Serie A News and Notes: 7/27/2010

By: Francesco | July 27th, 2010

balotelli

Even though his agent Mino Raiola says nothing has been signed yet, Mario Balotelli will definitely be a Manchester City player by the end of the week. The soon to be 20 year old left with Inter for their USA tour (where they will play Manchester City in a friendly on Saturday) just to make it not obvious that he’s leaving. In the training sessions in the USA so far, the team has been working with the ball while Balotelli has been training alone in the gym and the pool. Balotelli will reunite with Roberto Mancini, who introduced Balotelli to Serie A two years ago. Love him or hate him, you have to acknowledge that Balotelli is a talent and personally I hope he fixes his head so he can finally realize his potential and become a star for Italy (especially at a time when Italy needs young talents). Am I hopeful? Not really. Balotelli is nuts. More news after the jump.

-Tomorrow the Serie A calendar will be unveiled. The same format will be used as last season (no seeding system) so it’s possible that the big teams could meet on the first day. Also the game times are a little different this season. Any team involved in a Champions League match during the week will play on Friday. Saturday stays the same with two games, one anticipo at 6 PM and a posticipo at 8:45. Sundays have changed. There will be a lunch time game like the EPL has at 12:30 pm (meaning earlier wake up times for US fans watching calcio, which stinks), followed by the other teams playing at the normal 3 PM and then the posticipo at 8:45 pm. The Lega will also experiment with a Monday night game like the EPL has, and the experiment will be used only 6 or 7 times this season. When a Monday night game is to be played, it will be the Saturday 6 PM anticipo which will be moved to the Monday slot. I don’t like this new schedule. Why did they have to change a good thing. They complain about Italian attendance records, yet they now expect people to forget about lunch on Sunday and go to a soccer game instead. Never get between Italians and food!

-Looks like Italy goalkeeper Federico Marchetti and Cagliari have decided to go their separate ways. While it’s always been known that Marchetti has had many clubs interested in him, it always looked like he would stay in Sardegna. However Cagliari owner Massimo Cellino didn’t like an interview Marchetti gave to Gazzetta dello Sport where he said he was open to leave. Cellino said Marchetti should have talked to him first. So, Cagliari have officially announced that Marchetti is on the market, and if he leaves, the starting goalkeeper will be Michele Agazzi and not Chievo goalkeeper Stefano Sorrentino as some media outlets reported. For Marchetti, the most viable option right now looks like a move to England, seeing as most Italian sides have already taken care of their goalkeeping situation.

-Wondering why Sampdoria’s transfer campaign has pretty much sucked so far? Well sporting director Sergio Gasparin said their mercato depends on what happens with the Champions League qualifier. Pretty stupid, because if Samp do qualify for the Champions League group stage, that will occur on August 25th, allowing Gasparin only 6 days to to find some players before the mercato closes on the 31st.

-Gianluca Zambrotta is an optimist I guess. He says that Milan even without a few other signings is competitive already. I don’t know Zambrotta, when your entire midfield is over 30 it’s pretty hard to be competitive…

-Parma sporting director Pietro Leonardi has come out and said that Parma looking for a player with fantasista qualities. He said that Sebastian Giovinco, Hatem Ben Arfa, and Alessandro Diamanti all fit the bill and Parma is looking to get one of the three.

-Speaking of Giovinco, it was reported today that Bari has surpassed Parma and is now in pole position to get Giovinco. I don’t know how true that is, especially since Bari owner Vincenzo Matarrese came out today and said they will only sing Giovinco on loan and nothing else. They don’t want to pay money for him.

-Fiorentina will apparently close the deal with Liverpool to bring fullback Emiliano Insua to Florence before the end of the day. Let’s see if that happens.

-Eder, dubbed the “Kaka of Serie B”, was Serie B’s top goalscorer last season and is looking for a move to a bigger club. According to reports Lazio and Empoli have been discussing a deal for weeks and apparently it is very close to being done. Lotito has to spend those 18 million euro he got for Kolarov on something…

-Inter are looking to use the money received from the Balotelli sale (and maybe eventually Maicon’s) to bring in two of Bentiez’s pupils: Mascherano and Kuyt. While it is almost fairly certain that Mascherano will be joining the Nerazzurri this summer, the Kuyt deal will be a little more complicated, but could be made easier if Liverpool wind up singing Royston Drenthe.

-Roma really want West Ham and Switzerland winger Valon Behrami. They apparently want him on loan with an option to buy, but West Ham isn’t interested in that type of deal. So Roma may have to give the London club some players, and they might decide to hand over Brazilian goalkeeper Doni and young Italian striker Stefano Okaka, who spent the second part of last season in London on loan with Fulham. I wonder how the Roma fans will react to an ex-Laziale playing for them.

-Luca Cigarini was once touted as the new Pirlo, but hasn’t really lived up to the billing. Napoli spent a load of money on him last summer but once Mazzarri showed up he decided there was no room for Ciga in his starting 11. So Cigarini wants to move on, and Sevilla are rumored to be interested (where he would form an all-Italian central midfield pairing with Tiberio Guarente, and the two played together at Atalanta). Sevilla have supposedly put in an offer that is deemed too low for Napoli: 300,000 euro for the loan and then the option to buy for 6 million at the end of the season.

-Newly-promoted Brescia have done next to nothing on the transfer market, only signing goalkeeper Matteo Sereni so far. Manager Beppe Iachini announced to the press today that for Brescia to achieve salvation the squad needs some reinforcements. Brescia are looking at bringing in West Ham’s Alessandro Diamanti. That would be a great move, but I don’t know if Diamanti would accept a move to relegation zone team.

-Mauro Camoranesi has been linked with a move away from Juve since May. First it was thought he would go to Olympiakos, but the Greek club couldn’t finalize the deal. Now it seems newly-promoted La Liga side Hercules CF is interested in the Italo-Argentine, and they are willing to offer him two year deal worth 1.5 million euro a season.

-And finally, Nicolas Burdisso. The Argentinian defender desperately wants a permanent move to Roma, but the Giallorossi really don’t have that much money to spend. In addition, after Totti’s words to the press about Inter, they are not going to be the easiest to negotiate with. It’s almost a month until the start of the Serie A season, and Burdisso’s future is still unclear.

Follow the Italy Offside daily:
Italy Offside Twitter
Italy Offside Facebook Page