OK, so they are back in Serie A after a long absence, had a fairly distinguished time in Serie A, and are one of my personal favorites due to being listed first in all those Panini sticker albums I attempted to complete so fanatically back in the blissful days of early '80's childhood, so it's time to dedicate a thread to Ascoli. First item of discussion: what moves have they done on the transfer market? They were pretty good for a Serie B side last year, but have they prepared adequately for the upcoming Serie A campaign? I know they landed the defender Comotto via Roma. What else? Post any Ascoli related thoughts, news, etc. here.
Ascoli has the privilege of replacing Atalanta as the FIRST team in Serie A! At least alphabetically. Let's hope they don't mimic Atalanta's results from last season. Here are Ascoli's pickups so far this summer, according to the league site: ANTONAZZO Angelo GROSSETO TEMPORANEO 27/06/2005 BELINGHERI Luca GENOA PARTECIPAZIONE 20/07/2005 BOCCOLINI Alessandro ALESSANDRIA DEFINITIVO 16/07/2005 CARBONE Francesco CHIEVO PARTECIPAZIONE 07/07/2005 CARIELLO Alfredo CHIEVO PARTECIPAZIONE 14/07/2005 CORDOVA Nicolas LIVORNO TEMPORANEO 22/07/2005 DEL GROSSO Cristiano GIULIANOVA PARTECIPAZIONE 16/07/2005 FERRANTE Marco BOLOGNA DEFINITIVO 16/07/2005 FOGGIA Pasquale MILAN TEMPORANEO 16/07/2005 GIAMPAOLO Federico PESCARA DEFINITIVO 20/07/2005 PERULLI Giampietro VITERBO DEFINITIVO 16/07/2005 I suppose Ferrante is the most recognizable name on this list. Comotto and perhaps other recent moves aren't listed here yet. I especially wish Ascoli good luck in their first match of the season vs Milan!!
Giampaolo is a familiar name too (didn't think he would ever leave Pescara). Del Grosso sounds familiar but maybe it's not the same guy. Good point, Sue. Best wishes to Ascoli for their season opener! Also, good to know that another generation of Italian kids can have Ascoli as the first team in their Panini album...assuming they still collect those these days.
Two more arrivals - Adani and Guana. But there seems to be some problem between management and the coach, Giampaolo. Oh, the other arrival from Roma was keeper Zotti. Another player not listed above is Domizzi from Sampdoria.
Ascoli's manager Marco Giampaolo, is a brother to ferderico. The other signing is Quagliarella from Torino, the 22 year old forward. He was a ok player last year for Torino, but he's a good player two seasons back he played for chieti in C1 and score 17 goals in 32 matches.
Oh, and olive ascolane (Ascoli olives) are awesome, so that's another point in favor of Ascoli. Green olives stuffed with ground beef and spices, then breaded. Good stuff. Great appetizer.
It looks like Ascoli will play a defensive game with fast counter-attacks by their wingers. Ascoli is stacking the defence, but I would like to see more midfielders signed, even though the midfield of last season could do the job.
Yeah, I guess a small, newly-promoted club would have to play relatively defensive football, unfortunately. Either way, as long as Ascoli holds its own it's all good.
I reckon that they do better than the other Marche team, Ancona but I'm only judging that on previous history. Whenever Ascoli were in the Serie A, they would usually do better than anything Ancona would do. Judging from that list, Ferrante will be their most dangerous player. Forza Ascoli! Kick AC Milan's culo! Does anyone know any of Ascoli's starting line-ups from the 1980s and 1990s? I would like to know more about them.
Ancona was the only other Marche team to play in Serie A, and I'm glad to say they failed. La regina della marche siamo noi!!! 14 years in A now going to be 15, Ancona only a few. The province of Ascoli Piceno has two other teams Sambenedttese and Fermana who are both in C1. In regards to the squad 80's & 90's, my first game of Ascoli I saw was on TV with the old SBS highlights show, when I was 5 with my Dad in 1992. So I can't help you there. But I can tell you that Ascoli has never had a strong squad, just good managers (Mazzone, started his carrer with Ascoli) and a team which played as a team. Biefhoff started his italian carrer with Ascoli. Also Walter Novellino played for Ascoli I think.
