Winter Mercato

OFFICIAL NEW TRANSFER !!!!





Sneijder to Real
27Mil € , this time it's true.


And we're about to sign Emerson..


Edit : Am I the only one who finds this frustrating?

Originally Posted by ThrusT

OFFICIAL NEW TRANSFER !!!!





Sneijder to Real
27Mil € , this time it's true.


And we're about to sign Emerson..


Edit : Am I the only one who finds this frustrating?

no, but at the end of the season even you won't be the among the ones who think Real is making the better transfer ... and btw, just for the record, we are not signing Emerson

Lot's of people we'll be jumping off the Sneijder train in several months time and seats on that one will be as cheap and available as Robinho's, Gago's, Higuain's and by the look of things, Robben's too ... did I miss someone else?

btw, this same guy, just a month ago was available for less than 15 mil and Valencia refused him in the end ... some deal by Real M, simply fantastic

Originally Posted by zlatanov

no, but at the end of the season even you won't be the among the ones who think Real is making the better transfer ... and btw, just for the record, we are not signing Emerson

Lot's of people we'll be jumping off the Sneijder train in several months time and seats on that one will be as cheap and available as Robinho's, Gago's, Higuain's and by the look of things, Robben's too ... did I miss someone else?

btw, this same guy, just a month ago was available for less than 15 mil and Valencia refused him in the end ... some deal by Real M, simply fantastic

I personally think Real has had a terrible transferperiod, 30 mil for Pepe , .. they have overpayed on every transfer they have made so far.

But it's not that, you are misunderstanding me, I just find it frustrating to see all the good players leave for big clubs and we're staying behind with Motta and Emerson.It's almost amusing.
Not that they are that terrible but Galliani keeps whining about how we'll only sign someone who can contribute further to the team..like Motta or Emerson will do that?

Oh well, last year I was able to understand our lack of signing a descent player because of the calciopoli but I expect(ed) something big this time.

Originally Posted by ThrusT

I personally think Real has had a terrible transferperiod, 30 mil for Pepe , .. they have overpayed on every transfer they have made so far.

But it's not that, you are misunderstanding me, I just find it frustrating to see all the good players leave for big clubs and we're staying behind with Motta and Emerson.It's almost amusing.
Not that they are that terrible but Galliani keeps whining about how we'll only sign someone who can contribute further to the team..like Motta or Emerson will do that?

Oh well, last year I was able to understand our lack of signing a descent player because of the calciopoli but I expect(ed) something big this time.

no, thrust, I am not misunderstanding you at all as we all have that fan-mentality in us - the more costly and hyped a player is, the better he must be.
The point of a successful and good transfer campaign is not to gather the most attantion in the press and splash out the most money but get the right players who you belive can contribute to your team and no where it is written that a cheap buy - there are certain circumstances why players like Motta and Emerson are cheap and that's not necessarily lack of quality/ability - will not turn out to be a better move than some fancy multi-million transfer.

Galliani, and that means Silvio too 'cause Galliani will never go out on a limb and promise a big purchase if Silvio wasn't in the game too, have spoken a lot about binging in a world class player but the thing is that the real targets for whom Milan was willing to open the bank, the real proven players were not available, at least not this summer .
Milan would never go out and pay 27 mil for a player like Sneijder, who they didn't seem very keen on even when he could have been bought for 10 mil - and even less - just a year ago.

After all who is Sneijder? What has he done other than impress against teams like Groningen and Twente in the Dutch League and the occasional good game in CL, which took place so long ago that he probably doesn't remember it?

Fans don't like asking themselves many questions 'cause it is so much easier to just go with the flow aka hype of the media and blend in with the main mass of one opinion prevailing around - Sneijder is a super-player.

But is he? If you have followed well his career, you'd have noticed that apart from being a giften player, he is very inconsistent in his performances and most of the time fails to appear vs big opposition ... not to mention the injury problems he's had.

