Summer mercato 2012

[Gabriel426]

Actually, if I have to pick two teams in the Finals, I would rather have Spain and Germany. B/c I really want to see how Germany will play against Spain. But I have a feeling Portugal might surprise Spain, b/c I think Ronaldo is the the only player in Europe where Spain might just adjust their tactics.

You really can't ask for better Semis at the moment.

[GeoTav]

SO far, Italy is being Italy, they are beating teams they should. PK or not, Italy was the better team against England. TO me, England likes Italy is being England. The media hyped them so much that people forget they are just a good team with good players, there is nothing special about them. When you have guys like Milner and Parker as your starting mids, thats not a good team.

Back to Italy, I really don't know why people are surprised at Italy, beside Spain they have not faced any real opponents. I think the main concern about IT going into the Euro, has more to do with what if Spain crashes them in the first game and the whole team loses confidence....

Can't let you say that ... The history of this competition shows that all opponents can be a threat, this history shows that each team can beat any team. There are surprises almost in each Euro, this one is the exception (but a lot of medias tend to say it's the best Euro of history regarding the level of the teams).

You say Italy has not faced any real opponent, but they faced Spain and Croatia, and Croatia, with a bit more luck, could have been one of these so called surprises by sending the Italian NT or the Spanish NT at the airport for their holidays earlier than expected.

Then, despite the fact England has a kind of curse (not qualifying for any semi finals since ... 16 years ?), they keep being a tough opponent, and they showed it yesterday. Despite the fact they were totally dominated by this Italian NT, they could have scored one or two goals (4th minute, 90th minute) and win that game.

Actually, the funniest thing of this Euro would be to read the English tabloids ... What did they think about their NT ? I mean, they are the ones criticizing all the time Italy and the Italian clubs when they tend to defend, and their NT has simply done like Chelsea in CL, playing a kind of Catenaccio ...

[will4li]

Italy has always been a maestro at organizing defence,but their attack was alway broken,they usually heavily resorted to counter attacks in my memory.this italian team got the total package though,they play beautiful possession football.maybe because they do have one of world's better midfield,and prandelli is hell of a coach.

[Mathias]

Secondo il sito di As, Kakà starebbe per tornare al Milan. Addirittura gli spagnoli scrivono che Bosco Leite, padre di Kakà, sarebbe a Milano per discutere con Galliani del salario del brasiliano. Il Madrid non vuole prestarlo e questo è un primo problema. Ma per il Milan lo scoglio è semmai il salario: come aveva già ribadidto più volte l'a.d. Galliani: troppi i 9 milioni di euro netti che percepisce Kakà al quale piacerebbe tornare in rossonero. Il Milan è squadra da garantirgli il vertice internazionale necessario a sospingerlo verso la Coppa del mondo brasiliana alla quale vuole arrivare.

Well how about that... Kaka has always been pretty disciplined he can still prove to be useful. He's being kept out of the team by Özil, who is argueably a better player, but that doesn't mean Kaka is no longer world class.

[Beppe]

kaka is 30yo, we should look for younger players IMO. Jovetic! Sell Robinho, Taiwo, Mesbah (lol) + some extra funds and we've got a fantastic trequartista for many years. that is untill we offload him to real, barca or City for 50m :-)

[Gabriel426]

Come on Geo, of course there would be chances for teams to cause upset, UPSET not expected. Thus, going into the match, Italy has always been the favor beside the Spain game.

Anyhow, don't understand what some kept saying this is a better Euro...I think the one 12 yrs ago were the best one despite my team losing in the semi.

[Mathias]

kaka is 30yo, we should look for younger players IMO. Jovetic! Sell Robinho, Taiwo, Mesbah (lol) + some extra funds and we've got a fantastic trequartista for many years. that is untill we offload him to real, barca or City for 50m :-)

But we must look at it from a realistic point of view: what are the odds of Jovetic or Gotze joining us? Near nill. If we are getting Kaka or noone at all, I'd have Kaka any day, because he'd be an immediate starter. Imagine how we could play with pato again ?

[ZvonimirBoban]

Actually, if I have to pick two teams in the Finals, I would rather have Spain and Germany. B/c I really want to see how Germany will play against Spain. But I have a feeling Portugal might surprise Spain, b/c I think Ronaldo is the the only player in Europe where Spain might just adjust their tactics.

You really can't ask for better Semis at the moment.

