World Cup 2010 Best of round 3: 1st team + notables

It was a dramatic last round of the group stages. One that had both very good and very bad games.

I watched on a couple of TVs simultaneously, which especially with some groups were very exciting but for the specific purposes of this particular exercise it wasn't all good since it resulted in some very divided or other times very one sided attention. Some matches I watched paying nearly 100 percent attention to over the other and in other cases it was more like 60-40 or 80-20.

Therefore this is definitely the entry where I have the least confidence in my choices and it is entirely unlikely that I haven't missed some worthy performances.

Group stage:

Round 1:

1st Team

2nd Team

Round 2:

1st and 2nd Teams

ROUND 3

1st Team:

Gk: Rais M'Bolhi - Algeria

Lb: Jorge Fucile - Uruguay
Cb: Bruno Alves - portugal
Cb: John Terry - England
Rb: Philipp Lahm - Germany

Mf: Bastian Schweinsteiger - Germany
Mf: Tim Cahill - Australia
Rw: Landon Donovan - USA
Am: Keisuke Honda - Japan

Fw: Chu-Young Park - South Korea
Striker: Robert Vittek - Slovakia

Notables: Fabio Coentrao, John Mensah, Rios/Perez, Alonso

Comments:

Goalkeeper:

Rais M'Bolhi - Algeria



The normal first choice Algeria keeper Faouzi Chaouchi was dropped after his costly error in the 1-0 defeat to Slovenia giving newcomer M'Bolhi playing only his third cap. the chance to shine at the biggest stage.

In the game against the U.S - M'Bolhi held on right until the very end making many good saves and interventions and afterwards the American (and best of round 1.) goalkeeper Tim Howard was nice enough (unlike what he is doing to his defenders, I'm really starting noticing, who he is abusing like he was Peter Schmeichel!) to pay compliments to M'Bolhi calling him exceptional:

“When you create so many chances, you expect to at least put one away. But their keeper was exceptional. Our finishing wasn’t the problem, it was the fact that M’Bolhi was in incredible form and managed to get his body in the way at crucial moments. It was really extraordinary.”

So, in a round where rightly or wrongly I didn't notice too many great goalkeeping displays, M'Bolhi beats the rest.

Left-back:

Jorge Fucile - Uruguay



Retains a spot on the team and this round at the position he has actually been playing.

In the game against Mexico we saw a little bit extra emphasis on defending from Fucile compared to against South Africa where Uruguay came out attacking, and definitely extra impressive this time that he was the first defender to keep Mexico's Dos Santos, who has been in great form, largely under control.

Centre back:

Bruno Alves - Portugal



Another defender from a team who is yet to concede a single goal.

His partner Carvalho also had a good game, as well as the whole team did of course, defending, but Carvalho unlike Alves I thought was caught gambling a few times.

Brazil box striker Fabiano made the "best of team" last round and I talked about how well he complemented the other attacking Brazilian players coming from behind moving close to him.

Kaka and Robinho in Fabiano have the skilled box presence they can combine with and the likes of Maicon, Bastos and Elano as well as having that, have a great athletic target for their quality deliveries.

Now before I call Portugal's or Alves defensive performances great it should be noted that quite a few of those names were missing in this game, giving Fabiano worse players to work with, affecting his effectiveness I'm sure, but credit to especially Alves, who it was my impression mostly was on Fabiano, for largely, or at least better than anyone so far, reducing that particular all important Brazil weapon.

We didn't, like many recent Brazil games, watch Fabiano being effective with deliveries from the wings and we didn't really see him being able to combine with the skillful attackers coming from behind. Bruno Alves (mostly I think) would always be in the way.

Now, stopping most of the Brazil attacking players is very much a team effort and not a question of one on one matchups, but this particular one is extremely important not to lose for the central defender closest to Fabiano in the box. The Ivory Coast defenders lost at times badly, which put their Eriksson midfield team defense pretty much to waste, they had done pretty well actually in the beginning preventing passing lanes for both Maicon and especially Kaka, stopping them getting the ball even or quickly taking it away, but the one player they couldn't stop neither getting the ball or giving it back again to other attacking players moving close to him taking advantage in the final third where it hurts the most, was Fabiano though, and with really bad consequences.

There is no doubt a lot of it was less quality around Fabiano. In this game there were only 4 passes exchanged between Fabiano and Julio Baptista and 3 of those was Fabiano finding the "beast" who then predictable was not able to do much with it.

With Kaka against the Ivory Coast on the other hand he exchanged 11 passes. Then in what I think you can also call a bad attacking game for Brazil, against North Korea, Kaka and Fabiano only combined 3 times!

Interestingly in both of those "bad games" Fabiano then saw increased passing from the wingers. Today again and again from Daniel Alves playing instead of Elano, but not to much effect at all and I don't think there is any doubt you'll rather deal with non-getting to the baseline-crosses (which is hard to concede if you sit deep like North Korea and Portugal) than Fabiano being close to the likes of Kaka, Robinho, Elano and Maicon combining around your penalty area.

Centre-back:

John Terry - England



On the field at least, quietly having a good World Cup where he as one of very few England players has played well in every game so far.

The highlight of that so far was the all important game against Slovenia where apart from being mistake-free he also had to save the team from danger on more than one occasion.

