first to Salernitana, where he had an excellent season in Serie B, and then the following year to Livorno, where he had a decent season in Serie A. He immediately became an important part of the Italy U-21 side, first under Claudio Gentile and then under Pierluigi Casiraghi. With Juventus’ relegation to Serie B, he was taken back to the home base and played a role in Didier Deschamps’ Juve side that won promotion. At first he didn’t play as much, but his versatility led him to play many games, as he could play as a second punta, a winger, or as a trequartista. The following season he stayed with the Bianconeri on their return to Serie A, but with the purchase of Vincenzo Iaquinta, Palladino was essentially the 4th striker. When he did play he showed good things, and Roberto Donadoni even gave him a shot in two national team games. He even earned the nickname “Raf Alladino” (Raf Aladdin, because of the magic tricks he worked with the ball) from fans. However, Palladino needed to play, and so in the summer of 2008 his old Juventus youth team manager, Gian Piero Gasperini, brought him to Genoa on a co-ownership deal, and gave him a chance to show his stuff.

His 2008-2009 didn’t start well, as a bad knee injury kept him out for most of the first part of the season, but upon his return he worked himself back into the side and played a very important part towards the end of the season, scoring a crucial winning goal vs. Juventus and then making some nice assists for his teammates. This past summer, Genoa decided to renew the co-ownership deal and keep him for one more season. The start of this season was also injury troubled, as a bad virus kept him out until mid-September. But Palladino was back with a bang. He immediately started playing really well, and against Fiorentina scored an amazing back-heeled goal against Sebastian Frey. Palladino has continued to play well, and now that he is healthy and motivated he seems to be finally showing his talent.

If he can continue, a return to the national team is a possibility. Palladino’s mix of speed, technique, and ability to do whatever he wants with the ball at any instant can be of great use to a national team lacking in creativity. However, we’ll have to see if he can keep it up all season, as consistency has always been his problem.

Roma-Inter from May of 1999 is another highly entertaining game from one of the most entertaining Serie A seasons of all time. The 1998-99 season had 3 leaders of the table (for the first part of the season it was Fiorentina, who were winter champions but were then hurt by the injury of Batistuta, then Lazio, who looked on their way to the Scudetto but fell off form towards the end, and then Milan who surprised everyone and stole the Scudetto on the last day). Juventus had a bad year, with Del Piero suffering a big injury and Lippi being replaced mid-season by Carlo Ancelotti. Inter were expecting big things with their strike pair of Roberto Baggio and Ronaldo, but various injuries led to the latter two not playing much together all season, and Inter went through 3 coaches before finishing the season with Roy Hodgson. For Roma, this was their last season of the Zdenek Zeman era, as Fabio Capello would take over in the summer. Roma practiced the Zeman philosophy, 4-3-3 formation, free-flowing constant attacking football, leaving many defensive holes. It’s no surprise that this game ended 5-4 in Inter’s favor. Game story after the jump.

This game was played in early May of 1999 with the season coming to an end. Roma were fighting for a place in the Champions League, while Inter were having a disastrous season and hoped to salvage some of it by at least getting a UEFA Cup qualification spot. This was one of the few games of the season where Inter had Roberto Baggio and Ronaldo both fit, as well as Chilean striker Ivan Zamorano, always deadly on headers. To counter Zeman’s 4-3-3, Hodgson put out his own 4-3-3, with the trio of Baggio, Ronaldo, and Zamorano up front. Inter kept taking the lead but Roma kept fighting back with it’s own trio, Marco Delvecchio, Francesco Totti, and Brazilian Paulo Sergio (who left for Bayern Munich that summer and won the Champions League). Like I said, Inter kept taking the lead, and Roma always found a way back until the end when Diego Simeone scored the winning goal. It was highly entertaining. And of course something to not: what a joy it was to watch Roberto Baggio play, no matter what shirt he was wearing. He was involved in 4 of Inter’s 5 goals in this match.

A few nice goals this week, but nothing extraordinary. Giuseppe Mascara scored one of his trademark wonder-goals, and Marco Borriello got back on the scoresheet with 2 goals (the second a nice scissor kick) after almost a year. Diego Milito got back to his scoring ways as well after being absent through injury, and Mirko Vucinic finally scored his first goal of the season. Simone Perrotta scored as well and did his best Cassano impression kicking down the corner flag and yelling obscenities at the crowd. Goals of the 11th Giornata after the jump.