Yeah, I didn't speak from footballing point of view then; I just hate Spain and especially FCukin Fartcelona

[Mathias]

On-topic the euro 2012 topic is --> http://milanmania.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=298 that way

[ACMILAN1983]

Secondo il sito di As, Kakà starebbe per tornare al Milan. Addirittura gli spagnoli scrivono che Bosco Leite, padre di Kakà, sarebbe a Milano per discutere con Galliani del salario del brasiliano. Il Madrid non vuole prestarlo e questo è un primo problema. Ma per il Milan lo scoglio è semmai il salario: come aveva già ribadidto più volte l'a.d. Galliani: troppi i 9 milioni di euro netti che percepisce Kakà al quale piacerebbe tornare in rossonero. Il Milan è squadra da garantirgli il vertice internazionale necessario a sospingerlo verso la Coppa del mondo brasiliana alla quale vuole arrivare.

Well how about that... Kaka has always been pretty disciplined he can still prove to be useful. He's being kept out of the team by Özil, who is argueably a better player, but that doesn't mean Kaka is no longer world class.

Umm, no thanks. I've given footballing reasons why I don't want Kaka back in the past. That salary is unreasonable and unfeasible, with the maximum we should offer being nothing more than 4m (even then I think it's too high). Also, he wants guaranteed playing time, which again is a big no. You earn your playing time like everyone else, no one is ever guaranteed a starting spot. Simply put, his father can shove his demands where the sun doesn't shine.

Come on Geo, of course there would be chances for teams to cause upset, UPSET not expected. Thus, going into the match, Italy has always been the favor beside the Spain game.

Anyhow, don't understand what some kept saying this is a better Euro...I think the one 12 yrs ago were the best one despite my team losing in the semi.

Can I just say Euro 2000 is widely remembered as one of the great international tournaments, so it's always difficult to compare any competition to that.

This competition has been pretty good so far. There's no outstanding team that looks unstoppable (Germany so far have been the best, but they have their weaknesses), so the competition looks very balanced. Also, the standard of football has been to a very good standard, with big teams all generally performing and quite a few of the unexpected teams doing really well, such as Portugal (they've done better than expected), Denmark, Ukraine and Sweden, all of who played a good brand of football that is progressive and it shows as yesterday was the first 0-0 in the tournament.

Finally, we've had a lot of top matches already and the semi-finals genuinely look like exciting clashes with good teams.

Well i was against Van Bommel, but after a good experience with him, I don't se why we couldn't have the same with De Jong

From footballing perspective, Van Bommel's far more accomplished than De Jong. He's technically and tactically better.

However, the biggest difference is that while both are dirty, Van Bommel never broke two players legs (Stuart Holden and Ben Arfa) or flying kick a player in the chest, to which might I add, Xabi Alonso was really lucky nothing serious happened as that really could have been a bad situation.

Even if he was to come and clean up his game, I refuse to ever support De Jong.

Actually, the funniest thing of this Euro would be to read the English tabloids ... What did they think about their NT ? I mean, they are the ones criticizing all the time Italy and the Italian clubs when they tend to defend, and their NT has simply done like Chelsea in CL, playing a kind of Catenaccio ...

I can't comment specifically on tabloids here as I don't read them, but to give a general comment on the press (mostly BBC and ITV who are showing the matches)...

Basically, most of the press accepted that this England side wasn't likely to get far in this tournament after the whole Capello Terry incident. When Hodgeson was brought in, they also quickly accepted that he would play defensive systems, though obviously they don't criticize the play and instead call it heroic defending, great fighting spirit and players with strong characters. That said, their whole attitude feels like a person who is talking big to cover up insecurities, rather than actually believing themselves to be great (though belief definitely grew after beating Sweden) as they couldn't hide from the fact that England were pretty dire during this competition.

In this respect, I must say I'm hugely disappointed by BBC's coverage this competition. Usually, ITV will take any possible opportunity to talk up England and put down other nations, but this year it's the BBC have taken this approach. Constantly hearing presenters saying "Come on England!" and hearing rubbish songs for the team that are actually embarassing to watch is quite tiresome.

The worst of the BBC's coverage is one particular commentator. Mark Lawrence, who has worked for them for years mostly as a pundit is co-commentating on matches. For example, when Balzaretti got his head scraped by a players studs accidentally he started to complain about Balzaretti faking injury and that the studs only raked his shoulder. Then the commentators proceeded to question whether the ref should have stopped play (head injuries mean play should stop immediately). Then there's the De Rossi incident when he conned the ref into a freekick while defending a corner, for which the reaction was the traditional "foreign cheats", knowing that had it been the other way there'd either be a comment on clever play or they would just ignore the incident. Add to this that he's simply miserable and regularly seems to mumble and laugh to himself and you can imagine how irritating it is to listen to him (I can't help but laugh at how idiotic he is).

Edit: Sorry mathiask