More than a bit worrying how the England centre-backs have had to do that against pretty ordinary attacking teams so far and the team/Capello will have to find a better balance against the first really good attacking team they'll meet, Germany of course in the round of 16. Otherwise neither Terry, or Matthew Upson for that matter who also had a good game, will make enough of a difference to prevent them getting knocked out.

Right-back:

Philipp Lahm - Germany



Not much to add really from when he made the first team in round 1. Other than like with Fucile earlier, I now have Lahm back at the position he is actually playing, and I'm also further realizing that there is no doubt, defensively, that he is more comfortable in the 1on1 situations that tends to find sidebacks, defending on the right rather than the left.

Germany will of course face England in the next round and with Lahm now fully installed on the right we should see an interesting clash of elite fullbacks between him and Ashley Cole.

It would be great for England if Cole could force Lahm to defend against an athletically superior opponent, giving him something to worry about, maybe even halting his forward progress, but I fear for England most of the worries go the other way, with either a Milner placed on the left, who struggled there (even) against the U.S, or perhaps worse, notoriously unreliable defender this season, Steven Gerrard with important defensive responsibilities on the left.

AT THE VERY LEAST it might force Ashley Cole to play yet another game where he is mostly staying back but can even he if he isn't getting enough support deal with what by far looks like German's strongest side to me, the dynamic Müller supported by Lahm and to some extent Ozil.
It will be interesting to see what Capello does there. I'm in no way ruling out a return for Emile Heskey with defensive duties on the left, like we've so many times over the years for his club teams. It would be an unpopular and controversial decision but one it's easy to see Capello make.


Midfielder:

Bastian Schweinsteiger - Germany



Schweinsteiger was possibly even better this game than in the first one against Australia.

Secure short passing with all the right decisions and with his impressive range he sprayed many good longer ones as well.

Defensively he also looked good with many well timed interventions.

All in all this was a game where he hardly put a foot wrong ruling the German midfield.

The only negative is that he picked up an injury and had to come off towards the end. Hopefully that's not something that will bother him the rest of the tournament. His team desperately needs him.

Midfielder:

Tim Cahill - Australia



I think my eyes in the beginning at least mostly were on the Germany - Ghana game but the other game between Serbia and Australia kept getting more and more interesting and towards the end there was a clear case of both teams having to chase the dream and push men forward in pursuit of goals.

Serbia of course ended up once again suffering World Cup heartbreak and are going home early while Australia with good performances in both of the last two games really, and by winning this one, at least has some to smile about.

Cahill as he has so many times before, I felt was the player mostly responsible for that, with a great box to box performance, working hard defensively and being dynamic in attack, making well timed run after well timed run threatening the opponent penalty area, and as he has also done so many times before, with a trademark header scoring a goal in the process.

Right-winger:

Landon Donovan - USA



Donovan has been good in every game so far being the one U.S player who can provide an extra bit of pace or skill and with that make a difference.

None bigger or more important than what he did this round scoring a crucial 90th minute winner against Algeria that put his country through, top of the group, to the knockout stages.

A great (or the greatest?) moment in U.S soccer history.


Attacking midfielder:

Keisuke Honda - Japan



Honda interestingly the most fouled player out of anyone in the group stage makes his first appearance on the team.

In beating Denmark 3-1 he showed once again that he is the Ferrari on Japan's workman like team.

Not that he doesn't put in the extra miles himself. He impressively does that. But his ability with the ball is what sets him apart and against Denmark he showed it plenty.

Usually most noteworthy is his kicking-technique and it was fitting that it was Honda who became the first player to score on a freekick this tournament. Definitely not one of his most impressive, and more the fault of keeper Sorenson than anything and his compatriot Endo's freekick goal later in the game was easily the better one, BUT STILL, it was Honda who broke the duck!

In this game he worked hard defensively and with gliding movement and overall skill he was Japan's main instigator when going forward. Not least exemplified when he brilliantly set up Okazaki's winner.

Forward:

Chu-Young Park - South Korea



In what was a wild fun back and forth game against Nigeria, Chu-Young Park was one of the few I think who actually played a really good game!

Worked very hard and with his quickness and skill he was a nightmare for the big Nigerian defenders all game long.

Striker:

Robert Vittek - Slovakia



As an avid Azzurri supporter this is still too soon to talk about (or even look at! Hence the above).

If I try start writing about the events in this game, Italy, Slovakia or even individual players there is no way I can avoid going into emo-rage-tilt mode ruining my whole day and possibly my sleep! Shock, anger and sadness not helped, to say the least, by my own country Denmark then also going out later that very same (fateful) day.

I'll just say congratulations to Slovakia. I had a great time myself in the very nice city of Bratislava once and met some cool people there, and of course (what this is supposed to be about!) also well done to Robert Vittek who with his good target-man display was a key factor in securing the win.





There is no 2nd team this round where like I mentioned in the beginning there were just a little bit too many of the games going on at the same time where my attention was either split or almost entirely focused on one instead of the other.

But I do at least have some NOTABLES:

Left-back: Fabio Coentrao - Portugal



The most notable of all perhaps, missing out once again only by the closest of margins. Had one bad decision on a pass that could have been costly but that's it really. Other than that he was very good and not faced at all by squaring up to the grueling double dose of Maicon and Daniel Alves.

