The wait is over, our fix was delivered through the sweet couriers of calcio and the opening two rounds threw up some mind-altering moments; Fiorentina’s Marcos Alonso’s other worldly free-kick that channeled the spirit of Branco – one for discerning 90s Serie A soccer savants. Eder apparently morphing into prime mid-nineties Romario. Most surreal and remarkable of all though, Juventus coach Max Allegri choosing Simone Padoin to replace Andrea Pirlo.
The mercato dealings were punctuated with one more such trip as Juventus finally managed to find a ‘buyer’ who would take the world’s tallest, inanimate barnacle, Fernando Llorente. With three years left on his deal, you’d think he may at least have gone for more than Amauri or Federico Peluso?! Nope, his contract was terminated as the club worked out a driver, full-time Instagram uploader and mascot can all be hired for 1% of his wages.
Juventus escaped lightly with the ‘The Tree’, he could’ve run down his contract, Winston Bogarde style, and produced three more years of looking like Sam Beckett from Quantum Leap just jumped into his stiff body whenever he got on the pitch. Mainly though it would just have been lots more pictures of his club suitcase and aeroplane food with a ‘thumbs up’ for his legion of Twitter followers in Southeast Asia that dream about sleeping with an actual female, or Fernando himself. #vamos
AC Milan attempted to pull off the kind of sleight of hand transfer trick that made any avid calcio observer question the validity of the perceived universe. When the plodding, waif like midfield ‘pivot’ of the weakest, most anodyne Milan team since the 80s, Riccardo ‘Olivia’ Montolivo was mooted to have been ready to make the short drive to Turin to play for the recent Champions League finalists and four times consecutive champions. That would be like a millionaire going into a lap-dancing club and choosing the toothless elderly morning cleaner to take to the champagne room.
Mario Balotelli is another quandary, certain sources would have you believe that Milan have somehow came out on top of financial dealings with Liverpool over the nomadic and perennially troubled striker. Spin works both ways though, taking a player they were desperate to get rid of, who will look to play in front of their new €30 million star striker, Carlos Bacca. Whom is viewed within most circles as a kind of unsolvable case, well, that seems like an ad-hoc step in the wrong direction.
Whilst the sales of Valter Birsa, Daniele Bonera, Giampaolo Pazzini, Cristian Zaccardo, Sulley Muntari, Michael Essien and candy-floss legs Stephan El Shaarawy had cleared the decks. In terms of recruitment Adriano Galliani still resembles the conductor instructing the violinists to keep playing on the sinking Titanic. Loaded up to the full metal maximum in the attacking third but leaving the defensive and midfield thirds on skeleton staff. €86 million spent (though nobody can quite work out how the players cost that much) and sections of the Italian media (including the Berlusconi owned parts) were tipping Milan to come third, that would appear to be highly unlikely.
Alessandro Matri joined Lazio, before that though he nearly joined West Ham on loan. I wish he would have done as it would have perfectly continued the weird delayed career trajectory going on with Marco Borriello, like watching Ancient Aliens on History Channel then again on History Channel +1.
Of course none of these deals come close to being as preposterous as Sampdoria’s near miss with Conchita Wurst, sorry, Georgios Samaras. A ‘failed medical’ scuppered that one but you have to wonder if someone at the club worked out that transfers like this and the embarrassing Adel Taarabt actually playing for AC Milan ignominy could see our beloved league cannibalise itself as a credible foreign export.
Below I have listed the Roma line up from their instantly famous and richly deserved second round win over Juventus.
Szczesny; Florenzi, Manolas, De Rossi, Digne; Pjanic, Keita, Nainggolan; Falque, Dzeko, Salah.
The midfield to attack looks amazing, the back four, erm, amazed? Various circumstances seem to have bridged the gap between Roma and Juventus and one gets the real impression there will be nothing like a double digit gap at the end of this season. Over the course of the season playing Alessandro Florenzi and Daniele De Rossi in any back four who seem to be very high risk, though. Daniele De Rossi seems to have lost most of his lateral movement and could have easily been sent off more than once versus a Juventus team that barely pressured Roma. Roma are in danger of sabotaging their stellar midfield and attacking roster – Napoli of last season are the perfect example for Roma not to follow.
Lazio’s time wasting at corners after just 25 mins (I love this throwback Stefano Pioli guy) against Bayer Leverkusen, in their Champions League play-off was going well until they conceded late in the first half and seemed to capitulate. This, in turn, handed Bayer a passage to The Champions League proper to be matched with the aforementioned Roma. In Hakan Calhanoglu the German side have a player who interprets his role on the field, more than a little bit, like a 1999 to 2004 era Francesco Totti (before he became a parody). The young Turk is a quickly blossoming playmaker and is already the definition of a match winner.
UK Champions League viewers were treated to their latest punditry team with the competition’s newest broadcaster, BT Sport. Ex Manchester United ginger genius Paul Scholes has recently broken out of his anti-media cocoon and probably needs to be locked back in it as he is clearly not used to human interaction. An awesome footballing mind on the pitch, err, not so much off it. Scholes generally reacted to host Gary Lineker’s routine line of match related questions as if he was been thrown multiple curve balls in a high pressure job interview. That being said, he’s still markedly more believable than Michael ‘white socks with jeans’ Owen.
The Italian game is often at it’s best when it shuns the corporate veneer that The Champions League constantly aspires to project. I see this homogenisation as double-edged and even harmful to the tribal sport of football. Football should not be reduced to just shiny entertainment. Men like ‘The Divine Leader’ Silvio Berlusconi, the perennially politically incorrect Claudio Lotito, and the certifiable Maurizio Zamparini infuriate their club fan-bases at times but they carry with them many of the magic calcio intangibles that keep us hooked.
The international break is underway now and whilst it is something of a comedown it will provide ample time for the non-Juventus fans of calcio to perfect their ‘what’s the difference between a ____ (insert an object or shape that has a single point or more) and Juventus’ jokes.
Thanks for reading, hope you were whelmed, remember all generalisations are false, including this one.
*Just as this article was being written the late news that Manchester United will have spent €80 million (when bonuses are added) on a (granted promising and speedy) young forward from Monaco that has scored eleven career goals fitted through. The only logical deduction is very powerful football agent must have a collection of compromising photos of one of the Manchester United’s owners locked in a safe. The last blog praising them for the change in recruitment in purchasing Matteo Darmian can now be retracted.