Marco Borriello vs. Parma – Assist from Ronaldinho, and Borriello coordinates himself for the scissor kick and executes it perfectly, finishing past Mirante. Borriello said he “imagined this goal in his head” before the game.

Marek Hamsik vs. Juventus – Yeah the terrible clearance at the back set this up, but the finish was excellent, and it meant a historic win for the Partenopei.

Giuseppe Mascara vs. Fiorentina – Awesome goal from Mascara, who is always known to score goals like this. Runs on and hits it first time, perfect finish past Frey who can do nothing about it.

Marco Marchionni vs. Catania – Marchionni scores the first of 2 goals with a beautiful left footed finish into the far corner.

Diego Milito vs. Livorno – Milito scores a excellent finish. Some nice footwork to throw off the Livorno defense and then a pinpoint finish into the corner.

Napoli won vs. Juventus in Torino for the first time since November 20, 1988, when Maradona’s Napoli won 5-3. Since then, there had been 11 wins and 5 ties, and Napoli hadn’t scored in Torino since March of 1998. This Napoli side has been rejuvenated under Walter Mazzarri, and they have shown they have a never say die attitude that keeps them working for the full 90 minutes. If Napoli can ride this wave of enthusiasm and keep playing like they have these past 3 games, they should have no problem finishing in the higher places in the table by the end of the season. Round-up after the jump.

SERIE A STANDINGS, RESULTS, AND HIGHLIGHTS

(link: http://www.youtube.com/user/mfSerieATIM#grid/user/C7BF52B670A44B74)

Fabrizio Miccoli has really become the undisputed leader of Palermo. The diminutive fantasista, or il Romario del Salento as he is so aptly nicknamed, has been putting in great performances this season and had a great year last season, and it looks like he has finally found a place to show all of his talent. When he returned to Italy with Palermo back in the summer of 2007 nobody knew what to expect of Miccoli. He had just spent two years playing for Benfica in Portugal and he seemed to be lost as a player, another one of those players that never live up to their potential. Perhaps staying at Juve in 2003 when he had Del Piero, Trezeguet, and Di Vaio all in front of him in the pecking order impeded his explosion. But luckily, Miccoli’s talent shone through, and he is now showing calcio fans everywhere what he’s made of. His play right now deserves a national team look, but Lippi will never call him, and that’s a whole different story. We’re focused on how Miccoli is a giant killer.

Miccoli has scored crucial goals against all the big clubs while at Palermo. Juventus? Check. Milan? Check. Roma? Check. Fiorentina? Check. Lazio? Check. Inter? Well that didn’t come until yesterday. Miccoli had never scored vs. Inter, but yesterday he crossed the Nerazzurri off his list with a superb 2 goal performance.

Miccoli has shown that he likes to show off his skills in the big games. Although yesterday’s goals were in a losing effort, Miccoli has now scored vs. every big club in Serie A. Hopefully he continues to play like this, because players like Miccoli are always a joy to watch.

Here is a Miccoli compilation, and a theme song dedicated to Miccoli by Palermo fans (with lyrics!):

Although we are only 10 games into the season, Klaas-Jan Huntelaar is starting to look more and more like a big flop. 15 million euro were spent on the Dutch striker, and even if he reaches 5 goals this season it would seem like a big achievement. Sure you can say that he needs time to adapt to a new style of play, new language, new culture, but it’s already November almost and we still have not seen Huntelaar’s name on the score sheet. Will Huntelaar be considered one of the biggest Serie A flops at the end of this season? It remains to be seen. But I thought it would be fun to go through players that were flops from 2000-2009. Flops after the jump.

Ricardo Quaresma – Inter (2008-present)

I consider Quaresma a flop, I don’t think he will ever be the player he was at Porto in Italy. Lots of money spent on him, and never lived up to expectation. All he has shown he is good at is his famous trivela, which he even uses for simple passes when his teammate is 2 yards away. Somebody should trivela him out of Italy.

Nicolae Dica – Catania (2008-2009)

Everyone thought Catania had made a great buy bringing Dica to Sicily in 2008. A Romanian international who had great technical ability and many likened him to Adrian Mutu. Instead, Walter Zenga (his former coach in Romania) couldn’t even field him because he was so bad, and only played 93 minutes in his first six months in Italy. Catania loaned him to Greek side Iraklis this summer.

Ricardo Oliveira – Milan (2006-2007)

After losing Shevchenko in the summer of 2006, Milan desperately tried to find a replacement, and settled on this Brazilian striker, who played for Real Betis. The start was good, as he scored on his Serie A debut vs. Lazio, but after that only managed 2 more goals the whole season and proved to be a big waste of money. He now plays in the United Arab Emirates. What a superstar.

