Whilst Italian football can no longer claim to be the supreme leader of the sporting universe, as it was in the 90s.
The cast of assembled tella-novella characters and potential James Bond villains/kittens that salt and pepper the league with constant content, talking points and general slapstick still give us our glorious and unique calcio fix.
With that in mind we have come up with a dinner party that will be a raucous affair that should, quickly snowball into a lost Vegas weekend.
So here are our perfect Calcio guests for a Christmas dinner.
Gennaro ‘Rino’ Gattuso
There’s a Youtube video (filmed during his recent coaching spell in Greece) doing the rounds that is well worth a few minutes of chortles, uncomfortable seat shuffles and sharp winces. It explains better than any prose as to why Gattuso must be sat at this table, two particular quotes from it stood out:
“Me touch my players!”
“Me gave my arse for my players…”
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7clSlIXxBZo[/youtube]
Rino’s, ahem, coaching exploits are providing us with constant micro-waved joy. Sion, Palermo and OFI Crete have all recently signed up for a Gattuso quickie and are surely the formative names in what is destined to be an Italian remake of Mike Bassett England Manager.
The recent exploits of Rino, Alberto Malesani and Claudio Ranieri has seen Italian coaches column inches in Greece sore as high as Greek interest rates whilst faith in Italian coaching methods will be about as forthcoming, robust and positive as the Greek economy in general.
Both Gattuso and Paolo Di Canio have recently been linked to managerial jobs in Glasgow, at Celtic and Rangers. Should this footballing wormhole ever actually transpire, Scottish football would most likely witness the greatest comedy show on earth (since Hale and Pace)… For a few months anyway.
Massimo Ferrero
The first of three Serie A ‘kings’ that will be in attendance, though on first glance I genuinely thought this peculiar chap was another character from a Peter Jackson Tolkien adaptation.
Ferrero is fluffy and doe-eyed, you could imagine Vincent Tan keeping him in a drawer and bringing him out to evilly stroke, from time to time. In truth though Ferrero is no side-kick, this is a fellow that turns every bumbling, uncouth and non PC moment he appears on screen into a Norman Wisdom sketch.
In many ways he has outshone Carlos Tevez and Jeremy Menez as this year’s star of Serie A, you could even say Ferrero has been the ambassador and Serie A his reception… (sorry).
Silvio Berlusconi – providing his police tag can be cut off for the weekend.
In the unlikely event that Berlusca ever dies, his ‘Supreme Leader’ status at Milan will surely be preserved by his adoring minions and glorious bloodline. Teflon head has managed to take Milan from Europe’s example of footballing majesty to a kind of stripey lumbering Groupon voucher.
The nadir was offering Queens Park Rangers €3 million (in fourteen instalments) for football’s equivalent of an unwanted chubby Seaworld dolphin that keeps turning on its trainers. If Berlusca has any functioning thoughts left, that don’t involve risqué video sharing websites, he should get his brave new young coach an actual striker to play alongside Jeremy Menez, in January.
That may just be enough for Milan to sneak the third place sweepstake and preserve the glorious eternal glory of The Supreme Leader.
Carlo Tavecchio
Naughty, naughty Carlo T is currently on penance duties, he won’t be able to doodle male genitals on post-it-pads for 6 months. He won’t be able to serenade his secretary at the photocopier for six months. He won’t be able to spend five hour expense account lunches in The Vatican City’s private dining quarters when the Nigerian FA delegates visit Rome to organise a friendly.
He won’t be in a position to receive further faxes of handwritten passports from Joseph Minala’s agent for six whole months!! Carlo will be sat next to my next guest to test his new media training and to see if the ‘Ludovico therapy’ he’s been receiving managed to work.
His penance also includes keeping the bread baskets topped up and maintaining Berlusconi’s, between sitting, oxygen chamber.
Maicon
We need a current player who could hold his own with this lot and the man who is mistaking named after Hollywood star ‘Michael Douglas’ (true story) is the very flake! Generally when I see Maicon play, it appears he just goes on a football pitch to amuse himself and not to execute any specific tactical plan and I rather love that about him.
With an ever expanding backside (it can now actually be seen on Google earth) it takes Maicon several minutes to mince back into ‘position’ after one of his, increasingly rarer, power-up surges.
If nothing else, I’d actively encourage big Maicon Douglas to do his recent ‘shower gel party party-piece’ that lead to him being thrown out of the Brazil squad (Google is your friend, reader) in Carlo Tavecchio’s brandy sauce.
Merry Christmas and what goes on in Vegas…