Centre-back: John Mensah - Ghana

Isaac Vorsah the Ghana centre-back who made my first team after the opening games has unfortunately since been injured and the experienced journeyman defender and captain John Mensah (currently at Sunderland) now finds himself playing with another Mensah, the 19 year old Jonathan who was one of the stars for Ghana when they won the U-20 World Cup last year. My first impression though of Jonathan is that he is pretty raw still and make too many bad decisions, meaning more than ever it's the older Mensah who really has to hold it all together.

Against Germany I was surprised how easy Germany got through the Ghana midfield organization that has troubled other teams. Part of it I'm sure is just great German quality with Schweinsteiger, Ozil, Khedira plus Lahm rarely not present with excellent contributions and then there was the choice of Cacau as the striker who was very often dropping deep adding to the midfield numbers.

Still, Ghana themselves have everyone of their non defenders being cagey in midfield so it's not like they were outnumbered and it's not a good sign for them (it is for Germany though!) that they had to rely too this extent on good defending in their box.

There I thought Mensah out-muscled anyone in sight and how he lead the defense to mostly deal. with all those incoming German passes and runs without the ball from behind. was impressive.

Yes there were a few glitches but if you compare to how another midfield who also failed against Germany, the Aussies and how their defenders were then exposed, then I thought the Ghana back-four lead by John Mensah did admirably in not allowing (many) more clear goalscoring chances.

Defensive midfielders: Arevalo Rios and Diego Perez - Uruguay

The workhorses on the Uruguay midfield has defended well this tournament and when the time has been right for attacking they've also been capable of fulfilling their roles requiring them to pass the ball well enough on to the attacking outlets. Not least Forlan of course, but Cavani's movement and performance as a whole also really picked up this round, doing a good job in many places.

Midfielder - Xabi Alonso - Spain



Before the very anticipated match between Spain and Chile somewhere in the second half came to a truce almost, Xabi Alonso had been a very important player.

Chile did show some restraint in their normal high pressure but what we saw was still what we've never seen before, a team meeting Spain up high defending (literally) mano e mano almost all over the pitch.

On the surface perhaps, it looked like a decent success. They actually in many ways prevented Spain's usual fluid possession game through talisman Xavi. And you could say that's an achievement in itself and its a shame we didn't get that intriguing battle for a full 90 minutes because of the Chile sending off and then a full blown stalemate.

But a sending off I think that's also a clear symptom of Bielsa's tactics against a really good opponent.

Defending against, maybe even far more talented individuals - individually instead of "their space" zonal marking collectively as team, just comes with a prize. In this game not least tons of freekicks.

Very often when a Chile defender lost their individual matchup we saw a foul, either out of need cause in a man to man defending scheme there isn't automatically a man occupying space behind. Instead that teammate is likely marking some other man, allowing potentially tons of free space for the opponent winning the individual matchup!
Or other times it would just be a foul as a result of being late against quick technical opponents getting ahead through a nice pass or good first touch.
To put it simply, in their individual marking, too many of the Chile markers were outmatched individually.

Where Alonso then comes in is taking advantage of that as best as possible under the (not to Spain's liking normally) circumstances and with Chile actually largely succeeding in the Xavi individual matchup Spain were hitting more passes from deep, more direct, than you usually see. You could say they were forced to, but I see it more as the natural order of things.

The best at those passers is Alonso and with Spain players put under pressure and marked high up their own half it makes sense to get the ball quickly instead to where the Spain players are man marked in the Chile half, and where a won matchup means oceans of space behind the Chile defender and a lost one nothing serious at all.
Of course very unlike a Chile matchup won in the Spain half where it would be giving away a serious goalscoring chance (to Chile's credit there were actually examples of this).

But enter the goal where an under pressure Alonso in his own half hits a good long pass towards Torres (somewhat harsh but Alonso able to hit that is this sequence's individual matchup number 1 won by Spain) who is marked up high up by a Chile defender, they get into a one on one race into symptomatic non occupied Chilean space. where I'm guessing the Chile keeper then doesn't like his defender's chances (this actually looks like a miscalculation when watching it again) and he comes out trying to clear the ball (meaning individual matchup number 2 won by Spain - even if conceded by the Chile keeper is the more accurate).

It lands in the free space where David Villa using his pace has gotten away from his marker (individual matchup number 3 won by Spain) and he strikes it brilliantly for the goal.

Serie A 2009/10 preview part 1

The above is the legendary intro to legendary Channel 4 program Football Italia presented by James Richardson who gave Serie A to the UK in the 90s, but must also have been used here where I'm from one way or the other, for one of our Serie A shows, since I'm quite certain I remember seeing it, and being from Denmark I've never watched neither Channel 4 or Football Italia.

Anyway I thought it would be a nice intro here as well, but lets get things started!

First with AC MILAN because I have what I think is quite an interesting follow up to some of my thoughts about the Juventus-Milan Berlusconi Trophy game where I wrote this about Ronaldinho:

One interesting thing though is that he wasn't playing his old role or the role previously occupied by Kaka at Milan.
Pato actually did this and was much more of a forward in this game bordering on attacking midfielder involved in buildup, than being a pure striker. He still made some great speedy runs though. Really he was kind of an everywhere man.
To a lesser extent the same was the case with new signing Huntelaar. He was seen a lot of other places than in the box, working really hard.
Personally I think Pato can be great in that role. His talent has no limit almost but to put Huntelaar out of his element like this just to accommodate a Ronaldinho not at his best anymore and not good enough to play the role he used to, having other people to do that, just so he maybe can be effective around the penalty area, WHERE probably the likes of Huntelaar and Pato would be more effective anyway.
It seems when Ronaldiho plays this is what they will do. The question then of course is how much he will play? We shall see.

