Rebuilding The Azzurri for Euro 2024 and beyond

Donadoni??

 

Actually, I got to meet Roberto Donadoni in 1996-97 when he played in NY.

He was a real nice guy but he couldn't do anything in MLS and was mostly lost.

Walter Zenga , Beppe Galderisi and Marco Donadel did ok.

Others like Andrea Pirlo, Giuseppe Rossi, Antonio Nocerino, Marco DiVaio, Bernardo Corradi and Sandro Nesta seemed out of place.

 

DiVaio in 2013 with Montreal did well and scored a lot of goals but when he and Nesta came to San Jose, they didn't do much.

I remember speaking to them and kept yelling Totti's name and they looked up at me and smiled as they were Laziali through thick and thin.

DiVaio especially never got Lazio out of his heart.

In 2014 DiVaio was injured a lot and then he retired.

 

We’re stuck with Jorginho. He’s the clown midfielder we always seem to have to have on the team. I’d never thought I’d despise a player more than Marchisio. Somehow Jorginho makes me long for Aquilani or Ambrosini.

 

who the hell hates Marchisio? LOL he was solid

 

I am not the biggest Jorginho fan but clown midfielder he is not. Arguably our best over the last 4 years and he had some pretty good competition

 

If anything Verrati and even Barella were not very good over the last qualifying games

 

My question to you guys is what will our back 4 look like in 4 years??
My hope is the following:

CB Alessandro Bastoni CB Giorgio Scalvini
LB.Destiny Udogie/Leonardo Spinazzola RB.Davide Calabria

 

https://football-italia.net/bremer-will-become-eligible-to-play-for-italy/

Probably will be Bremer with Bastoni, another Brazilian. Bonucci, Acerbi, Toloi need to be filtered out at this point. lets go with Bastoni, Bremer, Scalvini, Casale, Mancini and Romagnoli(If he bounces back)

 

Why all the buts? Giovinco sucked for Juventus but won titles as best player in the league with Toronto. What's to question?

 

I wouldn't put much stock into the game vs Arentina. It's really just a high powered friendly.

 

No buts at all.

You reinforced my initial point and I'm in agreement.

Giovinco did in fact win at TFC but was never a superstar and only a reserve at Juve.

 

So who said them?

but you contradicted yourself by suggesting that big stars did nothing, while a bench warmer won the league. Just saying.

 

No my point was , superstars don't really win in MLS but yes, players no one ever knew or heard of do.

Ibra , Henry scored goals and won nothing. Same with so many others like Pirlo, Lampard, Villa. Schweinsteiger , Lotha Mattheus , Branco, Drogba ,Wayne Rooney and Donadoni.

Insigne was a better player than Giovinco was but no one outside of Italy or Italian fans really know him. I still have my doubts TFC will win anything without signing better players.

 

a lot of it has to do with the level of the league. a guy like Pirlo is only so useful if the plugs around him on his team can't comprehend what a genius like him will / can do.

whereas a guy like Giovinco can dominate cause he can do it all on his own. IE - take the ball.. take guys on and score... not so relient on link up play.

If lets say we take the 2006 version of Luca Toni.. coming off a world cup win and 31 goal season with Fiorentina. He wouldn't be as likely to dominate as he isn't getting the same service he would get in Europe

 

So only European bench warmers can win in MLS, or bench players that have other good players on the team as well?

 

I read so much about "the level of the league": but I’m not sure I believe all of that.

The claims on how MLS is an inferior league that I read all the time are exaggerated. It can’t always be that everyone else sucks that's why these elite players can't succeed over here.

I worked with Fiorentina when they were in the C2 and I know how difficult it is to play there. Still no one is saying MLS is the Serie A, La Liga, EPL or the Bundesliga but it is still a good league.

If these guys are true champions, they should be dominating or excelling in a lesser league but they hardly do and more often than not, they end up failing.

Top clubs in MLS are much better than any Serie D or C and I'm betting they can hold their own with most Serie B clubs. It’s far from an easy pub league as many claim.

We know there is no relegation promotion like in Europe but that doesn’t always mean or make clubs stronger in the long run.

Games are maybe exciting at the end of the season and all but most teams that get relegated are having to sell off their players. Sometimes many teams implode and go down to C and then D. No team can compete financially or withstand the grueling traveling MLS clubs do.

Players in Italy take a train 25-50 km from one town to another, playing regional teams in the winter or spring. No club ever travels 2000 miles coast to coast, playing in the grueling heat of the summer months. If anything, Serie C is only regional, played from fall to spring and none of their northern club takes a plane south of anywhere that far.

MLS teams fly from TO back to LA to SF to Dallas or from Houston to Vancouver to Florida to Colorado and Utah. Roma flew from Rome to Tirana and it only took 85 minutes.

The majority of clubs in Italy and across Europe are also in constant disarray with poor, crooked owners and are and they are all fighting for their lives. With the exception of Juve, Inter, Milan, Roma, Lazio and Fiorentina most clubs are either getting hammered or going up and down then even belly up.

Not sure how many people remember Carpi, Novara or Zamparini’s Palermo in Serie A. Looking back, or in the span of time, that was not that long ago. Now each team is in Serie D.

Parma used to be a European power with their crooked owner Calisto Tanzi and Parmalat

They went from A to D, C, B back to the A and now they are in 12th place in Serie B with a 43-year-old Gigi Buffon as Gk.

That won’t happen in MLS where teams have much more stability, strong financial backing and strong ownerships and healthy attendance numbers.

Teams are now valued between $500-800 million and most clubs own their own stadia. No one in Italy in the B, C or D or even bottom half of the Serie A can boast they are worth this much. .

Also, no other team than maybe Juve has their own grounds like most MLS teams do. Even without relegation, teams at times can actually become stronger by building a nucleus going worst to first from one season to the next. This concept never happens in Italy or anywhere else, for that matter. Club attendance figures, stadiums, team values, tv revenue and sponsors are much better anywhere in MLS than any clubs in Serie B or C. No team in Italy will draw 50k-70,000 fans consistently like Atlanta does.

I’m not saying that the Serie C or B are easy leagues because they aren’t but that doesn’t mean they are that much better than an MLS side either as many people online are claiming.

After following the league since 1996, it definitely seems that way.

Not always but the majority of the superstars who did or do come to MLS never won much and many times, they end up struggling when they do come.

Even Beckham when he first came will have been relegated in his first two years if there was a relegation /promotion in place.

 

Sadly, there isn't much else to talk about.

I mean we can always talk about the Italian national team that won't be going to their second consecutive World Cup tournament but no one seems to want to talk about that.

 

Zlatan goat of mls!!!

 

Big game against Messi next week.

 

Meaningless friendly.

 

You think chiellini will pick Messi up and hold him like a small baby???