Giant News Roundup As Global Warming Really Kicks In

By: Martha | January 8th, 2008

Hello, ladies. •Holy crap, Alberto Aquilani made it through a match! Quick, wrap him and cotton wool and put him away until the weekend.

•As Jeremy reported this morning, Cagliari are doing their level best to convince themselves (and anyone else who cares) that Pasquale Foggia isn’t leaving the club. As long as his thugs keep their hands to itself, anything’s possible.

•Pierluigi Casiraghi has got big dreams for his three over-age Olympians: He wants “heroes like Pippo Inzaghi and Alessandro Del Piero, [and would] also like Gigi Buffon and Luca Toni.” Wow. (The 2004 old men, apart from Andrea Pirlo, were Matteo Ferrari and Ivan Pelizzoli — Casiraghi’s a little more ambitious than Claudio Gentile was.)

•Flamengo VP Kleber Leite insists Ronaldo is still a going concern for the club, and that he’s meeting with the striker’s representatives on this very day for more talks. Can you stand the excitement? For his part, Ronaldo made it through 45 minutes of Milan’s fiendly with UAE without getting hurt or having a limb fall off, both of which are progress.

•In other Milan news, Kaka ran into Yoann Gourcuff in training and hurt himself, and everyone has lost their minds over Pato: The official website is reporting on the kid’s every move, and Pato himself has announced he’s going to scored twice against Napoli this weekend. Fantastic — forget everything I’ve said about him having a remarkably good head on his shoulders, please.

•LivornoMarco’s got the lowdown on Marco Amelia’s latest rumored destination: None other than a little club called Barcelona, where he’d be their favorite second-choice keeper.

•In a radio interview today, Liverpool’s Momo Sissoko described the deal to bring him to Juve as “close to conclusion.” Nothing, he said, has been signed yet, but things are well underway, and he’s basically sitting by the phone, waiting to hear from his agent. If the deal goes through, the midfielder is expected to cost Juve about €15 million.

•Antonio Cassano is not crying today. Instead, he’s declaring his heartfelt love for Sampdoria, revealing his ambition, and practically begging the club to make his transfer from Real Madrid permanent. Of course, if that does happen Real will stop paying the great bulk of his salary, and since Samp would never pay him what Real were, it’s going to mean a serious cut in pay. See? Such are the sacrifices he’s willing to make for the club he (now) loves.

•The same day he scored a brace against Betis Sevilla’s B team, Palermo’s Franco Brienza is being associated with a possible loan move to Parma.

•According to Brazil coach Dunga, “Florence is the ideal place for all players, but for a Brazilian player it’s the best possible place.” Wow. Really? Sweet! Based on the available evidence — namely the fact that there’s not a single Brazilian in the senior team right now — this truth is not well-known, but since Dunga is using it to urge Diego to move there, I’m not going to argue with him.

•Speaking of the Viola, word on the street is that they’re about to do what they do and beat Inter, Milan and Juve to half-ownership of 19-year-old Arezzo defender Andrea Ranocchia; the pricetag is said to be about €2.5 million.