Odds and Ends for a Weird Champions League Matchday
By: Martha | December 4th, 2007
•Roma’s biggest Ultra groups have announced that they will not attend the team’s home match with Caglari tomorrow. They won’t come together elsewhere this time (as they did during the Udine match), but instead will just stay home.
•Antonio Cassano is jumping up and down outside Roberto Donadoni’s back window, begging to be allowed to wear the blue shirt again.
•For the first time, Luciano Spaletti’s saying things that make it sounds like Mancini might actually be leaving Roma. As RomaChris has been reporting, his agent was seen wandering around in Milan last week, which didn’t help to cool the Macini-to-Inter rumors. Hmm.
•According to his brother-agent, Ronaldinho is considering buying out his own contract with Barca, and throwing himself on the open market for Chelsea and Milan and Shakhtar to lust after. (Or he’s not — nothing like having a brother-agent who’s also schizophrenic.)
•The fact that he’s never going to play for Atalanta again has Riccardo Zampagna in high demand — so says his agent, anyway. If it’s up to him, football’s only longshoreman wants to go to Napoli, but there still haven’t been any talks with the club.
•Antonio Di Natale has, apparently, “entered the heart of Roberto Mancini.” Look out.
•More agent talk: Alberto Aquilani’s says his client wants to stay at Roma forever and ever. His current contract only runs though 2010, but he’s ready and willing to sign an extension whenever they want him to.
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Tags: AC Milan, Aquilani, Atalanta, Azzurri, Di Natale, Inter Milan, Mancini, Napoli, Ronaldinho, Rumors & News, Serie A, UdineseSubscribe
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Comments
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God, I didn’t think you were kidding about that Cesar thing. Do you see what kind of bar you’ve set for yourself?
Who let Shakhtar in on the Dinho party? How would that be remotely feasible except for the fact that they can probably afford him? (Wages, maybe not the fee.) Though I do think the UPL and (especially) RPL are fast going to become what the MLS aspires to: the next big leagues via star power. They have all that ridiculous post-commie money and are not afraid to throw it around. Even if they might be hindered by their schedule and the fact that it really limits them in the Champions League.
Posted from
United States
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(I’m starting to get an idea, yes.)
I was entirely making the Shakhtar part up. God, people actually read these posts? (Your comments do make it seem vaguely possible, though, maybe a year or two down the road.)
Posted from
United States -
Martha,
I come seeking your exceedingly vast knowlege on all things calcio. I am planning a trip in late spring to see a set of games across Italy. I am having trouble figuring out my schedule for what days matches will be played on.
Let me specify. How is it decided what matches are going to be on Saturday and which on Sunday? From all the sources ive looked at they only list matches on Sundays, but when game days approach these matches may in fact be switched to Saturday.
Are Saturday games based on overall importance, i.e. bigger status team games or is their a specific formula for decided those games? This is a problem because as you know traveling from the States to Italy is not easy and i would like to have everything planned out accordingly.
If you have any information on finding actual game days towards the later season dates, or can provide me with some general advidce, that would be very much appreciated.
Thanks,
Michael
Posted from
United States -
Don’t the teams playing Champions League on the Tuesday after the weekend games, play their league fixture on the Saturday?
I think that’s how it works.
(Sorry I’m not Martha by the way - just thought I’d throw in my two cents though).
Posted from
United States -
Michael, you’re going to be sorely disappointed if you turn to me for vast knowledge on anything, but I do appreciate the thought.
I really don’t know the answer to your question — I think Romanista’s right, to a degree, but obviously there aren’t European matches every week, so that’s not the only factor. My assumption is that the FIGC will say the Saturday matches are more or less random, but things very rarely are that way in calcio.
Oddly, a quick look through the schedules on Inter’s and Milan’s websites shows a smattering of Saturday matches in the second half, something I don’t know how they would know. Perhaps the Satruday matches are tentatively scheduled, and then finalized a few weeks before the round is actually played?
All I can tell you is NOT to assume matches are on Saturday until the confirmed schedules are issued by the FIGC; you’re going to have to play things a bit by ear, I’m afraid. (I’m planning a trip this spring myself, and am resigned to doing a lot of flying by the seat of my pants as schedules change.)
Posted from
United States -
Hey Michael, just to add to what Martha and Romanista said, I traveled last spring to Italy to see a few matches and a couple were changed. Now, this may have been because it was only about a month after Raciti was killed, but several more “dangerous” fixtures were moved to Saturday afternoon for safety issues, ie. Roma v. Milan. The official change wasn’t given until a week or two ahead of time. My solution was to just get into whatever city on Friday and plan to leave on Monday, I knew the match was going on sometime in between then.
Also, obviously, the later in the spring you go, the more chance you have of teams being knocked out of the CL and therefore more chance of the matches being played on Sunday. (So Martha - plan on Sunday games for Inter!)
Posted from
Canada -
VERY FUNNY BONNIE!
Posted from
United States -
HAHAHA, sorry Martha, I couldn’t resist
Posted from
Canada -
Bonnie is awesome
and correct
Posted from
United States
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