Birra Moretti Trophy: Almost Like Real Football
By: Martha | August 8th, 2007
Despite the fact that it consists of three 45-minute matches with unlimited substitutions, it’s almost impossible not to get excited about today’s Birra Moretti Trophy, if only because it marks the first time Serie A clubs will kick a ball in anger against one another this summer. Which, in turn, means that the season really is about to start. And, seeing as how over 40,000 tickets have been sold for the event, we’re probably not the only ones who are excited.
This season’s mini-tournament will be played in Naples, and will feature newly promoted Napoli and Juve, as well as Big Evil Inter, who have appeared in every installment of the event since its inception a decade ago. Though the games — all together now — don’t really matter, Juve have a trophy to defend (they’ve dominated the event, winning five titles so far) and have a lot of pent-up anger again Inter that needs to be expressed; at the very least that match is likely to be more intense that your usual friendly kickabout. Additionally, given that all three teams will have many of their regulars on their teamsheets, it will be hard not to see these short matches as early tests against teams at similar fitness levels, who they will just happen to be facing in the next few months.
The first match — Juve v Napoli — kicks off at 8:30pm local time, and will be followed by Inter v the loser of the first match, after which the winner will play Inter. Games that end in draws will go immediately to PKs, which is pretty awesome, and the team with the most points (a win in PKs is worth two to the winner and one to the loser) will lift the trophy. (For those of you who care about such things, Inter’s squad for the night is here, but no one else seems to have bothered to post theirs.)
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Comments
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napoli’s web strategy is just appalling. they just got their official web site back online about 4 months ago and there was all this pomp and circumstance about its unveiling. promises of web stores and vids of training sessions, streaming live matches and we got…. a forum and some nice pictures. guh.
Posted from
United States
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These mickey mouse tournaments are getting on my nerves. I saw pictures from Arsenal winning the similar “Emirates cup” and they were hoisting the cup and celebrating it like it was a real cup competition.
On a similar level of suckage is the renaming of the English 1.div to “the Coca Cola Championship” (someone should have told Coca Cola that the “first division” actually wasn’t the top league), as well as renaming the Metrostars and Salzburg to “New York Red Bulls” and “Salzburg Red Bulls.”
Posted from
Netherlands -
Rickard, the tournaments are only Mickey Mouse when Inter doesn’t win them. Thus the Emirates Cup is totally Mickey Mouse, while the Birra Moretti Trophy is an enormously important, very significant event. (:
Posted from
United States
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