Summer Mercato 2010

Originally Posted by Filipéz 182

Dude, we have only played 1 game

but we could also count some friendly matches, couldn't we

Originally Posted by Revolver

No, I don't think "specialist" like a player can't attack and defend. A specialist like he can play just what his position is and nothing more. Put Flamini, say, to create one attack just ONE. Can't happen in a million years. Then, let Abbiati throw the ball to Antonini, what he'll do? He'll pass it to Pirlo or T. Silva, he doesn't have an idea or even doesn't want to think what else to do with the ball. Bonera on the other side - the same thing. We have CBs who can do something with the ball which isn't just pass it to the nearest teammate, T. Silva and Sokratis both have ideas to come up with the ball or to play it long.

Aficio, I don't agree, Italy 94 wasn't Milan. Tassotti almost didn't played at all, Baresi played just two games. Benarrivo, Apolloni and Mussi were FAR behind Milan's level. Dino Baggio was miles away from Rijkaard. Nicola Berti was the worst player in Italian first 11 both in 90 and in 94. Evani was too old.

Then again he failed in Milan but Capello failed too, we were even worse with him. It has all to do with our aging defense. We were buying attackers and defense became too old, but that's another topic.

Thank for correcting me. I was just Milan's fan for one year back then and was amazed that my club had won CL after defeated Barca 4:0, then Italy NT has 7 Milan's players. For me, Italy was another Milan . I can remember 6: Tassotti, Costacusta, Baresi, Maldini, Donadoni & Albertini. I think the number was larger than any Serie A team at that time and Milan's spirit affected the national squad a lot.

After your comment about Antonini, I think your definition about "non/more than specialist" is very close to "player with football brain". As a former midfielder, Anto's brain is not small, IMO, but like Gattuso, he should leave the job to top of the world like Pirlo & Dinho.

I think it has more to do with confidence and exp. For now, Antonini just needs to be error free in order to secure a spot on the team. He is just picking his moment to run up the flank. At least thats what. I am hoping.

Robinho with an assist for Lucas' goal and Pato scores one and has one shot cleared off the line at half time.

Originally Posted by hitmannq8

Robinho with an assist for Lucas' goal and Pato scores one and has one shot cleared off the line at half time.

I was wondering why I couldn't find any details about the match on livescore.com. Brazil is playing against Barca's B side

http://www.iraqgoals.tv/ch5.html
Theres the link for anyone interested

Originally Posted by Revolver

Sacchi's 4-4-2 was THE formation. It was flawless. It's not about formation, it's about how you fit the players in it and how you transform it. For example, Sacchi had 4-4-2, but it was more like 4-3-1-2. He actually invented trequartista position in 4-4-2. It's not widely known that Donadoni was a prototype of 4-4-2 trequartista (not a winger like goal.crap says). When full backs pushed up (also first time used expression "full back"), along with one CM (Rijkaard), with the other CM (Don Carlo) and side midfielder (Colombo/Evani) covering, he had something like 2-2-4-2. Also with Baresi pushing up and full backs staying to cover, it could be like 3-4-1-2, or even 3-4-3.
Actually in Sacchi's team, every player could adapt for any position, no matter where he's found in a moment of time. He's famous to say that in his team regista (deep-lying play) was whoever had the ball.
Other coaches started to use trequartista's regularly sometimes in '95 or '96, almost 10 years after Sacchi implemented it. Sacchi was WAY beyond his time, actually he's even beyond this time.
Every Milan fan should watch Steaua finals, it's available on Internet and it's the best game I've ever saw from one team, even better than one from Capello's team against Barcelona. It's just amazing how they killed second best team in the world in only 45 minutes. If Capello was/is known to work every tinny tactical detail into perfection, Sacchi actually didn't had to do it because his foundation was so good.

hmm, I don't consider Donadoni a trequartista at all. He was a player who'd break through opponents by constantly attacking their open channels. His role in the side wasn't to be a playmaker (not in the traditional sense at least), nor did Sacchi's ideals accomodate for a player to play this role. In the same way you use the regista example, every player had to be prepared to take up various roles in the attacking third.

I also disagree that Sacchi didn't have to consider every tactical detail like Capello because of the foundations of his tactics. Sacchi was a coach that scrutinized every minute detail of his team to try and reach his ideals (this is well known). That's one reason why he was so influential in football, as every player in his team was always a part of a greater system, with no compromise made to the system.

No system is flawless either. Sacchi's ideals on football is what made him such an important figure. However, his system was extremely difficult to put in practice and was very difficult to maintain over a long period of time (his team started dipping after only about 2 years).

Fact is Capello's Milan was quite possibly better suited to winning competitions than Sacchi's. Whilst Sacchi's Milan won a lot, Capello won a number of scudettos and reached the Champions League final 3 times in the early to mid nineties. One time we famously beat Barca, whilst the other two were losses. However, one loss was against Marseille which was completely unexpected (and that Marseille were known cheats) and the other against Ajax who won the match with a single goal right at the end (a match which could have easily gone the other way). Truth is, Sacchi's Milan was probably better than Capello's and his ideas on the game were revolutionary, but he had his weaknesses/problems too.

I'm not trying to lay into you in this post, I just disagree (maybe misunderstand) quite strongly with some of your points here, and feel we need to keep perspective on Sacchi's Milan. However, I agree with your sentiments, that Sacchi was a coach who devised a way of playing which should be a kind of blueprint for us now. It may seem I am critical of him at times in this post but he is the coach that has influenced me most as a football fan and is the reason I support Milan.

If you have a link to the Steaua game, it would be much appreciated.

@ Aficio

Yes, you've got it right. A player with football brain. Of course no-one is expecting Antonini to be Pirlo, like no-one expected Costacurta to be Donadoni. But to use his brain at least like T. Silva or Sokratis.