Olivier Kapo – Juventus (2004-2005)

Moggi was undoubtedly the best when it came to finding unknown talents, but he made a couple of mistakes from time to time. Like Olivier Kapo. When he was signed he was supposed to be a French version of Pavel Nedved for Juventus, but it turns out he wasn’t very good at imitating his Czech counter-part. Quickly loaned away after his first season.

Gaizka Mendieta – Lazio (2001-2002)

Mendieta was one of the top midfielders in Europe with Valencia in the late 90’s and capped that with an excellent performance at Euro 2000. In the summer of 2001 Lazio broke the bank to have the Spanish midfielder on their books (somewhere near 50 million euro), and it looked like he only was in Rome on vacation. He didn’t look like himself at all, and spent the next two years of his contract loaned out.

Al-Sa’adi Gheddafi – Perugia, Udinese, Sampdoria (2003-2007)

Son of Libyan leader Muammar Gheddafi, he was apparently captain of the Libyan national team and facts were unknown about his Libyan club career. When Tamoil had a stake in Juventus, he was on the board of directors. In 2003 controversial Perugia owner Luciano Gaucci signed him, and he only played 1 game (vs Juventus) in his two seasons in Umbria. He also failed an anti-doping test. The following season Udinese signed him, and he once again only played 1 game near the end of the season. Then Sampdoria signed him, and he never stepped onto the field. After that season he retired.

Hakan Sukur – Inter and Parma (2000-2002)

A goal-scoring machine with Galatasaray, he was signed by Inter in the summer of 2000 after his excellent performance for Turkey at Euro 2000. However, he couldn’t cut it in Serie A, only nabbing 5 goals in 25 games. The following season Parma took a chance on him, but he still couldn’t make his mark, scoring 3 goals in 15 appearances. He left for England after the 2002 World Cup.

Shabani Nonda – Roma (2005-2006)

The Congolese striker was famously suggested to Roma by Luciano Moggi, and the Giallorossi took his advice and decided to sign him from Monaco. However, it seemed to be bad advice, as Nonda only scored 4 goals in 14 appearances and was then shipped off to Blackburn the following season.

Mido – Roma (2004-2005)

Egyptian striker Mido was a last minute signing for Roma in the summer 2004 transfer window. However, he seemed very out of place in Serie A and couldn’t put in any good performances. He only made 8 appearances throughout and the season and was then loaned to Tottenham.

Rivaldo – Milan (2002-2003)

After the 2002 World Cup and great seasons with Barcelona, Milan were expecting Rivaldo to be a huge signing in the summer of 2002. However the Brazilian could never get going, he was always injured, and when he did play he was a shadow of the brilliant player of years past. At least he won the Champions League and Coppa Italia though before leaving for his native Brazil.

Javi Moreno – Milan (2001-2002)

Another terrible striker signing by Milan. After impressing for Alaves in their UEFA Cup run to the final, Milan decided to take a chance on Moreno, who was dubbed “the Spanish Gerd Muller”. Well, quite simply, whoever gave him that nickname was an idiot. He couldn’t adapt to Serie A and only scored 2 goals in 16 appearances before being shipped back to La Liga.

Okan Buruk – Inter (2001-2004)

Picked up by Inter in the summer of 2001 with teammate Emre, Okan didn’t live up to expectation like Emre did. Okan never showed his talent, but remained on the books for 3 years. He only made 25 appearances in those 3 years however before returning to Turkey.

Fabian Carini – Inter (2004-2007)

The Uruguayan keeper was acquired from Juventus in exchange for Fabio Cannavaro and 10 million euro. I’m pretty sure Juventus got the better deal. Carini, despite being Uruguay’s number 1, was Inter’s 3rd and only made 4 appearances in 3 years.

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All of these were done off the top of my head with no extensive research, so if I missed any big ones, or if you have your own flops you’d like to nominate, post them in the comments!!

I didn’t put up a Weekend Round-up yesterday because I figured with the midweek round tomorrow, it would be pointless to update everything twice. So we’ll dive in straight to Goals of the Week. Not as great as last week, but still some good goals, especially Daniele Mannini’s one-time volley vs. Bologna. Goals after the jump.

Daniele Mannini vs. Bologna – Mannini has transformed into a bomber at Samp. This is probably the best goal of his career so far. Pazzini with a perfect assist to the winger who hits is brilliantly on the volley and it flies past Viviano.

