Winter Mercato

Originally Posted by Jim_UK

Hernanes will be cheaper but he's not better, neither for that matter is Aquilani. What have either of them done compared to Fabregas? While i have no doubt that the Brazilian & the Italian have skill and can develop, Fabregas is able to dominate/orchestrate matches of importance right now, not to mention the influence he had on Spain in winning Euro 2008.

Fabregas is the better player right now, to say otherwise is just ridiculous.



It depends on which position you see Ramos playing. If you see him in a CB position, then yes Santacroce and Zapata are just as good as the Spaniard. For me i see Ramos as a RB and in that department he's much better than both of these players. There are few players who play with as much energy and drive as Ramos does and having him bombing up the right-flank can only be a good thing.

This however is academic as we all know we won't shell out the money for either of these players.



Real were the only ones in for Agger and that was a false rumour anyway. Benitez doesn't want to sell Agger anyhow, these rumours only came about because of the Dane's injuries had stopped him playing regularly. The recent injury to Skrtel will let Agger have a sustained run in the side, so all will be well again.

U certainly have a high opinion on Cesc, which is kool and I can see that.

But still, I would prefer De Rossi, Hernanes and Aqualini over him, mainly due to the price tag and I believe the three I mentioned can play in the starting Eleven at Milan right away.

This is funny...

Calcio Comedy: Secco Uncovered As Inter Spy

An undercover journalist has unmasked Juventus sporting director Alessio Secco to be an Inter spy, sent in by Massimo Moratti to deliberately sabotage the Bianconeri.


Calcio Comedy: Secco Uncovered As Inter Spy

Secco is hugely unpopular among Juventus fans, following a long-line of catastrophic blunders in the transfer market. Tifosi have drawn up petitions, directed hate-mail, and even caused Secco to have a motorcycle accident, in an attempt to force the director to resign, but so far they have been unsuccessful.

In a quite sensational development, it has now been revealed that Secco is not quite as brainless and incompetent as his transfer work would suggest. He is in fact a spy for Italian champions Inter, sent by President Massimo Moratti to infiltrate and sabotage bitter rivals Juventus.

The truth was uncovered last night when Secco was tricked by an undercover journalist disguised as Moratti. Secco, who was in Milan shopping with his Bianconeri bonus money, received a phone call from ‘Moratti’ at 22:15 asking for them to meet at the headquarters of Telecom Italia.

Once there, ‘Moratti’ poked fun at Juventus’ latest poor result, a 2-1 home defeat to Palermo, sneering: “What a bunch of losers! They can’t even beat a team playing in pink.”

To this, Secco replied: “Yes boss, we are really destroying them, and the funniest thing is no one has the foggiest idea. They all think I am just stupid, they have no inkling that I am deliberately buying rubbish players.

“I have already got Boumsong, Tiago, Almiron, Poulsen and Knezevic. Tomorrow I will complete the signing of Titus Bramble, while next week I will begin negotiations for his brother Tesfaye, who has scored twice as many own goals as his younger sibling.

“In January I will sell Sebastian Giovinco to Arsenal, and will offer a five-year contract extension to Cristian Molinaro.

“To get the fans excited I will also spread rumours that I am negotiating to buy Rafael van der Vaart, Diego, and Xabi Alonso, only to then sign another rubbish defensive midfielder in the summer. I think I will go for Gilberto Silva next.”

The journalist later discovered during the meeting that Secco had been working for Inter for five years, and had been a spy at Juventus for the last three of these. Secco befriended former Bianconeri transfer guru Luciano Moggi, before stabbing him in the back and playing a part in his and Juve’s downfall during the Calciopoli crisis. It was also on Secco’s advice that the much-maligned Claudio Ranieri was appointed as the club’s coach in 2007.

The journalist has now revealed all to the press, but it seems that Secco will not face criminal proceedings, and indeed he has already been forgiven by the rest of the Juventus board.

Juve chairman Giovanni Cobolli Gigli told reporters this morning: “He made a mistake, and he knows it, but we here at Juventus firmly believe in giving people a second chance.

