Lockdown table: Same as the pre-lockdown table After 16th matchday (* = GAME IN HAND) Serie A Juve 44pts, Fiorentina +25GD 35pts*, AC Milan +20GD 35pts*, Roma 34, FLorentia 24, Sassuolo 23, Inter 19, Empoli 19, Verona 12, Bari 11, Tavagnacco 10, Orobica 1 Serie B Napoli 36pts*, Lazio 34, San Marino 32*, Ravenna 22*, Chievo Fortitudo 20**, Riozesse 20**, Vittoria Veneto 18*, Lady Granata Citadella 17**, Cesena 15**, Roma CF 13*, Novese 9*, Perugia 7 Fiorentina-Milan was one of the last games postponed. As I remember, the FIGC federation boss said that 30 July is the legal deadline to finish the season (or not finish). Some teams are applying to resume training. That seems over-optimistic from here. Don't think I posted the full video from January, one of the games of the season. And definitely the craziest Monday afternoon match Women's Serie A | AC Milan v AS Roma www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kLlV-Jco74 - (img; Reubentg, cc-by-sa) Some other news - in February the federation looked into making the women's Serie A fully professional in 2021/22. Of course current events will affect it, but it's a positive sign for the future. This week, Milan's captain voiced strong support for the idea. Valentina Giacinti: "We dedicate our life to sport, not being professional is absurd" - (Lfootball.it / Archive) The 2022 Champions League final, Lyon v ????, will be at the Juventus Stadium. Turin will stage the 2022 UEFA Women's Champions League finals - (Allaboutitaly.net) (forzaq8, cc-by)
Not sure if Italy's teams are closer to training together, or deciding to end the league season. The federation FIGC put a paper to the government but it's mostly about financial impacts of the lockdown. Juventus players are now training individually. (Edit!) Team training is allowed from Mon 18 May. Cecilia Salvai said, "We have been constantly monitored by the club and by the athletic trainer, we are lucky to have competent people who work for us. Video calls? Very funny video calls have been made, a senseless mess", so that's good. Juve's Linda Sembrant is back in Italy after 63 days in Sweden, but of course, she's in a 14-day quarantine. Linda Sembrant - (img Anders Henrikson, cc-by) From before the World Cup, on the TV show A View from the Terrace, on BBC Scotland, Fiorentina's Lana Clelland made a video postcard about Florence Lana Clelland | Passporto Scozzese www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3O19RVAfWI Dodgy territory Juventus Women at Home Ep. 1 | Never Have I Ever https://www.juventus.com/en/news/news/2020/women-at-home-ep--1---never-have-i-ever.php Also We were arguing in the other thread about "The North Pole and The South Pole: different or the same?", I say they're different, but then I remembered the 'Antipodes' website, and put in 'Italy', and now I regret it. This is too spooky to be a coincidence... (Also, someone tell Katie Rood who played at Juve a few years ago, there might be a Bermuda triangle thing going on)
Yes, as an Italian, I have always known about the "Antipodes/reversed boot" New Zealand thing. I always wondered if there could be any scientific way to explain the coincidence (don't know, some kind of waves going through the planet and shaping these opposite points for some reason), but I had to give up because anything I could think of was actually quickly turning to science-fiction, or to plain super-natural.
Either way, someone's getting sued for plagiarism. Just after my post, I saw some good news: Serie A teams can return to training together. The request has been granted by the govt Scientific/Technical group. Player limits aren't mentioned, but I wonder if there are some? In New Zealand (a.k.a. the real Italy), clubs will only be allowed groups of 10. ⬤ Roma have renewed the contract for FW Agnese Bonfantini (until 2022). Still pending is Brazil's Andressa Alves who has 5 goals in 12 games this season. Andressa (L) in her Barca days, in the UWCL final 2019 (Steffen Prößdorf. cc-by-sa)
gaaaaah, foiled again Italia 3 - 0 Nuova Zelanda, 7 March 2020 (Algarve Cup) www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6WwjtU8494 News of the week ending 23 May: Serie B is over for season 2019/20 - but what to do about the incomplete results? A nervous wait for the top 3 Napoli, San Marino and Lazio. FIGC announcement / English autotranslated (Archive) And Serie C is finito - the 4 regional league tables to be decided later. Former national champions Brescia, who dropped 3 divisions when AC Milan bought their licence in 2018, were only 3pts behind the division leader, Vicenza. Double-winners Brescia in 2015/16 (Umberto Favretto, cc-by-sa) The players' union wants answers: "In deliberating the end of the season for the LND championships, nothing has been said about possible solutions to the current difficulties, and in the coming months, which will face the almost 4,000 members who live on football." - (AIC, Calcio Femminile)
⬤ Women's Serie A could still complete the season, but the mood isn't optimistic. If they play, they want the health and other protections to be the same as the men's divisions, says Juve captain and union rep Sara Gama. The male leagues are rushing back and some people are keen to finish by 20 August, despite a new delay and two Parma players testing positive this week. (Has any expert doctor said, "maybe don't play now because that's stupid"?) Nonetheless, the masked Rita Guarino was happy to be training again at Juve, the champions-elect. At Sassuolo, Daniela Sabatino is missing football and wants it back in her life. For the Orobica defender, Chiara Poeta, the hospitals' crisis has eased enough that she had her knee surgery, successfully, after a few months' delay. Maybe Serie C isn't a deliberate conspiracy against one island, but Sardinia is... quite far south, isn't it? And none of its clubs are in the southern division? And they don't play each other? And two of them face relegation now? As nice as it is to have multiple away trips to Südtirol...
