https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/45269974 La Liga's agreement to play games in the US does not go over well with some players. Anyone know the details of the deal?
Of course, speaking of competitiveness, Kicker ran a photoessay today on how long it's been for each team since their last win over Bayern.... http://www.kicker.de/news/fussball/...eg-gegen-die-bayern_wer-wie-lange-wartet.html Note: I'd wait a bit before looking at it as Kicker seems to be down at the moment (with the start of the new season today).
Well, the players at Chelsea are so much worse than at Napoli that he probably does have to have them sit back deeper to not be completely inept Though I would point out that the official EPL site and the official Chelsea site have it as a 4-3-3.
Yeah, I saw that. I was looking at the ESPNFC tweet. When you look at the players listed as the 4 behind Morata, which two were considered forwards? Guarantee Morata will be playing in front of any of those 4, maybe Pedro playing equally as high. Edit: Hazard. With Kante on the outside. I bet it doesn't look like that for long, if at all.
85-95% of articles on Chelsea and Sarri speak to a 4-3-3. But because I mentioned it we'll have this cunning tactical breakdown from stanger every week of the season. What a bizarre, unhealthy obsession.
EL FLACCOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! DAJE!!!! It's good because Roma have looked like hot shit the rest of the 10 minutes so far.
********in nightmare. I had a co-worker pop in my office and we give up 2 goals...and now a 3rd. Brutal...
Well, that game was ridiculous. Stay tuned, for sometime tomorrow morning you all will be blessed with hangthadj's Serie A Week in Review post. l'amore di uno.
What a second week of calcio in Italy. 33 goals scored in the 10 games over the weekend. The most of the 5 major leagues. Some of that due to comically bad defending, but that happens everywhere. Where to begin.... Napoli vs Milan - Possibly the game of the weekend. Hours after former Napoli manager says "at 2-0 the game is over in Italy" Napoli storms back for the 3-2 win. Ancellotti has the team humming and when you can bring Dries Mertens off the bench you have a helluva team. Milan fell apart. Rino has to bring in Caldara for Musacchio at the back. He's twice the player. Juve vs Lazio - Typical professional win for Juve. Lazio never really bothered them. Since both teams can't lose at least Lazio did. Roma vs Atalanta - Where to begin. I was excited for an all Italian midfield of Cristante, Pellegrini, and De Rossi, and then Cristante and Pellegrini were awful and taken off at the half. Roma went down 3-1 to Atalanta's b team, which is a very Roma thing to do. What's not very Roma is to find a way back. Pastore, Kluivert, Nzonzi....Di Francesco has so many more options than last year. He needs to get it right for more than a half though. Inter vs Torino - This made me so damn happy. Spalletti's all stars crumble after holding a 2-0 lead. Some really untypical mistakes from Handonovic in goal. But more it's the same Inter that crumbles as soon as things go against them. Spalletti can talk all he wants about mentality, but his body language is woeful on the bench the moment things start to go wrong and it seeps into his team. Most surprising is that we are two games into the season and Icardi is yet to score. The rest - I probably underrated Fiorentina in the preseason. Yes it was only Chievo, yes it was a backup keeper. 6 goals is six goals. Giovanni Simeone is gonna be star. Pipo Inzaghi is still a bad coach at Bologna. Spal only scores beautiful goals, and 6 points in the first two games will go some way to keep them away from relegation. Good to see the Genoa teams back in action, but a pretty blah return for Sampdoria who I may have overrated in preseason. Losing Zapata will hurt them and it's hard to see Quagliarella duplicating last season. Week 3 starts Friday with Roma vs Milan! DAJE ROMA DAJE!!!
My niece may be going to Florence on one of the Kent State programs--hope she gets to see Fiorentina (it *is* advertised as one of the benefits of going--but she may be there too late for the season).
I loved Florence. I think one of my favorite calcio things about Florence was the stickers of anti-hunchback stickers or "zona anti-gobbizzata" signs that let you know that no Juventus fans were welcome in certain bars or restaurants.
Your Champion's League draw. Group A: Atletico Madrid, Borussia Dortmund, Monaco, Club Brugge. Group B: Barcelona, Tottenham, PSV Eindhoven, Inter Milan. Group C: Paris St-Germain, Napoli, Liverpool, Red Star Belgrade. Group D: Lokomotiv Moscow, Porto, Schalke, Galatasaray. Group E: Bayern Munich, Benfica, Ajax, AEK Athen. Group F: Manchester City, Shakhtar Donetsk, Lyon, Hoffenheim. Group G: Real Madrid, Roma, CSKA Moscow, Viktoria Plzen. Group H: Juventus, Manchester United, Valencia, Young Boys.