“We believe that Secco has the potential to be the best transfer guru in the world, so we stand by him at this tricky time, and are certain that he will prove to be a big asset to the club over the coming 10-20 years, helping us get lots of third and fourth place finishes, and maybe win a few Coppa Italias.”

When Ranieri was asked about this sensational story, he burst out laughing, and joked, “He should be the next James Bond.”

Secco was unavailable for comment, although it is rumoured that Inter are considering retiring the number 29 shirt in his honour due to the br

Originally Posted by Gabriel489

U certainly have a high opinion on Cesc, which is kool and I can see that.

But still, I would prefer De Rossi, Hernanes and Aqualini over him, mainly due to the price tag and I believe the three I mentioned can play in the starting Eleven at Milan right away.

de rossi and fabregas are unsellable. Aquilani and hernanes would run over 20 mil. (i recall barca couldnt reach an agreement at 18 mil for hernanes) . I suspect if roma does try to sell aquilani we'd step in at last minute and hijack the deal because of our relations... but dont expect to here milan linked to Aquilani out of respect to Roma

For all fellow Santacroce admirers

http://www.goal.com/en-india/Articol...enutoId=625056

Calcio Debate: Fabiano Santacroce – The ‘New Alessandro Nesta’?
Napoli’s young centre back Fabiano Santacroce has been an absolute revelation since signing for the club from Brescia in January. Carlo Garganese believes we may be witnessing the birth of the next Italian defensive superstar…

It is universally accepted that the greatest country in the world when it comes to producing defenders is Italy. Seemingly every year since records began the Azzurri have boasted an abundance of absolutely outstanding stoppers.

In the 60s and 70s there were greats like Giacinto Facchetti, Tarciso Burgnich and Armando Picchi, in the 80s and 90s there was Gateano Scirea, Claudio Gentile, Giuseppe Bergomi and Franco Baresi, to name just a few, while in the past decade Fabio Cannavaro, Alessandro Nesta, and of course Paolo Maldini have been the standard-bearers.

There were a few worrying signs that this production line was starting to dry up, specifically in the centre back position. The Azzurri’s current first-choice backline consists of Gianluca Zambrotta (31), Massimo Oddo (31) and Fabio Cannavaro and Marco Materazzi, who both turn 35 this year.

Beneath these veterans there are the likes of Andrea Barzagli and Giorgio Chiellini, who certainly have every chance of becoming excellent international defenders. However it is debatable whether either of these players are going to be outstanding enough to be spoken about in the same breath as the likes of some of these great names listed above.

Enter Fabiano Santacroce.

I may be jumping the gun a bit, but I can honestly say that I have not been so intrigued about the prospect of a young Italian centre-back since Alessandro Nesta burst onto the scene about 12 or so years ago.

I first saw Santacroce on his Italy Under-21 debut against France last August. The youngster, who I must confess I had never heard of at the time, replaced the injured Marco Andreolli, and had a blinder of a game at the heart of the Azzurrini defence during the 2-1 victory.

This promise has been fully established since Napoli beat off competition from both Juventus and Inter to sign Santacroce in January from Serie B-outfit Brescia, re-uniting the player with former team-mate Marek Hamsik.

Since moving to Naples, Santacroce has been an absolute revelation, and he has really come to the fore after three brilliant performances against the big guns of Inter, Roma and Juventus.

The stopper, who has a Brazilian mother and Italian father, was impenetrable as Napoli inflicted Inter’s first domestic defeat of the season at San Paolo a fortnight ago. The following week, during the 2-0 loss against Roma, he was so impressive that he was substituted to a rousing standing ovation. Finally against Juventus last night Santacroce was man-of-the-match by a country mile, making dozens of interceptions, and at least two brilliant last-gasp tackles.

Of course it is important not to over-hype the player too much, but all the signs are there that Santacroce could be the next real Italian defensive superstar.

Physically strong, the 21-year-old possesses lightning pace, is a wonderful reader of the game, and a fine tackler. He also possesses the old-school mental qualities, the fighting spirit and a cynical edge to his game that seems to have disappeared from so many young Italian defenders today. What is more is that Santacroce is also a 'footballer'. He is calm in possession, brings the ball out of defence and initiates attacks.