Managers Marco Giampaolo Collaboratore Tecnico Prima Squadra Massimo Silva Allenatore Responsabile Prima Squadra Keepers Carlo Zotti Ferdinando Coppola Alessandro Boccolini Defence Daniele Adani Angelo Antonazzo Francesco Carbone Gianluca Comotto Riccardo Corallo Mirko Cudini Cristiano Del Grosso for Serie b campaign Maurizio Domizzi Maurizio Lauro Midfield Luca Belingheri Mattia Biso Alfredo Cariello Nicolas Cordova Claudio Costanzo Domenico Cristiano Michele Fini Roberto Guana Andrea Parola Giampietro Perrulli for serie b campaign Nicola Zanini Attack Marco Ascenzi Corrado Colombo Marco Ferrante Emanuele Ferraro Federico Giampaolo for serie B campaign Fabio Quagliarella New players marked italics The new signings made in the past week Possible signings MUZZI (LAZIO) F. COUTO (LAZIO) FIRMANI (LAZIO) LORENZI (ATALANTA) SCARLATO (TERNANA) MODESTO (PALERMO) ORLANDONI (PIACENZA) FLORO FLORES (PERUGIA) MASCARA (PERUGIA) DONATI (MILAN) ZAMPAGNA (MESSINA) DONI (SAMPDORIA)
A lot of those names sound very familiar. Ferdinando Coppola...was he the Siena keeper that was involved in some sort of match fixing?
Coppola was never on Siena. He probably sounds familiar to you because he spent the 95/96-00/01 seasons at Napoli (Although I think he was a backup to Francesco Mancini in those mid-90 Serie A years). He's been at Ascoli the past two seasons.
Something told me he had a connection with Napoli (then again, Coppola is a Neapolitan name anyway)! Those years are a big blur to me...too many ******** players, coaches, etc. who disgraced us with their mere presence in Naples. After a while, they all start looking the same. Not saying that Coppola was crap necessarily since he seldom played anyway, but those years are all kinda the same to me...
Now we're talkin'! We should totally start a NSR Italian food thread around here...though I think it would max out within a couple of days.
Bierhoff and Polster both played for Ascoli but before Polster played with Ascoli, he was with Torino. Novellino played for Catanzaro and Milan but I'm not sure about Ascoli. I loved that old SBS highlights show. It was on at 10:30 Sunday morning, Melbourne time and it was the best soccer on TV for me. Too bad that these days, the World Game has a really bad format so the amount of Serie A highlights are very limited.
Novellino played for Ascoli, and even scored 2 goals against Milan for them on December 11, 1983: December 11 1983, Ascoli-Milan 2-4: 2 Novellino, 3 Damiani (M), Verza (M).
It looks like Ascoli are starting their second string team, due to the fact that the new players have only been at the club for about a week.
I want to mention some players from the past who played from Ascoli. There's Dell' Oglio played in the late 80s for Ascoli and he played for Fiorentina in the 1990 UEFA Cup Final. In his last season for Ascoli, he scored 3 goals. Not bad for a defender. Pusceddu played for a few clubs. I know that he also played for Lazio. Walter Casagrande was a Brazilian international who played at Mexico 86. He helped Torino to reach the 1992 Uefa Cup Final. Carannante went on to play for Napoli and won the 1989 UEFA Cup with the Napolitani. Cvetkovic had a great campaign with Red Star in the 1986-87 European Cup season and that must have attracted Ascoli. He scored 6 goals in the 1988-89 season and in 1989-90 he scored 7 goals. Bruno Giordano was past his best when he went to Ascoli. He was very good with Lazio but he was involved in that matchfixing scandal in 1980 and that was his downfall. He was Ascoli's leading goalscorer in 1989 with 10 goals. Giovannelli was a regular for Ascoli for a few seasons in the late 80s.
my comments from the milan thread I didn't see the second half, because RAI cut the game off. But the only real chances that Milan had were off free kicks, maybe if the game wasn't so slow, the Ascoli defenders would not have got to them. However if the surface was not like that, there would off been a few excellent chances for Ascoli on the counter, thats how Ascoli did so well last season. Not bad for Ascoli's Serie B team, but now a new team will be put on the park, thats been together for a week, unlike coppola, cudini, lauro, cristiano, and fini, who played with each other for at least a season. Foggia and Ferrante were brought to Ascoli at the start of the transfer season, looking forward to the Serie B season. Look at how well Foggia played in that first half, and I think he's a product of the Milan primavera.