Sneijder appeared on the scene around 5 years ago when he was 18 yo and dubbed the next big thing out of the Ajax program. At first, the reason for his staying at Ajax was explained by him being too young and whatnot and him needing time to mature etc, etc, etc.
So far so good, the problem is however that for these 5 years - he is 23 now - he hasn't developed one bit and is still doing pretty much the same stuff he was doing when he was just a super-promising youngster. What has he done with Ajax, or the NT for that matter for these 5 years? When did he impress at the level of football that Milan is used to playing - the type of football Emerson and even a 24 yo Motta have been playing for a while now and have won virtually everything there is to win in it?

The problem with Sneijder is that he never took that jump from being a good player/prospect to a difference maker ... and sorry but the super displays vs De Graafshap and the likes don't count here. That's why he stayed at Ajax for so long with European clubs only being "interested in him" or "closely following him" for 5 years now.
If he was the type of player who was worth 27 mil, that guy would have forgotten by now that he was ever part of the Ajax program as a number of big clubs would have gotten to him for these 5 years.

And what happened in the end in order for Sneijder to move away from his safe-nest at Ajax where his stardom status was so comfortably handed to him day after day, a club run by half-witts had to come buy and offer 24/25 mil for a player who, as mentioned, was refused by Valencia for 14 mil or so barely a month ago ... not only that but Ajax upped the ante to 30 mil.

Yesterday, Tony, posted that the transfer looked likely NOT to go thru - that's what the media was reporting anyway - and I would have replied to it that Ajax and Real M were just showing off balls but in the end all would go thru just fine but didn't feel like typing ...
Why did I think it would go thru? Well, it was pretty obvious really - Ajax were well aware that there was no chance in hell or paradise they could get even 24 mil for Sneijder from another club other than the mighty Real M, so it made no sense for them to miss on a chance of a lifetime and not let the player go for about twice as much as they would have gotten for him just a month ago ... of course, they let him go only after applying some refined milking techniques to the duffus duo Calderon-Mijatovic.

Not sure if the news of Sneijder's acquisition is official as I heard it from you first - after all, the last thing I would trust is a piece of news coming out of Marca or AS - but I am absolutely sure it will be done in the end.

All in all, I see Sneijder as a promising player who might have a chance of making it Spain, less so in Italy, but far from the sure thing most people see in him ... IMO, despite all the time he's been around, he is an unproven a player and nowhere near being a "champion" or a player who is worth such an investment ... after all, for some time many clubs didn't wanna go with him for half of what real M is paying now.

And once Robben moves to Real too, I'd love to hear the new song J. Baptista would be playing on his clarinet

P.S. I guess the post turned out to be just a little longer than intended

Actually, Sneijder's last year was top class, Zlat. And his performances in the last season are the biggest reason for the big interest and increase of his price. He scored like 20 goals and was alpha&omega for his team.
Yes, it's Ajax and yes, it's only eredivisie and it shouldn't mean much. But history does say that the best players in Dutch league are always hipper expensive but almost always turn out to be gold.

I have a feeling you dislike Real as a team a lot (do you ? ) because you're a huge critic of them and you're always happy when they make a bad result. But they are just following a trend Zlat. Trend that gave many tittles to many teams. It all started with Berlusconi, then Perez, then Roman and now Calderon.

I totally agree with you that what Real does is nothing else but stupidly overpaying. But if it brings results then i don't see what's wrong here, especially if it's one man that has the money and spends his money.

Also, i don't understand your list of Real failures.
Real payed for inexperienced and hyped Robinho almost 22m euro. If one man is giving his money and Robinho's purchase won't affect the other activities in the market that may influence badly on the team, then i see nothing wrong in Robinho and i don't see him at all as a bad traansfer.
And if you think about it..... The boy came from Brazil at 21. He had a bad season, yes. In his second season he was one of the biggest, together with Becks and RvN, the biggest reason for Real's great results at the end of the season. Then he had a fantastic Coppa America.
Now he's matured, with more experience, accustomed at life in Europe and full with confidence after his great displays helped Real and Brazil to win trophies.
Why do you say he is a failure ?

