The first part of this ‘European report card’ piece ended with a lament of Napoli’s defensive capabilities. A closer look at Napoli (and most of our other European representatives) reveals certain alarming trends that you don’t have to be a quantum physicist to recognise as damaging and unsustainable for their coach.
A whopping 58 percent of Napoli’s matches have had over three goals scored in them! Napoli’s average goals scored and conceded is 3.17 per game that is above this year’s inflated average and significantly above recent year’s league averages. I have, below, listed the average of the same goals statistic from the other European competing sides – leaving out Juventus as they have spent most of the season clearly defeating teams whilst conceding few goals
Milan 3.00, Fiorentina 2.88, Udinese 2.63, Lazio 2.58, Inter 2.92.
Calcio, in general, appears to be adopting an approach that bares some comparison to the much maligned, chain-smoking hipster and potential Bond villain Zdenek Zeman. At the end of 2012/13 the percentage of Roma games with over three goals scored was a tipsy 57.9 (actually lower than Napoli just now) and the averages goals scored and conceded in matches was 3.34.
It would not be that inaccurate to describe Calcio’s 2013 Euro adventures as having stalled somewhere near Zemanlandia.
Benitez (and some of his counterparts) must secretly acknowledge that his current set-up will not challenge in Europe and continue to lose more matches until they stop leaking cheap goals. If he does not want to emulate ‘attacking visionary’ Zeman (who probably now spends his days working through whole cigarette lighters) he too will need to dig out the dust-covered calcio phrasebook to find some added security for the back door. Rafa will get time, though, and The Vesuvaiani can and will be back stronger – after he remembers he’s boring.
It’s surely no coincidence that Juventus and Roma occupy the top two places at the summit of Serie A, in a season in which both Morgan De Sanctis and Gianluigi Buffon have set new club records for numbers of minutes without conceding a goal. They have done this behind a group of defenders that also bare no legitimate comparison to the greats of yesteryear. Conte and Garcia clearly disprove the theory that it’s all down to a lack of money leading to a lack of ‘world class’ defenders that is making the art of defending a forgotten one.
Inter’s exit from the Europa League last season to an aggregate 5-4 score line to Tottenham Hotspur is yet another striking example. A tie that was, at times embarrassing, enthralling and uncertain was to ultimately prove wholly unfulfilling for Interesti.
Former coach, Andrea Stramaccioni’s seventh place league finish probably spared Walter Mazzarri’s, squad further European ignominy. New owner Erik Thohir must start listening to the industrious sign makers of the Inter Curva Nord offered. Particular attention should be paid to the stuff about strengthening their rivals with ill-fated swap-deals. I’ve made my own three-pronged, historical, power-point presentation to illustrate this below.
– Seedorf swapped for Coco
– Pirlo swapped for Guilglieminpietro and €2.8m
– Cannavaro swapped for Carini
Mr Thohir has now broken out some Indonesian Rupiah with the acquisitions of Hernanes and Danilo D’Ambrosio. His next move should be to remind Walter Mazzarri that a team usually needs to shoot at goal to win football matches. Mazzarri’s approach this season has actually evolved into something of an anti-dote to the suicidal attacking and defending lamented in this article.
Rodrigo Palacio has spent the last couple of months, since the deranged 4-2 defeat by Napoli, with mainly that weird little strand of hair he has flailing from the back of his head for support. It all seems like a bit of an over-reaction and has led to some feckless home showings against Catania and Chievo, teams that, even this Inter, should be beating at home – Mazzarri has made Sam Allardyce look like Marcelo Bielsa.
Lazio’s convincing 5-1 aggregate defeat of Stuttgart in last year’s Europa League round of sixteen promised much but their unheralded quarter-final exit to Fenerbahce (soullessly played out in an empty stadium) was, unfortunately, in keeping with the general apathy of most Italian teams towards the competition.
Their emergence from their 2013/14 season Europa League group has, insipidly featured, drawn games (home and away) to Trabzonspor and Apollon Limasol. The recent sale of gifted playmaker Hernanes has put to rest any realistic European glory ambitions – assuming any truly existed?
Edy Reja’s sensible and cautious tactics make it hard to get excited and pontificate about Lazio, so I won’t. Helder Postiga could possibly get things going If it were 1998, coincidentally that may have been the same year Joseph Minala passed his driving test?
Fiorentina recently had a league match in which Alberto Aquilani scored four goals (one was wrongly chopped off), a better example of infectious brilliance of their coach Vincenzo Montella there will surely never be? A straight-forward progression into the Europa League knock-out phase peaked with victories against Dniprio (home and away) and Pacos di Ferriera.
We don’t have great deal to judge them on but only injuries to key players threaten to derail their European journey and undermine Montella’s exciting and progressive work.
Udinese managed to maintain their stellar European standards by tamely losing their Europa League qualifier to Slovan Liberic. The Pozzo family should look to come to an arrangement with Lega Calcio that prohibits their participation in European competition. It is actually unfair on their fans and Francesco Guidolin.
Guidolin is a coach that, every year, ingeniously constructs players into formations and schemes that almost always find a formula to over-achieve. Pre-season arrives and the Pozzo’s commence a new cycle in which they either sell or relocate their best performers to the myriad of satellite clubs that form the Pozzo footballing universe.
The tactician is then left to spend the first few months of the new season inventing a brand new team that, invariably, starts to hit form at the end of that respective season – then the self-perpetuating vicious circle starts all over again.
Perhaps the Pozzos could just buy some more clubs and have a round-robin European competition called the InterPozzo Cup?
Let’s end this piece as it began, with some tenuous positives. This May could well mark the return of an Italian team to a major European competition final. The final itself will be hosted in the shiny and atmospheric Juventus stadium. Fiorentina, Napoli, and Juventus have all openly voiced their desire to be at that show.
Finally Italian teams seem to have belatedly grasped that this competition offers the same value of co-efficient points as the Champions League. Failure to achieve in the Europa League is the main reason Italy lost its fourth Champions League spot. Providing Juventus and Fiorentina defeat Trabzonspor and Esbjerg fB, respectively, they are due to play each other in the last 16. That should ensure at least one Italian team in the latter stages of the tournament.
At home, Juventus, Roma, Napoli and Fiorentina are well positioned to carve up the first three places. That means calcio fans will finally have three teams with progressive projects, investment strategies and actual momentum representing their fandom in the Champions League.
Nice article. The Minala joke was unnecessary though. The guy has obviously had a tough life, whatever age he may be.
Thanks for the compliment and taking the time to read it. I felt it pertinent to include the Minala joke, otherwise I’d not be able to get a laugh out of this public figure. Do you have pictures of this ‘Obvious tough life’ or any first hand anecdotal evidence of him having dodged some flying machetes?
Nice article , I enjoyed your jokes more than your technical Analysis
I suggest you do your research on Minala and his life since he arrived in Italy. I trust you will find the evidence you are looking for.
Is that you Joseph, or are you one of his children?
Yawn. A hack’s reply. You have gone down in my estimation since I first read your piece.
Why do you feel it necessary to “get a laugh out of this public figure” anyway? Are all public figures to be laughed at in your view?
It’s splendid you are consummating such time to introspectively re-evaluate your, ever tweaking, opinion of me over these past couple of weeks and get to type out such zingy semantic sledgehammers, yay! I have another article going up in a couple of days with two Minala jokes in it, do look out for it and stay in touch, lovely.
I repeat:
Why do you feel it necessary to “get a laugh out of this public figure” anyway? Are all public figures to be laughed at in your view?