Fallout From the Bianchi Deal Affects Toro, Lazio

Now that Rolando Bianchi is officially a Lazio player, the impact of the move is being felt in places other than the Lazio squad. In particular, Torino are still utterly desperate for anyone who can score a goal, while the Lazio coffers are even more echo-y than they were at the start of the week, and Claudio Lotito has immediately turned around to try to find a way to get some money back.

With regard to Torino, the Italian press this morning are reporting the chilling news that they’ve turned their attention to Andrea Caracciolo as a possible answer to their goal-scoring problems. This, ladies and gentlemen, is evidence of true, bone-deep desperation. The idea is that Toro would buy Samp’s half of Caracciolo from them (he’s still co-owned by Palermo), for a price between €3.5 and €4.5 million, depending on which source you read. Supposedly Caracciolo is eager to make a move and has already agreed to go, but nothing has been worked out between the two clubs, so any deal is a ways away.* Alternately, if Caracciolo doesn’t work out, Toro may make an offer for Reggina’s slightly more expensive but much, much less annoying Nicola Amoruso.

Lazio, for their part, are already shopping strikers, now that Bianchi is officially one of them and, always eager to help, Goran Padev has generously volunteered to go right away. Evidently forgetting his eager talk about Bayern Munich just weeks ago, he’s now gung-ho to be part of Kevin Keegan’s Newcastle revival (it’s coming, I swear it is), telling the Macedonian press that Keegan wants to bring him to England right away, and it’s just a question now of getting Lazio to relent on their desire to keep him until June. As far as I can tell, no one’s asked Keegan about the rumor, so your guess is as good as mine if there’s any truth to it.

Additionally, though I can’t find confirmation of it, one Italian source is reported that Lazio have agreed a contract extension with want-away defender Guglielmo Stendardo, but that he’ll be immediately be joining Birmingham on loan, as soon as the paperwork is made official. I have no idea if this is true or not, and it’s confusing given that Birmingham publicly gave up on Stendardo earlier this week, but he’s very loudly said he wants to leave and Birmingham need a centerback, so it certainly makes theoretical sense. Plus, obviously Birmingham would have to pay for the privilege of borrowing the player, which would make Lotito happy.

*Why is Toro the old folks’ home for people who have left Palermo? Corini, Dellafiore, Di Michele — they all were at Palermo as recently as last season, and Simone Barone made the same move in 2006. And now Caracciolo, too, maybe? What’s the deal? Is there a logical reason for this, or no?

Category: Lazio, Palermo, Reggina, Sampdoria, Torino

Tags: Bianchi, Birmingham, Caracciolo, Lazio, Palermo, Pandev, Reggina, Sampdoria, Stendardo, Torino

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