And Gago....seriously Zlat, what did you expect from a very young Defensive midfielder ? To become Redondo after only one season ?

You're judging players (and may i say, only players of other teams, never of Milan) way too early. Young players are bought for the future mostly, no one expects them to turn the world around after their first season, no matter if huge money were payed for them.
Didn't CR7 have a bad first season and equaly bad second season ?

It's all good to find a player and buy him for peanuts and then this player to be the best in the world. But Zidane and Kaka don't happen every day. Today, you must pay expensive to get the talented youngsters ( see Pato, see CR7, see Ronaldinho).

Sometimes you hit the jem with Kaka and Pirlo , sometimes you get burned and spend ~90m euro on Rui Costa, Gilardino and Oliveira, but it doesn't mean that if Milan got burned when they over-payed for the youngster Gilardino they now shouldn't over-pay for some other talented youngster.
And as you could see, you again decided to take a risk and spend ~40m euro in the next 5 years for Pato.

What Milan did with Gila and Pato, Real did with Robinho and Sneijder. I don't see why we should criticize only one of them here.

Heck, look at Inter...they spent enough money in the transfer market to get waxed by AZ Alkmaar yesterday.

Tony, Gila prove himself to be a leader for two seasons in a row in a relatively weak team. He deserved the price tag he had, but Robinho's tricks and nice goals is what got him all the comparisons and made his price tag higher. Sneijder did not have a great season but he had one better than his previous ones. He is a very inconsistent player and I feel that he will not succeed at Real. Sneijder and Torres were two players Milan were after but chose not to go after.

I think you are forgetting my posts on Pato, Tony, and the rather cautious optimism I have for him

and yes, clubs today have to pay dearly for the talanted youngsters but why is that? ... because those youngsters are worth the investment and will bring trophies and success to that club or is it becasue those same clubs have fallen victim to the mechanichs of the market and rather hope than know for sure that the investment will turn out tobe a good one.

Gilardino was a different type of risk taken by Milan as he was player proven already in Italy and wasn't coming from another championship ... he had a very good 1st season with Milan as for the second, there are whole bunch of off-the-field reasons why his and Milan's second season was surrounded by some pretty "interesting" circumstances ... but as I said, you should remember my opinion on Pato and the money Milan paid for him.

All in all, here we are talking about getting a proven player, a champion who has had nothing but success in Italy - and getting him for cheap - over getting a youngster who has done squat on the big scene for the past 2-3 years once his status of a "promising" youngster was no longer applicable to him and couldn't shield him from the average performances ... that's what the original issue was.

true, one of them is 31 yo, the other 23 ... but we all saw what happens when a team of experienced has beens (or so they were branded) met a team with several young superstars bursting with energy and skill and whatever, and yes, CR7 was one of them ... and btw, who said CR7 was a player worthy of Milan or he would be more useful to milan than a has-been "wild boar" like Emerson? ... Because here the issue is "strengthening" the team on the field, not on paper after you have splashed 100 mil in the transfer period for mights and might-nots.

And yes, Milan is buying youngsters like Gila nad now Pato but do you see them form the spine of the team? ... Do you see them be the players Milan relies on when the big moment comes?
No, because along with players like Gila and Pato, there has always been the Inzaghi's and Sheva's and Ronaldo's and Seedorf's and Maldini's and nesta's to step in and take matters into their own hands namely because you can't expect it from all the Gago's and Robinho's in the world, at least not for sure ... in your dreams yes, but a young player rarely turns out to be worth the trust put into him when push comes to shove.

When I mentioned them, I didn't necessarily mean that they are failures as in "failed for the rest of their careers" and that they can't one day get back on track at Real or another club, maybe ... however, let's not forget why Real paid the money they did for those players - to step in the first 11 and deliver NOW, not 5 years later - this isn't Anderlech or Fiorentina, but Real M/Milan after all - so in that sense, they were/are failures, maybe not complete but definitely what they have provided is far from what was expected from them (I am sure you noticed the unwillingness of Capello to start Gago over Emerson as sonn as the Argentinian arrived at Real M - I guess Calderon and Co did want the new Redondo to shine immediately) ... and the shift in media attention those players got before and after their arrival at Real M, pretty much sums it all up.

