Daily Calcio News and Notes: 7/31/08

By: Francesco | July 31st, 2008

Here’s what I scrounged around for today:

-Milan striker Marco Borriello has been operated on and will now start his recovery. Reports are he will be out for around 2 months. (could be less if he puts a lot of hard work into the recovery process.)

-Pierluigi Casiraghi is predicting a big Olympic performance from Lazio striker Tommaso Rocchi. Casiraghi says that Rocchi has the experience and skill to score many goals in Beijing. The Azzurri debut on August 7th vs. Honduras.

-According to Tuttosport, Lippi is ready to call Amauri up to the national team. The problem is that Amauri doesn’t have an Italian passport yet, so he can’t be called up. The FIGC is reportedly pushing Juventus to get the paperwork done quickly.

-Corriere dello Sport is reporting that Lazio may sign a well known player in the coming days. Who is it? Swedish midfielder Freddie Ljungberg, who would arrive on a free transfer and is willing to cut his salary to join the Biancocelesti. He is seen as Behrami’s replacement, and Behrami was transferred to West Ham, Ljungberg’s last club.

-For weeks we have been reading that Roma are close to signing Real Madrid and Brazil midfielder/striker Julio Baptista. Reportedly the deal is now as close as ever, since Real Madrid are close to completing the deal for Rafael Van der Vaart, which would allow Baptista to leave. After the whole Mutu debacle, I think we should wait until Baptista is actually at the Trigoria training ground holding up a Roma kit before we think the deal is done.

-The 2008/2009 Coppa Italia starts on August 9th and the bracket is out. Everyone praise the good Lord because Roma and Inter are on the same side of the bracket, meaning finally no Roma-Inter final this season!

-Newly promoted Lecce have signed Palermo midfielder Fabio Caserta. The 30 year old arrives on a 3 year deal. Caserta impressed many in Catania’s first season in Serie A and was signed by Palermo, where he did a discrete job in midfield.

-Nicola Legrottaglie, Giorgio Chiellini, and Christian Molinaro would all welcome Dejan Stankovic at Juventus. The Serbian midfielder was close to signing for Juve but the fans are the against the move since Stankovic is an Inter player. However the three Juventus defenders all said that they would welcome Stankovic, and Legrottaglie used the example that a few years ago Fabio Cannavaro was bought from Inter and turned out to be an excellent signing.

-Goalkeeper Massimo De Sanctis, who was Italy’s third keeper at Euro 2008, is close to moving to Turkish giants Galatasaray. De Sanctis spent last season at Sevilla but wasn’t a regular starter and wants to move somewhere where he will play all the time. It seems as the deal is done, since Sevilla have not even decided to bring De Sanctis to the preseason Moscow tournament (which Milan are also participating in). EDIT- This has since become official.

-And to conclude, yesterday was “Cassano-day” in the small northern town of Moena, where Sampdoria is doing their pre-season training. Antonio Cassano arrived for his first day of training and was all smiles. The fans cheered for El Pibe di Bari and he signed autographs for 17 minutes. He also sat down and had a long chat in Spanish with Samp’s new Uruguayan striker Bruno Fornaroli, who in his presentation interview called Cassano “one of the best 5 players in the world”. Marcello Lippi is also visiting Samp’s training next week to look at certain players, and Fantantonio will most certainly be one of them. It finally appears that Cassano will finally start a season in shape and in form, and if things go well this could shape up to be his best season as a player yet.