3-0 Siena...... that theres a golazo. This coach is as good as gone. Thing is.....im not sure Chievo has the talent regardless who is in charge.
Siena score again... And it ends. 4-1. Chievo got their face thoroughly kicked today. Good luck, Bradley.
well that was stupid, id take the Revs vs Whitecaps any day of the week over that crap. Both of them would probably take Chievo to the mat too. Siena is not a good team. Chievo is REALLY bad for them to look that good. Im gonna go off Michael performances on your guys's reports, you guys are taking the bullet next time. Serie A standard has dropped big time in such a short period of time; pretty cataclysmic. Cesena, Lecce, Parma, Bologna, and Novara had better be wretched for Chievos sake.
They really need to try something new because their attack is so nonexistent and toothless that it is constantly putting so much pressure on the defense. Playing that 4-3-1-2 you really need a dynamic player as the 1 and Cruzado/Sammarco have not impressed there. Bradley was playing some nice quick passes and switching play but his teammates couldn't do anything with the space. I'd still prefer to see him in a role where he can go forward, he doesn't win the ball enough in that CDM role, but he didn't have a chance to do anything on 3 of the 4 goals.
http://www.gazzetta.it/Calcio/07-09-2010/gli-stipendi-serie-a-cesena-711054994957.shtml This is the list of Chievo's salaries from last season. Pelessier, the captain and the occasional Italian international, is making about $700K net (or ~ $1.3M gross) and he seems to be the only one above $1M gross. With their total payroll around $18M, it's roughly equal to the better paying English Championship sides and lower than the top teams in Holland, Greece and Turkey (to say nothing of Russia and Ukraine). Borussia Möbchengladbach's payroll is about $50M, so this is a huge step down in quality. With the exception of Pelessier, it's doubtful that any Chievo player can make it in the Bundesliga as a starter. In other words, you get what you paid for.
yeah, i had a bad, bad feeling about this one from the getgo. It had to be a lifestyle decision for him and his wife and/or the only offer that came through. Just gotta hope Bradley impresses enough to get picked up by another squad in the likely event Chievo go down. Even BMG when they were struggling were more pleasant on the eyes than this has been. That was an unfortunate bridge to burn to say the least.
he is from what i saw, theyre using him strictly as a DM though. They dont seem to let him go up at all. His situation reminds me of Benny with the Revs. good player, and you can tell he is a class above the players around him. Like Benny, Michael's talent is wasted here IMO.
I always thought his goal was to play in the serie a from the beginning. Even interviews with him when he was with the u-20s and stuff showed him really enamoured with Serie A. Premier league would have been nice, but it just seemed to me like italy was bradley's first love, so to speak
Yea, he really sat back this game, even after they got down 1, 2 or 3 goals. I remember him venturing out of his deep position only twice, with one time him spraying the ball out of bounds, and another time with a nice feed to a central attacker. I was very surprised he didn't jump into attack more, especially once Chievo went behind. Benny became more influential in his time with the Revs as time went on this season, so there's still hope for MB.
in an ideal world, Napoli sells Hamsik off to Man U or Man City for big bucks next offseason and Bradley is brought in as the ideal replacement. Id love to see that. Because of all the games ive seen played in the serie a the past two years, Napoli has been at least relatively enjoyable. Fiorentina wouldve been a nice fit too.
When they were down 4-1 he got forward quite a bit, not making runs into the box, but playing in the opponents half almost like a playmaker. Despite the loss he must have enjoyed getting the chance to see that much of the ball.
Siena is a city of 55k with no metropolitan area to speak of. Chievo Verona is an afterthought (nowhere near Hellas in popularity) in a city of 250k with a metropolitan area of 750k. Boston is a city of 600k+ with a metro area of 4.5M. Vancouver is a city of 575k with a metro area of 2.1M. I've never seen a Vancouver game but the Revolution would never get near Serie A if they played in Italy so I think Siena and Chievo are doing ok. Both of them have spent more time in Serie A than not over the last several years and I think both would stand more than a pretty good chance of staying out of the cellar in MLS... If you guys had promotion/relegation neither Vancouver nor New England would even be in MLS. Chievo Verona plays very negative in Serie A but there's no way they would play that way against New England.
Benny's talent has been wasted everywhere he goes I guess - Hamburg / Derby / Denmark / Revs. MB is on a higher trajectory than Benny, but regressing from Gladbach to Chievo, not to mention the Villa Daliance. Needless to say, top quality players force themselves into the side, become dead certain starters and on-the-field leaders responsible for the club's success or failure ... and/or move up to bigger clubs. I like Michael and he's a good player - in particular, a standout with Nats in spots in South Africa - but there are hundreds of good players plying their trade in Europe.
No way would Napoli consider Bradley as a replacement for Hamsik. He simply does not have the same kind of offensive capabilities.
I thought Bradley was linked pretty good with Napoli in the rumor mills wasnt he?? Hes a good player, and I remember the Herenveen days. hes got the same kind of offensive capabilities if given a chance. I think those of us who watched the game today were all in agreement, it was that bad. 4-1......to Siena. They were played off the park. they had no offensive capabilities whatsoever. there was no backbone to them; they were an amoeba without a shape. They were ravaged for it. Revs actually know what they are doing on offense (were as defense, not so much). Id say 9 times out of 10 if the revs played that Chievo team ive seen the past 3 weeks, it finishes 0-0 and people quit watching soccer as a result of sitting through it. Me and a few other posters have talked about it recently, but there is more pleasure in watching MLS these days than watching the Serie A; even the Juves, AC Milans, Romas these days. Im legitimately curious how the Galaxy, Sounders, RSL, Union would do against them. I think it they would do very...very well.
He was also "linked" with Roma too, yet he ended up at Chievo. I think his agent (& Borussia Moengladbach) probably floated those rumors to up his market value. Hamsik and Napoli are a level that is much higher than Michael's talent. Chievo is a good level for him.
Awesome analysis as usual. Thank you. I think Bradley was pretty much a 90-minute starter in the Bundesliga at 21 and 22 and then the first half of last season (when his Kicker ratings were pretty good, despite the benching before the winter break), so I guess he's regressed a lot since then...
You're entitled to your opinion, of course. The first 45 minutes in the Bologna game on Wednesday, they should've been up 3 or 4-0. Couldn't score, despite many nice attacking moves. They were pretty solid if not good in wins over Genoa and Napoli. Today, I thought was a "when it rains it pours" game. All of Siena's goals were top notch. If Moscardelli's free kick, which was tipped off the crossbar, had gone in, I think 1-1 would've been a fair score at half. In the second half, the wheels came off, especially after Siena's third goal, an unstoppable free kick. Chievo finished 11th last year. Until this bad week (three losses in 8 days) they weren't looking bad at all. They probably weren't as good as they looked three weeks ago or as bad as they looked today.