Wesley Sneijder vs. Catania – The Dutch trequartista scores his second goal in Serie A with this pinpoint free kick.

Francesco Tavano vs. Roma – Tavano scores against his ex-team and grabs Livorno the 3 points at the Olimpico. I can’t find a non-replay video of this goal, because the replay in slow motion doesn’t do a great job of showing how hard his shot was.

Reto Ziegler vs. Bologna – The Swiss winger scores a nice goal with his favored left foot, turning the defender and finishing in the bottom right corner.

Cesare Bovo vs. Udinese – It’s still debated whether this goal was deflected or not, but we’ll give it Bovo. It was a great volley. And I like this live at the stadium video.

The Great Serie A Game posts continue with Roma-Juve 2003/2004. The 2003/2004 season was an interesting one. Milan, fresh from a Champions League victory and with some new young Brazilian player named Kaka, were dominating Serie A. While Marcello Lippi’s Juve looked to be favorites to combat the Rossoneri to the Scudetto, it was not the case. Instead, Fabio Capello’s Roma were breathing down Milan’s necks all the way until the end. Francesco Totti and Antonio Cassano had formed a special partnership, where everything they touched turned to gold. Ivan Pelizzoli in net looked to be the next Buffon, some unknown Brazilian named Amantino Mancini started to shine, and they played smart, organized, fun football. Lippi’s Juve on the other hand struggled to perform. Even with the additions of players like Fabrizio Miccoli and Nicola Legrottaglie and the dynamic duo of Del Piero and Trezeguet up front, the Bianconeri just weren’t the same Juve, and Lippi couldn’t seem to work his magic anymore. Juve wound up finishing a disappointing 4th place, and Lippi left the Juve bench to take over the National Team (and he was replaced by Capello). Game Story and video after the jump.

Basically this is one of the more entertaining Serie A games of recent years. Two master managers of the Italian game, Capello and Lippi, face off, and Capello gets the better of the Lippi. Totti was in fine form on the day, and was all over the pitch. Roma struck early with a shot from Olivier Dacourt, and went into the half 1-0. In the second, Cassano wins a penalty and Totti converts for the 2-0 lead. Cassano scores another and makes it 3-0. Juve get a penalty and Trezeguet tries to convert, but Pelizzoli keeps the clean the sheet. Roma kill off the Bianconeri with another Cassano goal, who goes and kicks the corner flag, which became his trademark celebration. This game is also famous for Totti’s hand gesture (pictured above) towards Igor Tudor in the dying minutes of the game. Tudor was complaining about something to the referee and Totti told him to be quiet, as Roma was winning 4-0, waving 4 fingers in his face.

Video:

Totti’s gesture:

This is going to be a good goals of the week post. There are many nice goals, and in particular the goals from Stankovic and Dessena are awesome to watch. Goals after the jump.

Dejan Stankovic vs. Genoa – Stankovic notices that Amelia makes an error on the clearance and moves to the right, hitting the ball on the volley from way out and it sailed over Amelia and into the net.

Daniele Dessena vs. Catania – This is probably the most spectacular goal of the day. Cross from the right wing, and Dessena hits a perfect bicycle kick that is unstoppable for the Catania goalkeeper.

Adrian Ricchiuti vs. Cagliari – This is an awesome team goal and excellent set piece. Four touches and a goal.

Sergio Almiron vs. Chievo – Nice header from Almiron. Comes towards the ball and manages to place it into the upper corner.

Adailton vs. Napoli – Unstoppable free kick from the Brazilian midfielder with his left foot.

Jamie Valdes vs. Udinese – The Chilean scores a wonderful goal, taking the ball to about 20 yards out and unleashing a perfect strike into the upper corner.

Diego De Ascentis vs. Udinese – De Ascentis said this is the best goal he ever scored in his career and we can see why.

Alexandre Pato vs. Roma – Ronaldinho with a perfect searching pass, and Pato with the excellent control and finish.

The picture on the left is the photo sequence of Dejan Stankovic’s 54 meter long strike vs Genoa on Saturday. Marco Amelia messed up his clearance, and Stankovic coordinated a beautiful volley that sailed over Amelia and bounced into the net. Goals from midfield are always nice to look at. We’ll definitely see it in tomorrow’s Goals of the Week post. Weekend Round-up after the jump.

SERIE A RESULTS, STANDINGS AND HIGHLIGHTS

SERIE B RESULTS AND STANDINGS