Whoa — Zampagna to the Viola?
By: Martha | May 29th, 2007
I freaking love Riccardo Zampagna — he’s one of those old school, bull-like strikers (albeit one capable of a bit of flair now and again) who would just as soon run through as around any defender you put in front of him; there’s something really endearing about footballers who produce with such a total lack of subtlety. He’s also very much the kind of player Fiorentina, despite their impressive goal production and many eager replacements for Toni, are missing, so it’s awesome to read this morning that a transfer could be in the works.
According to Channel 4, discussions have been underway for a while and, despite the fact that he’d be moving from a starting spot at Atalanta to a supporting position with the Viola, Zampagna’s agent claims his client is all fired up about a possible switch. In fact, said agent believes such a situation might be a good thing: “Riccardo has no problem in starting from the bench … It would be quite useful for him as it may increase his sense of competition which is always important for a striker.” (Wow, a guy actually wanting competition? Speaking of old school.) The suggested price right now is about £1 million, though a lot depends on what Christian Vieri decides to do — it’s unlikely Atalanta would let both Vieri and Zampagna go over the summer.
Interestingly, Zampagna would apparently be Adrian Mutu’s backup if he went to Fiorentina, an idea which takes some getting used to. I mean, is there anyone less a tradition #9 than little Mutu? The idea of them playing together makes sense to me (I can see Zampagna working well with Pazzini, too.), but I’m having a hard time getting my head around the two being interchangeable in the Viola lineup.
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This seems like a very sensible move, especially if it only costs 1 million pounds. And you are right to express concerns about Mutu and Zampagna playing together, I’m not so sure how that would shake out. But, remember this, Fiorentina are looking at a substantial increase in the number of competitive matches played next year.
This year, they bowed out of the Copa Italia very early, so they only played 1 or 2 competitive games beyond the 38 league matches. They certainly haven’t stated the team objectives for next season, but let’s say they want to qualify for the champions league in ‘08-’09 (top 4 Serie A finish), and make a run at winning the UEFA Cup (which they have the squad to do). I have no idea how they would treat the Copa Italia (many teams unfortunately could care less about this tournament), but just the first two goals would mean that it is likely they could go from playing about 40 competitive games this year to 59 or more (by my math, which may be slightly off, the winner of the UEFA Cup will play 19 games if they do not have to go through preliminary qualifying) or more next year. This clearly necessitates reinforcing the squad, because this year the lineup was very similar on a week to week basis (obviously besides the injuries and yellow/red card suspensions).
I’m not saying that Prandelli needs to pull a Rafa Benitez and start a different team for every match, but those Thursday-Sunday turnarounds could mean playing Zampagna in the UEFA Cup match and then Mutu in the Serie A match or vice versa.
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Great points as usual, TMC — I’d not thought about it in those terms. While it’s hard for me to imagine the Viola with a big enough squad to pull a Benitez, it does make sense to do a bit of intelligent stockpiling. Hopefully this Zampagna thing will happen, and the Toni cash will be well-spent, bringing in solid supporting players rather than on the panicked signing of rangy strikers. (I’ve got confidence the latter won’t happen — there’s a lot of intelligence in the front office right now. *knocking on wood*)
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