Then yesterday I stumble upon this article from before that game http://www.goal.com/en/news/10/italy/2009/08/17/1446060/silvio-berlusconi-ac-milan-wont-buy-anyone-else-ronaldinho where Berlusconi has these quotes:

"Ronaldinho is the number one in the world, in midfield he is totally wasted," he suggested.

"If he was playing on the edge of the area, he would be able to punish the opposition more and score more goals. It is the most intelligent solution from a tactical point of view."

Hey Milan fans isn't it great that while Silvio may not pour millions of cash for transfers into your club anymore, at least he still provides great tactical insight!
Down your throats! Or at least the coach's.

Some things just never change and while the coach is new there is still the same old challenge of channeling Berlusconi's "insight" into something workable on the pitch.

The people who did this most successfully was of course legendary coaches Arrigo Sacchi and Fabio Capello. They both stayed strong to their particular formulas of winning and off the pitch Berlusconi could use that succes to build his career in politics.
Even now somewhat forgotten star coach Alberto Zaccheroni, stayed true to his unique 3-4-3 system and secured a scudetto.
At the first sign of things going bad Zaccheroni was sacked though. Following a 2001 Champions League quaterfinal knockout against Deportivo La Coruna, Berlusconi in the middle of a busy election campaign took time to make it very clear on live tv afterwards that he didn't agree with many of the tactical choices that were made. "Tonight we saw that I was not wrong" was his quote, and that Zaccheroni's days as the Milan coach were numbered.

A couple of years before that, even Fabio Capello had felt Berlusconi's wrath as soon as things weren't going well and ended his second spell with the club getting sacked.
Granted things were very ugly at that point but this was the most succesful coach in the world who after winning everything with Milan had gone to Spain and just won La Liga in his first spell there with Real Madrid.
A couple of years later Capello in perhaps his finest achievement lead Roma to the title. Then Juventus. Then Madrid again. This man was far from done and obviously a great coach but also someone probably not very likely to implement Berlusconi's tactical input on to the pitch.

Sure finishing with a goalscore of 36-15 in 34 games (drawing 12-losing 3) as Capello's Milan team amazingly did in 1993-1994 was acceptable when also winning the title, but the first sign of that kind of football not transformed into great results, surely Berlusconi himself will have the best ideas of what to do instead!
Capello however I'm sure would not feel that way. Zaccheroni didn't.
Sacchi actually was also sacked, probably doing exactly what he had done before just not with the same results, ending his brief second spell with club.

One man who kept lasting though was of course Carlo Ancelotti. He won (just) one Scudetto in 8 years.
Of course his great succes in the Champions League where the team should have won 3 trophies instead of the two they did win helped a lot, but with plenty of dry spells during his long run as the coach, I strongly suspect that an important part of his quite remarkable staying power had to do with his willingness to listen to Berlusconi's insight when things weren't going well.

So with that, enter rookie coach Leonardo and his already shown willingness to play Ronaldinho where Silvio feels it's right. That's encouraging right? Well for Leonardo's staying power it is.
But what about the team actually winning?

Despite the disasterous preseason hilarities of 8 succesive defeats making it tempting to predict doom and gloom I actually like this team and think it very well could be the one with the most upside.
I don't expect Nesta to stay healthy throughout but even some contribution from him makes the defense stronger and beside him young brazilian defender Thiago Silva looks really good. At least Berlusconi is somewhat right there (following the Berlusconi Cup he called them the best in the world)!

I already touched upon the Ronaldinho question which of course is huge. More important than even where he plays, is of course how he plays.
The last few years while still being one of the most skilled players on the planet he has been a real "teamkiller".
For some reason, and it must be poor physical condition, because he is not old, he just doesn't have much and definitely not the NEEDED movement without the ball anymore.
That he doesn't work when his team isn't in possession is not anything new of course. That's never been his role anyway. But when he never makes runs without the ball he is just too easy to mark.
And when he, say 4 or 5 times a game does make a run, then he is too out of air to do anything with it when he gets the ball.
He just doesn't seem able to keep up with the tempo at the highest level anymore, which is pretty pathetic for someone with that kind of talent when you think about it.

I don't think there is any doubt that a significant part of Barcelona's historic improvement last season was definitely the black hole that was Ronaldinho being gone from their left side.
And last season despite the odd spectacular display it was when Ancelotti finally benched Ronaldinho that results started to improve for Milan and disaster was averted.

The hope for Milan fans is that this year being World Cup year his motivation should be higher than ever to find form. The problem of course is that when it comes to Ronaldinho that really isn't saying much.

Another important factor is of course the midfield fitness and exactly how bad it will be? It's not realistic that players such as Gattuso and Pirlo will remain fit throughout but step one I feel in order to not be too negatively affected by that is to make Flamini a key player.
Like I wrote in the previous entry he is someone who now has surpassed Gattuso and Ambrosini and it will be something of a travesty if he still finds himself behind them in the pecking order. He needs to play. And not as a fullback.

Other than Huntelaar who's succes will depend a lot on the tactical decisions, a really good addition(and a young one) is Ignazio Abate. I watched him both for Torino and for the U-21 team and he is a very hard working versatile player who isn't really bad at anything.
He can defend some. He can attack. Has decent pace and is a good crosser of the ball.
Leonardo will be able to play him almost anywhere and he'll make a good contribution.
A young Gianluca Pessotto?