@ ACMILAN1983

Thanks for the answer, I love to talk about the best years of Milan.

Donadoni was attacking midfielder who was initially on the side, but he was free to move to the center, to come deep for the ball, etc. In one sentence he was attacking midfielder who loved to stay on the side. Gullit was Sacchi's first choice for that position, but because he and Saint Marco were injury prone, and Sacchi was unable to find a permanent choice for second CF, Gullit was most often fielded as striker. Donadoni actually played so well at that position that he became first choice and Gullit became permanent striker. After Capello came Donadoni became more like side midfielder and Gullit was AM. Actually Donadoni never came back to his old position because there were so many great attacking mids in Milan (Lentini, Gullit, Boban, even Savicevic played there sometimes) and because he was very capable to defend for a player of his profile.

You misunderstood me for tactical details. Of course, Sacchi's system was very detailed, but I thought about working every tactical detail into perfection before every game. Sacchi didn't have to do it, because his system was already almost perfect in foundation.

Yes his system was hard, but it was because he wanted everything to be perfect. When you see how great that Milan was, the kind of pressing Sacchi wanted was not necessary. Capello-like pressing would have been enough.

Of course, I'm not taking anything away from Capello, he's one of the greatest coaches of all-time, he won 4 Scudetto's in 5 years and was in 3 CL finals. Yes, he lost two finals but we were much better team in both and it was unlucky for us to loose.

Here are links for Steaua game:

http://www.filestube.com/670f6f951f8...lona-1989.html

File extensions are little dodgy, but winRAR should be able to merge them and you can then open it with media player classic. Picture is not that good, but even with this picture it's really hard to find.

This Rami guy from France's defense looks great so far.

Stitch gdje zivis u Sarajevu?

Wow it must have been years since Pirlo has scored from a free kick let alone shoot on target... he scored a nice goal albeit in the 90th minute against the Faroe Islands...

So Luca Antonelli started for IT last night against Faroe Island. Can someone confirm that he is not really that good.

Antonini is our best fb at going forward with the ball, always attacking space and linking up and people think he doesn't use hs brain?

Seriously start watching the games and spouting crap about his qualities. He's no Maicon or Alves, both of whom play in great teams and utilised correctly, but's on the level with Lahm & Evra imo. Nothing special about them.

The difference between Van Basten then and Ibra now is not about asking either to go back and help in defence which Van Basten did, but to actually put pressure on the ball in their area when we don't have the ball, which again, Van Basten did. Our success relies as much on what the forwards do without the ball, than with the ball.

Sorry revolver but this is bull Quote ""You misunderstood me for tactical details. Of course, Sacchi's system was very detailed, but I thought about working every tactical detail into perfection before every game. Sacchi didn't have to do it, because his system was already almost perfect in foundation. ""

You don't get a perfect system by not working on every detail. You say it as if it was just a fluke. The small details are the keys to success, not the big picture.

If Da Vinci had smudged a corner of the Mona Lisa it would be still be a great painting, but not a painting above all others.

Originally Posted by Revolver

@ Aficio

Yes, you've got it right. A player with football brain. Of course no-one is expecting Antonini to be Pirlo, like no-one expected Costacurta to be Donadoni. But to use his brain at least like T. Silva or Sokratis.

@ ACMILAN1983

Thanks for the answer, I love to talk about the best years of Milan.

Donadoni was attacking midfielder who was initially on the side, but he was free to move to the center, to come deep for the ball, etc. In one sentence he was attacking midfielder who loved to stay on the side. Gullit was Sacchi's first choice for that position, but because he and Saint Marco were injury prone, and Sacchi was unable to find a permanent choice for second CF, Gullit was most often fielded as striker. Donadoni actually played so well at that position that he became first choice and Gullit became permanent striker. After Capello came Donadoni became more like side midfielder and Gullit was AM. Actually Donadoni never came back to his old position because there were so many great attacking mids in Milan (Lentini, Gullit, Boban, even Savicevic played there sometimes) and because he was very capable to defend for a player of his profile.

You misunderstood me for tactical details. Of course, Sacchi's system was very detailed, but I thought about working every tactical detail into perfection before every game. Sacchi didn't have to do it, because his system was already almost perfect in foundation.

Yes his system was hard, but it was because he wanted everything to be perfect. When you see how great that Milan was, the kind of pressing Sacchi wanted was not necessary. Capello-like pressing would have been enough.

Of course, I'm not taking anything away from Capello, he's one of the greatest coaches of all-time, he won 4 Scudetto's in 5 years and was in 3 CL finals. Yes, he lost two finals but we were much better team in both and it was unlucky for us to loose.

Here are links for Steaua game:

http://www.filestube.com/670f6f951f8...lona-1989.html

File extensions are little dodgy, but winRAR should be able to merge them and you can then open it with media player classic. Picture is not that good, but even with this picture it's really hard to find.

Thanks for the link, much appreciated

Who is going to take our Non-EU spot in January?

I don't think the management is dumb enough to let that spot go, what does everyone else think? Are we gonna let it pass or are we gonna invest small in an unknown player or invest big in a player like Dzeko or Ganso?

My personal wish is Honda, but I have a lil' nudge that if Ronaldinho doesn't renew we will go for Ganso (which is better than Honda, but Honda should be brought in the summer because of the marketing [it is very important]).

(btw, Coates has an Italian passport so it will not be him even if we sign him)

One of Ganso, Fernandez or Jucilei! Amin.

Ganso is an top class central attacker, so I think we should buy him only if Dinho leaves.

Honda is a quite complete player, if we don't buy Boateng, and Flamini fails to impress, we must buy him.

IMO, both are not much needed now.