Juventus Is Sucking The Fun Out Of The Silly Season

By: chris | April 15th, 2008

Come on. Who likes a big transfer during the month of April? Nobody, that’s who. It’s no fun for the fans, who get to spend countless hours cycling through sketchy web sites with questionable sources (I’m looking at you goal, tribal and c4) while going completely bananas over the latest message board rumor from a guy whose cousin through marriage had a waiter whose mailman delivers to [Insert big name Serie A player here] and he was wearing a rival team’s bathroom while picking up his mail and flashing the neighborhood one morning. In 2002. Good times to be had for all. (Unless you’re a fan of Torino, at which point you can pray for Rosinaldo not to be sold and wait for Urbano to cherry pick whatever players Palermo has deemed to be “surplus to requirements” and/or thisclose to death.)

There’s a very, very good chance the biggest name to go from one Serie A club to another this summer will be none other than Amauri Carvalho de Oliveira of the pink peoples in Sicily. Well now he’s pretty much off the list, and our summer of speculating just dimmed a bit. Zampa, crazy as he is, usually doesn’t make stuff up about selling players and has given a pretty crystal clear indication of what’s going to happen next summer:

“Their interest for Amauri is confirmed. We saw what players they have at their disposal and we’ll see what happens.

“There will be another appointment in about 30 days and from now until then our director of sport Rino Foschi and Juve’s staff will work to reach an agreement and I think it will happen.”

Amauri, who for all his injuries, was the very definition of a bargain at even 6m, will surely net Zampa a tidy profit along with a nice young gun or two from the Bianconeri stable (reports a few weeks ago were at 14m, hard to figure out where that stands). And this is the part where we say the Rosanero in the crowd can stop with the wetdreams of all things Sebastian Giovinco, because it ain’t happenin’. Other names being bantered about are Antonio Nocerino, Marco Marchionni, Domenico Cricito and a couple of other less likely options (such as Paolo De Ceglie and Raffaele Palladino).

But regardless, unless a certain duo in a certain neck of Lombardia want to get involved, it really looks like one of the biggest names of the summer is a bachelor no longer. The winners here are Juventus and most likely Palermo (depending on their package), but the real losers are the people, particularly the journos. What the hell are the sensational media outlets of the world going to do this summer?

Ah, that’s better.