As for Robinho, a player as ineffective as him cannot be concealed by a couple of scored PKs at a second-hand CA against the likes of Chile and co ... let's wait and see how he faires from now on in Spain and CL (which would still leave the question would he be any good in Italy vs teams like Milan, Inter, Juve).

Originally Posted by hitmannq8

Tony, Gila prove himself to be a leader for two seasons in a row in a relatively weak team. He deserved the price tag he had, but Robinho's tricks and nice goals is what got him all the comparisons and made his price tag higher. Sneijder did not have a great season but he had one better than his previous ones. He is a very inconsistent player and I feel that he will not succeed at Real. Sneijder and Torres were two players Milan were after but chose not to go after.

I'm not a huge fan of Sneijder either hitman, but honestly, i didn't watch him at all apert from the matches with his NT.

27m euro is really over-paying, i totally agree, but i really don't understand Zlat's confidence when he said that Sneijder will fail in Real ( he used different words, but he obviously meant that).

I'm forced to use numbers and read about Sneijder, so i may be wrong and Zlat could be right because he watched him more than i did.
But numbers really don't give a bad picture of Sneijder.

I read that he's Van Basten's favorite and MvB can't even imagine his team without Sneijder. The boy was already capped 35 times, eventhough he wasn't even 23 during this time. I read that Valencia wanted him and in the last 8 years Valencia was always after players that were good or turned out to be very very good. I read that he finally had a very good season with Ajax and scored 20 goals in 43 matches and i read that his goal scoring record with Ajax is brilliant for a midfielder ( 1 goal in every 2.9 matches). I also read that apart from his goalscoring capabilities he also has great passing range.

He looks good on paper. I know he's not worth it to pay 27m but like i said, if a team has 100m euro to spend every single summer and if this purchase won't affect anything, then i see no reason why we should judge Real and even more, why should we expect Sneijder to be a failure.

Originally Posted by Tony29.

I'm not a huge fan of Sneijder either hitman, but honestly, i didn't watch him at all apert from the matches with his NT.

27m euro is really over-paying, i totally agree, but i really don't understand Zlat's confidence when he said that Sneijder will fail in Real ( he used different words, but he obviously meant that).

I'm forced to use numbers and read about Sneijder, so i may be wrong and Zlat could be right because he watched him more than i did.
But numbers really don't give a bad picture of Sneijder.

I read that he's Van Basten's favorite and MvB can't even imagine his team without Sneijder. The boy was already capped 35 times, eventhough he wasn't even 23 during this time. I read that Valencia wanted him and in the last 8 years Valencia was always after players that were good or turned out to be very very good. I read that he finally had a very good season with Ajax and scored 20 goals in 43 matches and i read that his goal scoring record with Ajax is brilliant for a midfielder ( 1 goal in every 2.9 matches). I also read that apart from his goalscoring capabilities he also has great passing range.

He looks good on paper. I know he's not worth it to pay 27m but like i said, if a team has 100m euro to spend every single summer and if this purchase won't affect anything, then i see no reason why we should judge Real and even more, why should we expect Sneijder to be a failure.

Tony, I didn't say that he will fail in Real - in fact, he may well earn a starting spot on their team (and for the money they are paying, Shuster better give it to him ) ... what I meant is that he is not the player who would bring Real M success - domestically or in Europe - becase after all that's why a team pays so much money for a single player.
There is a slight dif but still a difference.

To put it in dif words - Sneijder will probably win a starting spot on Real but he is not a difference maker, which Emerson and all the "aged" players Milan is after 'causing the complaints of the fans, have proven to be.

In a similar way, Milan is willing to pay 40-50 mil for an Etoo and even more for a Dinho but not half that for a Torres.