Napoli President Aurelio De Laurentiis is predicting a massive future for Santacroce, and says that he is the “new Alessandro Nesta” and will be part of the Italy team at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

“Give him time, and he will go to the 2010 World Cup,” declared the movie mogul.

"Santacroce certainly will become the next Nesta in a few years. I have never seen anyone so explosive.”

For a number of years Italy has been crying out for an explosive young centre back to break through. In Fabiano Santacroce it is possible that this player has been found.

What are your views on this topic? Could Fabiano Santacroce become the next Italian defensive superstar? Could he follow in the footsteps of greats such as Scirea, Baresi, Maldini and Cannavaro. Is it dangerous to over-hype the player at his tender age? Goal.com wants to know what YOU think.

Carlo Garganese

1) Milan DOESNT need Ramos. He is a player that can play brilliant and horrible. And would cost HUGE ammounts of money and plays for Madrid so... but he is a pretty face and Silvio likes his club to have such image, as crazy as it sounds. Money is money.

2) Milan also doesnt need Fabgreas. Fabregas would, of course, fit perfectly in our midfield, in any modfield in the world in fact, but he is also too expencive.

Milan will not invest a lot of money, you all know that. We can buy cheaoer players but have same ammount of quality in our team. For me Santacroce and Aquilani are dream players, along with one more GK. Aquilani is something our midfield lacks, as Seedorf cant play more then 2 games in a row as CM, and next year he will be 33. Things need to change and we need to have players like Aquilani, Flamini...in our first 11. Maybe its eve over with Pirlo's great games. Aldough we thuing he is "irreplaceble", so was Zidane in Juve...and Juve did good with selling him. Buying Buffon, Thuram and Nedved.

Well, Im sure Milan will not sell Pirlo in 1000 years, Im just chating. But Santacroce, Dossena, Montolivo, Aquilani and so on...those are the players Milan needs to go for.

Need a DC first, then GK, then Midfield again. I don't think we'll have to worry aobut attack so long if Borriello is performing.

Originally Posted by Jeff

Need a DC first, then GK, then Midfield again. I don't think we'll have to worry aobut attack so long if Borriello is performing.

we only have 8 serie A goals in 5 games. Not exactly amazing.... 4 against lazio. Sheva is 32 and pippo is dead.

I think we need to add an attacker well before we touch our midfield. but agreed. Defense first

for this year i think we need just one cb or 2 in summer we will have back gourcuff and i think we will buy also some young players i hope Ramos.

Originally Posted by Jeff

Need a DC first, then GK, then Midfield again. I don't think we'll have to worry aobut attack so long if Borriello is performing.

That's part of the problem Jeff, we rely very heavily on Borriello as we only have him and Pippo as CF's in the squad. Pippo's injured all the time and Borri so far has done superbly in the games he's played, but there haven't been many (he's getting injured a fair amount too).

We need to refreshen the attack too imo, though I agree that we need to sort out the defence and midfield (might be debatable how much we need for this department).

So many problems, but so much fun to figure out a way to solve them!

our offense line so unpredictable in any senses

Every fan would like to see Ramos and Fabregas in his team, but be real - it`s impossible for any Italian club to get them. Zapata is good defender and he can be bought. And it would be good to find some young and cheap talent who would not mind to sit on bench and slowly collect his minutes in huge club like Milan.

Now for a rumour NOT involving a player we would never get:

"BOLIVIA, Many clubs on Campos

Many europeans clubs, for example; Arsenal , Bayern Munchen , Milan are on the young Bolivian talent Jhasmani Campos (20). The Bolivian club, Oriente Petrolero , wants 3.7 million euros for the player."

From Tuttomercatoweb (English version)

* * * *
I think he's a central attacking midfielder. He made his debut for the Bolivian NT aged 18.

Right...because a CAM would really get any playing time with us?

i saw some early coments posted by Alban.3 and in the lasts comments he said that is better to disscus these things on fantasy thread but now i think maybe sergio ramos is going to come with or without Kaka lol.