Friday News Roundup As We Try to Stay Warm (When Did Winter Show Up?)
By: Martha | November 9th, 2007
•The Azzurrini side for the upcoming matches against Azerbaijan and the Faroe Islands was just announced, and both Roma-owned Alessio Cerci and Fiorentina’s baby Argie (with Italian heritage) Pablo Daniel Osvaldo have received their first call-ups. Osvaldo was expected to be in the team for the last round of U-21 matches but was injured, so an appearance in either match will mark his first Italy cap at every level (Cerci has U-19 and U-20 caps).
•Though yesterday Massimo Moratti insisted he was staying, it’s being reported that Adriano’s agent and Inter management met today and decided the striker will go out on loan in January. Thank Christ.
•Marco Materazzi played 70 minutes yesterday with the Inter primavera squad in Sheffield FC’s 150th anniversary match. From what Google translate tells me, he’s aiming to return to first team action after the international break.
•I’m painfully short on details, but Torino keeper Matteo Sereni (the guy who was so magnificent again Milan last weekend) has aggravated an old leg injury, and will probably miss at least one match. It sounds like backup Alberto Fontana — who has made seven appearances in five years with Torino — will start this weekend, but there’s also talk of the legendary/old/retired Gianluca Pagliuca making a dramatic return as his backup, since the third-choice keeper is hurt. Gotta love how keepers just go on and on and on, even after retirement.
•In case you’ve not seen it, RomaChris wrote a really thoughtful post yesterday about Richarlyson, and the presence (or not) and role (or not) of homosexuality in football. Definitely worth a read.
•Just days after marking his return to health in spectacular fashion with a late goal against Inter, Mauro Camoranesi picked up an ankle injury that has not only ruled him out of Juve’s match in Parma this weekend, but may also cause him to miss the Azzurri meeting with Scotland on the 17th. In good news for the Azzurri, though, Gianluca Zambrotta is officially all kinds of healthy, and is back in the Barcelona team for their upcoming clash with Getafe.
•And, finally, in transfer fantasy news, Inter want Samir Nasri (And hey, he likes Italian football! It’s TOTALLY in the bag.) and all the Brazilian CSKA Moscow players they couldn’t stop in the last two Champions League matches. Mmm … Monopoly money.
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Tags: Adriano, Azzurri, Camoranesi, Cerci, CSKA Moscow, Fiorentina, Inter Milan, Materazzi, Matteo Sereni, Nasri, Osvaldo, Pagliuca, Roma, Serie A, Torino, Vagner Love, ZambrottaSubscribe
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Comments
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Its great for Osvaldo to get the chance to play for the Azzurrini. Hopefully people aren’t too upset at him for his decision, considering his Argentinian birth/upbringing.
I’m curious to see exactly how he is used if he ends up playing for the Azzurrini. I haven’t seen quite enough of him to know what his best position is. He scored 2 goals against Livorno in the “Mutu” role of the second striker more to the outside. But from the highlights of yesterday’s game, it seemed like he was playing in the middle at times as well (he floated that gorgeous pass onto Bobo’s lethal left foot for the 2nd goal).
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Much thanks for the link love, now kindly back away from Samir Nasri and I won’t have to do anything I’ll regret.
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No worries. I’ll distract Moratti with something shiny so Nasri can sneak away.
And tmc, I love Osvaldo in the Mutu role, but often see him described as a “main” or central striker; I didn’t see the game last night, so I can’t say how he looked further forward/more central.
And how about Bobo’s lethal left foot, huh? Out of the air AND from a bad angle this time! (I can only find videos of each goal, did you find full highlights somewhere?)
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I have to say, I really like what I saw of Daniel Carvalho.
And fingers crossed Zambro doesn’t break down again - people seem to go for his ankle all the time now.
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No - I just saw the highlights on 101greatgoals.com.
And with Daniele Cacia coming in January from Piacenza, Fiorentina are really going to have quite a bit of depth in young Italian strikers corps. Pazzini (23) and Osvaldo (21) we have seen. Cacia (24) is a top prospect getting back to fitness after an injury. Plus Samuel Di Carmine (19) showed well and continues to bag goals in the primavera team. And then there is Arturo Lupoli (20).
It will be interesting to see how all of these players develop. I guess selling Reginaldo makes a little bit more sense now (though I wasn’t in favor of it at the time).
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There’s been a lot of talk on the fan sites lately about Lupoli feeling like he’s getting the short end of the stick, and trying to get out on loan in January. Is there any reason the club wouldn’t do that, if it’ll get him first-team experience?
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Linda, Jo is the one who’s impressed me (though I guess with two goals in two games against Inter he can’t help but do that) — he’s much stronger than he looks and quite technical. Plus, only 20! He’s bound to be heading to one of the big European leagues very soon.
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Martha - I think Fiorentina should probably loan out Lupoli. I can see where he’d be salty about it though, because he was in a similar situation at Arsenal where there was a log jam of players in front of him (he spent last year at Derby County).
He did sign a 5 year contract I think, so Fiorentina are committed to him in that sense. The knock on Lupoli is that he’s not particularly physically imposing. He’s only 5′8” and he’s still pretty scrawny. I think some continued training and some game minutes would probably be best for him. And it doesn’t look like he’s going to get them in the first team at Fiorentina this season.
Overall he has a record of being an effective scorer pretty much everywhere he’s been, so I’d think that it is a matter of time and experience before he can produce in Serie A.
And Jo is legit. He was incredible in the U-20 WC for Brazil this summer and he’d be near the top of my list if I needed a striker. He’s probably not outrageously expensive at this point and he can produce.
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Make sure you check the cover of tomorrow’s il romanista before you post anything.
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Chris, I laughed out loud. Is that some sort of joke that Google translate isn’t detecting, or something? He seems pretty much the opposite of Roma’s style, not to mention that he’d never play. I suppose if he’d rather live in Rome …
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It’s never going to happen. He’d never play and that’s like injecting one’s self with the team chemistry version of AIDS. I’m sure the person who found that the funniest was Spalletti.
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Is November 10 some sort of April Fools’-type day in Italy, or something? I mean, why bother even writing it if even I know it’s absurd?
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