Well since the Milan part of this preview has already gone on for far too long, I'll just end it with saying that I think they're a very likely top 4 team (I thought this about Roma last year btw) and the only team with enough upside, especially on the attacking front, to be a realistic challenger to Inter and Juventus for the number 1 and 2 spots.
Mainly the number 2 spot it has to be said and in direct contest with the best teams I can see them struggling while perhaps play the midtable and bottomtable teams better than some of the other top 4 challengers.

Worth watching: Andrea Pirlo: Just enjoy him while you can. One of the most important and talented players of his generation who is getting up there in age, but his deep passing and through balls are as unique as ever.


But lets get some alphabetic order into this and next do ATALANTA, who also just happens to (hopefully) require a lot less words:

What first come to mind is that they've lost some good people.
Coach Luigi Del Neri has left for Sampdoria. Talented midfielder Luca Cigarini has been signed by Napoli and ever improving striker Sergio Floccari to Genoa who preferred him over u-21 star Robert Acquafresca sent to Atalanta.

Acquafresca has now basically been dumped both by Inter who included him in the Diego Milito deal and at least for now by Genoa.

I think he has some way to go as well. He is strong and I suppose has decent pace. He definitely have those right kind of striker instincts of making the right runs and is good in the air but technically and athletically there is easily room for drastic improvement.

The good news is that he will be playing with Atalanta legend Christiano Doni right behind him who has a great tendency to make those around him better.
Without knowing this team too well, factoring other team's improvements and a new coach without the same record of overachieving as his predecessor my feeling is that Atlanta will struggle to repeat their recent league finishes.

Worth watching: Andrea Consigli: Just how good will the former recent u-21 number one goalkeeper be?


BARI:

Antonio Conte led this team to promotion and the Serie B championship last season, then following Claudio Ranieri's Juventus dismissal seemed quite interested in taking over there. He was certainly a subject for some time, lets just say that, resulting in rumors of him quitting Bari.
The Juventus job of course instead permanently went to Ciro Ferrara but at Bari the damage seemed to have been done and to whatever extent it actually was mutual, Bari and Conte eventually parted ways.
I really don't know too much of this team. Looking at their squad they do have some players with Serie A experience. The new coach Giampiero Ventura is very experienced and has overachieved with clubs before.
For a team who has been out of Serie A for 8 years the sole objective will be survival.

Worth watching: Paulo Barreto: Tricky Brazilian striker who scored 23 goals in Serie B.
What can he do against much tougher competition this year?
Udinese always with abundance of talent didn't find him quite good enough a few years ago.
This is his chance to prove them wrong.

One of the teams Bari likely will battle with to stay alive is BOLOGNA who barely avoided the drop last season.
Experienced coach Giuseppe Papadopulo was brought in after the club, under Mihaljovic, had dropped into the relegation zone with just seven games remaining, and on the last day they secured survival with a win over Catania. And with it, Papadopulo, a contract extension.

In midfield they've lost veteran Sergio Volpi but has a decent crop of experienced defensively, if somewhat ordinary, responsible midfielders.
Up front is more interesting where they've just signed Marco Zalayeta who is still just 30 somehow and if he can win a starting place will feature in a somewhat retro attacking duo with last season's top scorer veteran striker Marco Di Vaio.
Zalayeta never really became the very good player that a lot of people thought he would when they first saw him for Juventus.
He was very athletic and impressive but never really developed much beyond that.
It's hard to say if his improvement stalled because of too many years with only sporadic appearances at the highest level, but it wasn't exactly like he impressed on his loan spells either.
For a striker he just never really became a good goalscorer which you could say is kind of important.

Di Vaio on the other hand always was, and as long as he still has some pace left probably will be.
The great workrate and the great shot is still there. As well as the ability in the box.

I don't think really he can be that good as a wide forward anymore however. Something he was very good at when he was younger. Even if his goalscoring sometimes suffered because of it. But in a duo upfront he can still be very effective and a reliable goal scorer. Something that in the end once again could save Bologna from relegation.

Worth watching: Pablo Daniel Osvaldo: He is a player who could really provide a spark if he can rebound from poor form/injuries.
A former U-21 international who didn't even get to score last season is still only 23 and maybe the most talented player in the squad.

The star for CAGLIARI is promising coach Massimiliano Allegri who led the team to a very suprising 9th place finish last year. That they did it after losing their first 5 games makes it even more amazing.
The star upfront Acquafresca is gone and replacing his contribution there is obviously a key challenge.
There are some serious competition for craziest club owner/president in the Serie A but Cagliari's Massimo Cellino at least keeps himself in the picture with comments like these on Aquafresca's replacement, Brazilian Nene:

I heard his name and I liked it: it intrigued me. So I looked him up and noticed that we share the same birthdate. I thought to myself that this was a sign of fate and decided to sign him up

Worth watching: Federico Marchetti: One of the best goalkeepers in the league last season and was highly praised by Gialuigi Buffon.
He definitely won't steal the starting spot from Buffon on the national team but he will try to earn a place in the squad for the World Cup with a repeat strong performance this year.


CATANIA:

Gone is their crazy coach Walter Zenga who has left for Palermo to join the craziest president Maurizio Zamparini.