Although we can admit it's a bit of a stretch, Sardinia is traditionally considered a "central" region in most contexts. Of course Lazio and Abruzzo use to be considered "center" also, but they probably needed to be added to the southern division because otherwise it wouldn't have had enough teams. It's a known fact that (in men's football also) southern Italy always historically had way less teams than northern Italy.
...I suppose, yes, if they go as the crow flies (or presumably they'd be on a plane) Sardinia's champions: Torres in Serie A, 2006 (Francesco Gasparetti, cc-by) ⬤ AC Milan are back in training today (Tuesday) at Vismara, where players must divide into 2 groups. Milan's last game was on 15 Feb, the 4-0 at Tavagnacco. There's still no word on Serie A. ⬤ Serie B leaders Napoli had a game in hand when matches stopped. Many would agree with their goalie Federica Russo when she says they deserve promotion. The 2nd promotion and relegation places were really close: maybe the answer could be bigger divisions or relegation playoffs. ⬤ The word of the week is professionalism (or if you're learning Italian, "professionismo" ), as it's being discussed a lot in the Italian women's game at the moment. Government minister Vincenzo Spadafora says the legal process will speed up towards a pro women's league. Also in favour is Amanda Tampieri of Fiorentina: "In recent years the level of women's football has grown exponentially in many ways." Now, I thought that sounded reasonable, but apparently, the newspaper says she's an extremist, an "estremo difensore", so, please, wise @blissett and other wise people, could you explain, what on earth is that? (It is a good phrase actually)
LOL! "Estremo difensore" is just a periphrasis (admittedly quite old-school and archaic-sounding, but anyway quite often used by sports media) to refer to a goalkeeper: "estremo" in the ethimological Latin-derived sense of "the farthest one", so basically "estremo difensore" means "the last-standing defender" (i.e. the last one you have to beat to score a goal). Italian writers in general, and especially Italian journalists are quite obsessed with the need to avoid excessive repetitions of the same word in a text (I guess in anglo-saxon languages this obsession is felt with way less urge), so we have all kind of strange synonyms and periphrastic expressions to replace the most common words.
Serie A Femminile possibly resuming in July - but some clubs are struggling with everything. Also a transfer offer from Spain for Fiorentina's defender Alia Guagni. https://acmilan.theoffside.com/2020...ht-resume-play-and-finish-the-season-ac-milan (Archive) Alia Guagni - (Città di Parma, cc-by-sa)
She had already declined many offers that came from overseas just after WWC 2019 (where she had surely impressed as one of the finest Full-Backs/Wingers of the competition), because she wanted to remain in her city, helping her club reaching their targets and helping Italian league to get off (trying to ride the "bump" in popularity after NT's results at the WWC). Maybe, in this new situation created by the Covid-19 crisis she changed her mind? By the way, in her youth she had a short stint in USA (at a lower division level).
Latest news from Italy: while men's league is expected to resume on 20th of June, there is big uncertainty regarding women's league. According to newspaper la Repubblica, a decision should be made tommorow by Italian Federation, but the problem is that only 5 clubs out of the 12 forming Serie A Femminile are said to be in the conditions (mostly by an economical point of view) to restart...
And, as I was fearing, Federal Counsel decided yesterday that Serie A Femminile won't resume (only 6 games were missing!!!). Juventus was awarded the title, Fiorentina (based on some kind of calculations I am not sure about) wins the Champions' League's spot over Milan, Tavagnacco and Orobica are relegated in Serie B. Orobica was basically already relegated, with just 1 point gained in the whole season so far, but Tavagnacco could have had a reasonable shot at making it to remain in 1st Division.
