Summer mercato 2015

[Stitch]

He knew where he had to be and when he had to be there and yes that's what made him a great goalscorer and legend, but that is only a limited part of football intelligence. He was far from a complete player.

he was far from a complete player, but football inteligence is only a limited part of being a good player. he's had it, but he lacked natural talent. on the other hand you have players like balo, adriano or quaresma, with all the talent in the world but 0 intelligence.

[xudong]

I agree. I don't think Inzaghi lacks intelligence, in fact, I would say that intelligence is his forte. He just does not seem to be perfect at the "typical" skills, such as dribbling.

When a player can't have everything, I would take intelligence over anything else. Good examples when you mentioned Quaresma, Balotelli and co, although in my opinion, what Balotelli lacks is not only football-related intelligence but emotional intelligence too. He is just not mature enough to be an adult, let alone a football player that faces big pressure on daily basis.

[ACMILAN1983]

I think it comes down to what you're referring to when it comes to football intelligence. I think Pippo was a very intelligent footballer, but with a limited focus on the pitch. What I mean is that he would study opposing defenders and teams to understand how and where to exploit spaces, but that was his only focus for games as a player.

That's different to others who are known for their football intelligence, like Baresi, Maldini, Pirlo, Seedorf and Ancelotti. Their reading of the game was at a much wider scale than Pippo's because their roles required them to understand many more aspects of the game.

I recently read a journalist refer to Inzaghi as a selfish player during his playing days, which makes sense when looking at the context of what I'm saying, that he was a player focused on his duties as a goalscorer and little else. This is useful, even good, for a striker who has to have a certain attitude, because those expected to score need to have that focus. For example, Balotelli lacks this quality and it shows in how he plays and how infrequently he's found in good scoring positions.

As for how this might translate to coaching, I think it's interesting that there aren't often many examples of former strikers turned into successful coaches, whereas midfielders seem to make the transition better.

[Jay Crisp]

Milan linked to Sarri as coach.
There has been contact say GDS.Players Milan are linked to are Valdifiori ,Bertolacci ,Verdi , Baselli , Marco Rui ,Soriano.All pretty average , solid but wont up the quality level at all.Maybe a 7th or 8th placing instead of 11th.Nothing to get excited about.Mid-table seems here to stay.

[reza]

As long as Berlu is majority owner expect this to continue, there might be an up tick if stadium is opened sometime between 2018 and 2020 and another uptick (one or two decent signing) when someone buys 25%. To me it is given Berlu as majority owner is never going to be a return to good days.

[ACMILAN1983]

Milan linked to Sarri as coach.
There has been contact say GDS.Players Milan are linked to are Valdifiori ,Bertolacci ,Verdi , Baselli , Marco Rui ,Soriano.All pretty average , solid but wont up the quality level at all.Maybe a 7th or 8th placing instead of 11th.Nothing to get excited about.Mid-table seems here to stay.

Add Okaka to that list...

http://www.milannews.it/calciomercato-mi...rri-170923

I'm not too impressed by the list of names. I know for the most part they're young and the club are trying to focus on Italians, but really as you say they are either pretty average or frankly have a long way to go to prove they are of the quality they were thought to be when younger.

On Sarri, I think that debate is more appropriate here

http://www.milanmania.com/forum/showthre...56&page=56

Just a little off topic and honestly probably the most nerdy thing I've ever asked regarding football, but does anyone here ever consider football as a mathematical problem to try and quantify a tactical game?

What I mean is that we all talk about football with basic mathematic principles, whether it be talking about the geometry of a team's shape or using basic statistical analysis when looking at whoscored.com to see how team's have performed.

When you delve deeper into a team's philosophy or a manager's ideas, you'll often find there's more complex maths involved. For example, the Dutch Total Football model was often thought of as a anarchic and creative model in football, which it was to an extent, but having done research into it, there's also a clear focus on the geometric shape of the team and and the adjacent angles at which players are placed alongside each other, using ideas from Pythagoras' Theorem.

Another example is Sam Allardyce (I think) has used extensive statistical research to conclude that strikers often score goals on set pieces when placed at the far post, so therefore puts this into practice in his sides. Since reading that I have often kept an eye on player movements on the pitch and the theory does seem to hold some truth. It's interesting when you consider it on a larger scale, for example when El Shaarawy had his stellar half season a couple of years ago, one notable point was that he scored quite a few tap ins at the far post when the move originated from the right.

Working in IT and often looking at how software development has foundations in mathematical principles, I have been wondering if something as complex and dynamic as football can draw parallels and can be thought about in a similar way, as a mathematical problem. While there's obviously a huge number of variables and factors that have to be considered, not least because we're talking about human beings on the pitch, not machines, it seems a feasible possibility that formulae can be worked out to derive highest probabilities of success. A case and point is when you look at the similarities in successful football philosophies, such as Lobanovsky's principles, Total Football, Sacchi's ideas in pressing and most recently Tiki Taka, there are common denominators in all of those concepts which should be something that can be derived using mathematical principles.

As I said, it's a really dull and nerdy idea, just wondered if anyone thought of the game in that way or whether there are examples of extensive and overt uses of mathematical principles in the success of sides in history.

[reza]

Muntari to MLS on loan, one can hope it's true.

[xudong]

When is his current contract expired? 2017 or 2018?

Galliani is so diligently looking for solutions....




to problems that he created for himself.

[reza]

Expires 2016

[xudong]

Expires 2016

well, for now....