OMG!!! I think I'mbeginning to agree with an evil Juventino more and more ........we can't know for sure how Sneijder would turn out simply because we don't have a crystal ball
The reason why I kinda think Zlat isn't too far off though is because in the SUPER-HUGE matches I never really had a memorable performance form him.......his WC campaign was bare average at best and awful at worst....... I wouldn't fault Zlat for knocking him by this yardstick.

Conversely, Torres' rise to fame has followed more or less the same path as did Senijder ...and I can't understand why there is a similar prediction of doom for him too.

THING IS I ACKNOWLEDGE THAT TEAMS ARE SERIOUSLY OVERPAYING FOR PLAYERS (BLAME CHELSEA ) BUT ARE WE GOING TO KEEP GRABBING OUR NUTS AND SUCKING OUR THUMBS AT EVERYBODY AND NOT REINFORCE A SQUAD THAT HAS BEEN SCREAMING FOR IT FOR THE PAST TWO YEARS???? OR ARE WE GOING TO OPEN HISTORY BOOKS AND KEEP UP THIS NAUSEATING DISPLAY OF ARROGANCE

In conclusion...please get a proper strker (read Aguero ) and a LEFT BACK


Oh and Bye Bye Wesley

Sneijder comes, Baptista to Milan ( lol )
What about Robben ? Madrid oh madrid
Milan will get Emerson or Motta or . . . .. ... . . . . . . Riquelme ( latest news ) -> Riquelme - Kaka - Seedorf -> FANTASTIC
Riquelme has Spanish Passport, hasn`t he ?

Originally Posted by drucurl

OMG!!! I think I'mbeginning to agree with an evil Juventino more and more ........we can't know for sure how Sneijder would turn out simply because we don't have a crystal ball

no one is claiming to have one ... that's just my take on Sneijder, well, I guess not only mine considering that big clubs have been monitoring the guy for 5 years now and no one but Calderon's Real M decided to make a move for him

Of course, in the end I could end up being wrong but hey, there is a first time for everything

Conversely, Torres' rise to fame has followed more or less the same path as did Senijder ...and I can't understand why there is a similar prediction of doom for him too.

Now, I don't wanna be a pain in the butt but - given that you yourself don't seem too keen on Sneijder - I think you answered your own question before you even asked it

I don't understand how all transfers or all young players Real get are "good" transfers when they all turn out complete flops, I bet Emerson coming to Milan would best out all of Real's transfers, I think a real smart team when it comes to transfers is Milan(when they make one!) and inter. Teams like Real, Chelsea, always get over-hyped youngsters/goldenball players and they always play at half preformace, hopefully we can sign R10 goldenball player or not, he's one player not hyped about enough, especially this year, they say he's lost his "touch", what I think is fans are bored of him and it's time to make a move to milan, because he was simply magic this year just like all the other years, but the Brazil NT preformance was horrible..

We can't be sure for any transfers of course. How could we know a 8.5 Eu M Kaka can turn into a E107M (if I'm not wrong) worth transfer but Milan still refuses? Or a Pirlo who stayed on the bench for a whole season can turn to be one of the best (the best in my opinion) CMs? And as Zlatanov said, he was just guessing.

Sneijder is always a good player in my eyes. IMO, he is even better than Gago, Carrick, and even Lampard. And he is better than Kaka before coming to Milan.

I don't really understand why people keep saying Gilardino is not good. I won't say anything about the time in Parma. But in Milan, the first season he scored more than Shevchenko if we don't count PKs. In the second season, he didn't have his luck but he scored 12 goals, leading Milan's scorer. You may say 12 goals is not a good result. But in fact Shevchenko did score less than 12 goals a season in Milan. And I have another example: Dimitar Berbatov. Berbatov scored 12 goals last season and suddenly people (not me) are saying he is a very good striker, etc... And according to some news, MU offered Tottenham 25-30M (in pound if I'm not wrong) for Berbatov. So what's wrong with Gilardino because he scored 12 goals? And Tevez, he did poorly, so poorly in most of the season (couldn't break in the first team sometimes). And he only did well in the lasts match, scoring 7 goal in the whole season, so why, why many people say he is so good?