It's over? Wow... This is the most drastic FA league table decision since, er, a few days ago... Ohh, I should've known! Most unfair for them. Has the league decided the promotion to Serie A?
The article claims they applied some kind of "algorithm" to decide between Fiorentina and Milan. Not sure what kind of exact calculations this was implying. Yes, sorry, I forgot to mention: the same "algorithm" decided that Lazio Women, despite being currently 2nd placed from having played one more game than their rivals, had anyway the worst record. So the promoted teams were 1st placed Napoli Femminile (the team where my old friend Emi Yamamoto was playing about 8 years ago! ) and 3rd placed San Marino Academy. Yes, I know, I know: San Marino is a team from another nation! But they anywway decided to take part to Italian League (since I doubt they have one of the same level in their little nation). The same way, I suppose, that Monaco takes part to French men's League.
San Marino has 32 points.16 points from 8 home games and 16 points from 7 away games.They have an average of 2 points per game in home games and 2,2857 points per game in away games. For every cancelled home game they get 2 points and for every cancelled away game they get 2,2857 points. 3 home games and 4 away games of San Marino are cancelled. 32+(3x2)+(4x2,2857)=32+6+9,15=47,15 Lazio:34+(3x2,125)+(3x2,125)=34+6,375+6,375=46,75
Without the distinction of home and away games the result would be: San Marino 46,94 Lazio 46,75 They should have also considered the quality of the opponents. The teams that would have still to play against Lazio have an average of 0,85 points in away games and 1,75 points in home games while the opponents of San Marino have an average of 0,73 points in away games and 1,42 in home games. My conclusion: San Marino is deservedly promoted.
Serie A will now be a transnational cross-border superleague The Sammarinesi had two Cup ties with Serie A teams in 2019/20 - in December they won 1-0 over Hellas Verona, with Raffaella Barbieri's goal: Coppa Italia | San Marino Academy (blue) - Verona (white) www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAnbssmHPfM&t=27m55s They lost to Roma 6-1 and 4-0 in the quarter-finals - midfielder Simona Petkova of Bulgaria scored a late goal for San Marino, so they have at least one overseas player in their squad. Petkova played before at Pink Bari and Giallo Watford. I hope the club's promotion can help football there - it's probably better motivation than being a national team that always loses. Women's Coppa Italia LIVE: San Marino Academy v AS Roma www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYrZfGxUdDQ ⬤ Only 4 clubs were in favour of completing the 2019/20 season in women's Serie A - although probably influenced by some worrying medical advice. - lfootball.it / English Autotranslated (Archive)
The Italian Football Federation FIGC's conference is happening today - we can expect some kind of announcement. Maybe they'll elect their new president... 'The "Algorithm"!' As well as finalize the 2019/20 league tables, they'll probably decide the calendar and format for 2020/21 - and also, there are murmurs about discussing the path to professionalization of Serie A Femminile, but only if The Algorithm tells them so. ^ New pres: The Algorithm
It's decided... 2019/20 is finalized: winners and losers as discussed earlier. 2020/21 will begin on 22 August - Napoli & San Marino enter Serie A - and a September start for Serie B, which is expanded to 14 teams (4 promoted from C) only for this season. and Professionismo - from 2022/23, Serie A is planning to become a professional league. A year later than we hoped, but it's something the clubs can prepare for. If it's like what happened in England the entry rules will become stricter, and the less wealthy clubs might be frozen out of the division. Are there many big/rich clubs in men's Serie A that aren't in the women's division now? Of course Lazio just missed promotion, but also Parma, Atalanta...?
Summer signings and departures: Fiorentina: Alia Guagni (leaving Italy - new club unknown), Tatiana Bonetti (signs new contract). AC Milan: 2 leaving - Portugal's Mónica Mendes and Finland's Nora Heroum. Empoli: 6 players' contracts end, and 4 loans Inter Milan: Roberta D'Adda (retiring), Scudetto winner with Fiammamonza, Bardolino and Brescia. Sassuolo: Daniela Sabatino (leaving the club), Czech midfielder Kamila Dubcová & Belgian GK Diede Lemey (new contracts), Gianpiero Piovani (coach renews for 3rd season). Other clubs: Italy U19 midfielder Ludovica Silvioni (to Pink Bari), Japan's midfielder Shino Kunisawa (to San Marino from relegated Tavagnacco), defender Federica Di Criscio (to Napoli from AS Roma), and defender Michela Franco (leaves Juve after 3 years). Retiring champion: Roberta D'Adda (img: Andreas Nilsson/bilderna.it)