While still coaching in Belgrade, Zenga read a book by a banker called Gianni Vio called "An Extra 30 Percent" which included ideas about properly capitalising on dead ball situations.
Zenga liked it so much that he hired Vio as his assistant manager to work exlusively on that in training.
One of the more standard ideas is for players to move from offside positions to create confusion. That's really nothing new.
But what was pretty unique was when Zenga (or Vio) had players in the penalty area drop their shorts in front of the opposing goalkeeper (TO MOON HIM!) as a distraction while the freekick was being taken! Against Torino that actually resulted in a Giuseppe Mascara goal.

If that was a highlight or lowlight of the season I'm not sure but while Zenga with very organized defensive football provided Catania with a good solid season, the real highlights were provided by the extraordinary wondergoals of Mascara. The first goal here is from 2006 but the other two the famous ones from this season. Click HD and ignore the horrible music:



That's also a nice end to this part 1. Part 2 (and if needed 3 as well) a little later.Oh and

Worth watching: The above

Tactical developments and focus on France

In the coming days I will be touching a great deal upon different tactics for different teams during EURO 2008.
In my last post I was slamming Croatia for their very poor and I think very dated tactics used against Austria.
To see where I'm sort of coming from, before I go into these things even further in future matches, I think it's a good idea, kind of as an introduction, to post some things I wrote that were part of an interesting debate I was having on a sports forum.

What started the discussion was us doing a modern premiership draft. 20 participants would pick one player each round and assemble their dream team so to speak.
Later if I can muster the engergy, we're in the 8th round so far and my team is Petrescu, Stimac, Evra, Essien, Fabregas, Parlour, Defoe and Di Canio, I want to go through, if not all the teams, then certainly the most interesting ones and give my views on them or maybe even rank them all.

But the first thing that came to my mind is how players today generally are better.
Even when going back "only" 10 years I think there is a clear difference.
Now I also think that the true elite players going back as far as 15-20 years, I'm thinking top 5 in the world here at their position, they would still be top players today.
You can even argue that with much more focused training these days and more advanced talent development, that an even larger group could do just fine.
The overall depth and the size of the talent pool is just a lot bigger now.

You'd also have to factor in how the tactics have changed and that's when I started thinking how many truly excellent players from previous years would have a really hard time fitting in on modern teams especially on similar positions to those they actually played at.
Simply because some of those positions don't even exist anymore. There are no classic wings in 4-4-2 systems and the playmaker, the number 10 type of player, has also been removed from the central midfield in a 4-4-2.

That was basically what lead to what I'm about to post, but first there are a few things that I forgot.
Firstly the modern 4-4-2 without classic wingers, without a playmaker in central midfield.
I missed touching upon Sacchi and his late 80s, early 90s Milan team which is very integral to that whole 4-4-2 pressing "revolution"

and how it slowly but gradually developed away from an attacking system to either, like with heyday AC Milan, a very balanced system creating great pressure, or as seen in recent years with a number of teams, a very defensive system where you could avoid taking risks.

Instead because the debate started with the question of how well unique players like David Ginola or Eric Cantona would fit in now, I made France my focus point and rambled on and on about the various tactical factors, there were others as well, leading to the rise of the France national team.

Sort of use that as a red line through various changes in football the last 10-12 years.
AC Milan and their Italian 4-4-2 will have to wait for another post but I think it's really interesting to compare it to, and the battle with, a more classic English 4-4-2 which probably didn't die on the highest level until the late 90s.

But here, pretty much unedited are some long forum posts, the second the most detailed about modern football developments and the specific roles for some well known different players:
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Cantona, and Ginola too for that matter, had both long been ruled completely out of that team cause they just didn't fit into a modern system build to win at the very highest level, ALTHOUGH at that time they WERE the best players... and that's the difficult thing when imagining older players playing now, at least for me, because where would they play?
Ginola simply could not play wing in a 4-4-2 now. Just impossible. Same with the young Giggs and every other great wing from the past. Not because they weren't truly great players but because any 4-4-2 with wings, think England during Euro 96 as one of the last dying examples of this, would get destroyed now.
It would have to be 4-3-3, or as we actually see a lot now someone who in the past would have been a wing, now instead playing behind the forward in a 4-4-1-1.

Another thing that happened as the 90s came to an end was the great playmaker being removed from the central midfield and actually out to where the wings used to roam.
It was basically the death of the classic number 10, instead replaced by very allround or just players who were good defensively.
In the central midfield it had always been one creative midfielder paired with one defensive.
Now instead it became two central defensive midfielders and you were able, thanks to the increased skill levels, to effectively attack directly with little risk using just 5 players.

Great number 10s like Laudrup and Hagi were suddenly found playing on the left side for their respective teams
and when trying to find a place for Lothar Matthäus, architect or dynamo of Germany's 1990 world cup win, both country and club positioned him as a good old fashioned German libero!

But back to Cantona. He would need to move around a lot more but with his vision and most importantly not being a player who needs a lot of space, which is so key now, I could see him playing very well for quite a few of the current best teams.
He would definitely fit in like I said at Manchester United with Rooney and Ronaldo but at Arsenal too.
Chelsea and Liverpool much less so but playing a similar role as Totti in Roma's unique striker absent system? I could see it.
Ibrahimovich at this point (note: under Mancini not really playing for Mourinho where he was more of a targetman playmaker) for Inter is a lot like Cantona was for United and there are a few teams in Spain where he would fit in too.

Some other posters rightly point out the unique circumstances playing their part in Cantona and Ginola not being part of the French team anymore come 97-98.

This is my more detailed response:

I guess I'm responding to the both of you and since I find these discussions very interesting this will probably be long.
I just hope it will stay somewhat coherent and maybe even relatively on topic.

Well first of all, when I said long gone from the team I did of course mean what happened in the 94 World cup qualification and the subsequent team and system, France then started building from what was a solid, but also very unspectacular Euro 96 team.

Yes the unique personalities of Cantona and Ginola definitely did play a part in them not being part of the team anymore. Absolutely.
So did the emergence of an amazing talent in Zidane, but who it should be noted did not have a good Euro 96 with many seeing Djorkaeff as the real future of the team. And few people in the immediate aftermath it's my impression saw Zidane as the new Michel Platini that he was being billed as.

This partly because France was playing a system that wasn't very good for someone who rapidly was turning into the ideal modern attacking player.
It actually took the vision of Marcello Lippi at Juventus to create the role where Zidane could show that he was the new best player in the world.


At Bordeaux and in his early national team days he was often misused as one of the front two in a 4-4-2 like system which at this time was still most often a very attacking system (see my ramblings about wingers) and not the emphasized defensive systems we're seeing used by many teams now.
The "new very defensive 4-4-2" emerged, is my theory, not to sidetrack this too much, to counter the flexible possesion based type of systems who had been dominating since France 98 and seen in full flow at Euro 2000 and of course at Real Madrid in club competitions.

But back to Zidane himself.

Don't get me wrong, he was still very good, would be in any system, but the full potential of a player in his prime with the best technique ever seen coupled with a workrate never seen from a supposed classic number 10, PLAYING very often against old fashioned full of holes 4-4-2's employing too many men in attack often generously handing away great amounts of space, having that star "just" play as a forward wasting time among other things making deep forward runs complementing a lone striker and the winger, the players that he very much instead should be the one setting up and USING from further behind, that was just a waste of unlimited potential.

Marcello Lippi being the genius that he is in putting players complementing each other optimally was able to spot that.
Jacquet realized it too and of course in hindsight it's very easy for everyone to see!
But at that particular time it really wasn't.
Instead generally speaking if you were an emerging midfield talent, you were either a very good defensive midfielder or a wing type of player or at least placed there if you were seriously lacking defensively.
Prime Zidane of course was neither a defensive midfielder or someone suited for the wing and thankfully very soon instead he was the centerpiece in 4-2-1-2-1, or 4-2-3-1 if you will, systems for France and 4-3-1-2 or similar for Juventus being a modern day playmaker.
Or sometimes 3-5-2's becoming 5-3-2s when defending.
Lippi combining old style catenaccio with the modern game. Carlos Ancelotti when he took over Juventus also went from formerly being a very conservative manager at Parma to trying new systems because of Zidane and would of course later do a similar thing with the deep-lying tactical role of former forward Andrea Pirlo which in many ways played a huge part in how some results have gone in recent years. But that's for another time.

The overall point being that flexible systems were being created in order to optimally succeed and were working great basically until very all round and (even more so) very fit players and great athletes of the huge global talent pool, more than ever, in new very disciplined 4-4-2s and 4-5-1s and even new 4-3-3s under Jose Mourinho started to make possession football look naive on a regular basis.

I can almost visualize Mourinho spending a few years working under attacking genius Van Gaal at Barca and in his head scheming and steaming and perhaps not least realizing, how to effectively counter superior technical skills and attacking football.

And I should say what he was seeing was "just" Van Gaals modern total football played by a wave of new great athletes in Ajax and then great technical players at Barca.
The Barca fans I remember, were very unhappy about Van Gaals strict systems, and classic dutch speedster wings.
I'm guessing they wanted the emerging possession football. Not this albeit attacking when functioning at least also tightly balanced total football morph.

Ajax style attacking football in many ways in the current game had already been exposed by Capello and Milan in the landmark 1994 Champions Cup final humiliating Johan Cryuff's very much idealistic dream team and when new great athletes in Ajax struck back so to speak, briefly in 95 against a very defensive Milan team, they were put in their place by Lippi's very modern Juventus team the following years and I don't think (if it was in fact that even) we've seen truly successful old style total football with classic wings since.

In Spain Van Gaal did win a couple of league titles but this was still pre 2000 and generally for a good team with good players also a good time for almost any kind of attacking non classic 4-4-2 system featuring very good players.
And of course it had Pep Guardiola left from the dream team still controlling the midfield better than anyone, but as soon as he got older and eventually exited, it was the more flexible possession attacks of Real Madrid and La Coruna that took over and of course the other side, a new school of calculated, coming from Benitez Valencia team as well.


I think recent good examples of flexible possession football the last few years getting exposed by balanced defensive teams has been what Valencia did in Spain, Liverpool in European competition, under Houllier and later Benitez just in from Valencia, South Korea doing as well as they did in the World Cup, Greece with much inferior talent winning Euro 2004, Argentina DESPITE the best talent failing again and again, Brazil UNLIKE Argentina actually MAKING compromises and Chelsea while employing the Mourinho style catching up to the dominating attacking football of Manchester United and Arsenal in England.

Now with that out of the way, back to Ginola and Cantona and how they would or could have fitted into the new France.

You say if they were good enough they could adapt to any system.
Ginola, who is one of my all-time favorite players, and Cantona until his early retirement were at least up to 1998 where new great players emerged, without a doubt top 4-5 players for France.
Ginola was simply sensational for Newcastle and in my opinion even better than later when he finally won player of the year while playing for Tottenham.

Cantona had become a God among United fans and turned from a good forward to a great playmaker sort of player.
Not like Zidane mind you who by 1997 could do it anywhere on the field, but a bit like Ibrahimovic now and to a certain extent someone like Berbatov, meaning very few were better with the ball in the final third.

The point I'm getting at, is that I just don't believe, no matter their personalities and the stories about conflicts with the federation and other players, like Deschamps (the water carrier!), that a team building towards a World Cup which they're hosting, on the surface like you say, desperate for offense following the drought that was Euro 96, IF they thought these great players, still seen by many as their BEST players, could improve their team in any way, would not find a solution, bite the bullet and make them part of that team at almost any cost.

Except that is of course for the very special cost that I'm arguing, them actually making the team worse!
In your post you point to the reason being personality-wise.
I pointed towards them not fitting into a new system and style of play.
It may very well just be a combination of both but as I see it the players that were used in the buildup, and in theory they COULD have brought Cantona back following the ban, were ultimately used because of football reasons and because they were thought of as players who would do a better job. Within that new system.

In that system Cantona could not have played the role of Zidane. Lack of range, fitness and workrate would make that impossible.
Then the alternative would have been a 4-4-2 with Cantona being behind the striker making even an ordinary one a good one.
But that would leave no place for Zidane, except for somewhere where his full potential once again wasn't in use and where Djorkaeff, Henry, Pires and arguably even the ordinary Diomede could do an optimal job, and the whole thing would become very similar to Euro 96 just with Cantona instead of Zidane.
With Zidane at this point in a flexible system showing amazing things at Juventus, this was already an utopian thought.

If it was 6 years earlier Cantona could actually have played as the lone striker in front of Zidane and the wing type players, better than Dugarry or Guivarch anyway, but not better than the emerging Trezequet and of course at this point he had turned into very different player.
A better one but also a slower one ill suited for a striker role.

Then as far as I can see that leaves one option and it's the only realistic one.
Playing Cantona as one of the two midfielders/wings other than the two defensive ones which was always Deschamps coupled with Petit or Vieira.
And it should be said that the two defensive midfielders and the playmaker were untouchable in this system so it would have to be at the expensive of one of the other two. That's just a fact.

Now the problem is that those other two were players creating width and they had to be effective at the wing something which Cantona definitely wasn't a specialist at.
Eventhough it wasn't the most important thing for this type of attack, where would the crosses come from?
Trezequet or Dugarry, if it were one of those playing as striker, were both very good in the air and would need some service. With Cantona that would be a problem.
The players actually used were Henry who at this point was a very good wing and who did a great job.
Pires who was a very good alternative and someone like Karembeu who was having succes at a very similar role in Real Madrid and who actually provided defensive help too again something which neither Cantona or Ginola, who of course would have had to play one of those positions too, could do.

The whole point of this system was to move away from a 4-4-2 system that at this point had either become a system full of holes or the inflexible system they had used in EURO 96 unable, even with Zidane, to create any kind of attack.
Cantona and Ginola (who incidentally could work in a 4-4-2 and did but for any
team with Zidane on it that system had simply become the past) I feel would just create more holes and generally just lack the needed speed or in Ginola's case acceleration because he WAS godspeed WITH the ball, but on a team controlled by Zidane with the advantage that comes with it of making great direct attacks, neither of them could make the runs at the needed speed to make the optimal plays that those playing instead was capable of.
Someone like Ginola very often just slowed things down and then proceeded to just create magic on his own.
That's all good but it's far from ideal in this system.
Who would he create for anyway? There is only one striker and the two defensive midfielders are rarely going forward. Both things very unlike what was taking place at Newcastle at the time.
Making the deep forward run is not exactly number one on Zidane's priority list which then leaves only fullbacks making very selective runs and the other midfielder occupying the other wing.

Far far from ideal compared to what France succeeded in doing in 98 and then in full flow, until the final, at Euro 2000.



Even Djorkaeff the least wing type player of those mentioned, still if you factor all plusses and minuses was a better solution in the french 4-2-1-2-1 than either Ginola or Cantona.
Similar passing to Cantona. Not as good at crossing and creating width as Ginola but still much better at that than Cantona.
Good pace at this point in his career on the first meters and able to make great forward runs into the penalty area where he was also a very good finisher.
AND on top of this he possessed a very good work rate with responsible defensive awareness. Something hammered into his brain in Italy.
Needless to say, neither Ginola or Cantona possessed that.
Just a very all-round, very flexible player who fitted very well into that particular flexible system.
Ginola and Cantona just didn't and that was my original point.

There may have been, no there were, a lot of other causes having to do with them not getting to be a part of this team and its rise but I'm just saying that even though they were great footballers, football reasons played a part too and if France thought they could have helped the team footballwise, not hurt it, they could have made them playing their part actually happen. Made it happen.



My belief is that Jacquet and Lemerre, who later just could not let go of this system even when it was falling apart in Korea, he loved it so much, had realized that within this new, I used the word modern system that they were going to go with, Ginola and Cantona, the country's most famous players just were not optimal.

Like Marcello Lippi says: " The best players don't always make the best team."
The France team was a great example of just that.