I can't always be exact with the day. Spurs weren't meant to ahve a hissy fit.

Why can't everybody jsut leave our Xabi alone?:(

You can't count and are contradicting yourself.
More players have won the league playing in italy (something like 17 to 5), but more english players have won the award than italians (7 to 4), and lots of english players have missed out on the award by less than 20 points (shearer, moore, charlton to name a few)
When did Adebayor sign for an italian club?? Did I miss that??
It's close and competative in italy, but that doesn't mean it's a great league. And on the european stage, it's even with 11 titles each for italy, england and spain's clubs.

That comment was muc longer but I took too long and ran out of time. and go tlogged out :(

So they have an EPL reject in Mourinho. A La Liga reject in Ronaldinho. Theyve also might get the poor mans gerrard, the poor mans ronaldo and the stupid mans torres.

Pazza Inter the argument about Ballon D'or isnt going to last much longer Ronaldo is a shoe in.
Serie a isnt dead but it is lacking behind the EPL and La liga and Juve is my second team but i can admit the league is losing

Edited by fredsta: 19/7/2008 07:39:06 PM

Don't get too ahead of urselves. There has been suggestions of Iker Casillas pipping Ronaldo to the Ballon D'or at least. And with the talk of better players in England than Italy, there has always been the best players in Italy every generation, Maradona, Facchetti, Batistuta, Dunga, Rijkaard, Ronaldo, Baggio. Serie A has always had lots of foreign stars and England has only adopted that in the last 15 years or so. Name ur top 10 in Engalnd (no order) and ill name 10 best in Serie A (no order), see whos best.

An epl reject in Mourinho and a La Liga reject in Ronnie? If i'm not mistaken Mourinho lead Chelsea to their first premier league title, two years in arow and Ronaldinho was a two time winner of World Player of the Year at barca.
Not exactly rejects i think.

Yeah but seriously if Ronaldo dosent win it the whole thing is a joke Cassilas had a good season but come on. And yeah maybe in the past Pazza Inter, Italy had the better players but the whole argument is that currently it is lacking behind the other big leagues.
I'll name some of the EPL best players currently, Ronaldo, Torres, Gerrard, Essien, Berbatov, Ferdinand, Vidic, Fabregas and when you add new signings like Nasri, Modric, and Deco things are looking good. On topic now this is potnetntialy massive Benfica has signed Pablo Aimar from Zaragoza this is a pretty big signing for Benfica and Aimar is a decent player

This rumour is definatley confirmed Quique Flores Sanchez said he was delighted at the transfer.

Matuzalem has moved to Lazio on a year loan from Real Zaragoza, good signing.

Yeah i hear about Matuzalem sounds good but he seems to be a bit of a club whore

Oh well in that case, England has Ronaldo and Torres and maybe Ramos, Van Der Vaart, Kaka, Villa, Silva...what's your point?

Oh lol. You have GOT to be taking the piss with that one. The award has only ever been one by one keeper, and that was the gread Lev Yashin. Even Buffon and Kahn at their peaks couldn't do it. There's no way Casillas will either.

Ok. Ever? Gerrard, Scholes, Moore, Charlton, Best, Rush (he swung both ways), Ronaldo, Cantona, Souness & Dalglish. Add Keegan, Fowler and Schmichel and there's thirteen irrefutable legends of the game, lets see what the serie A has to compare, other than the inevitable response of 'Maradona'

You are indeed mistaken. Mourinho was given the flick by the EPL (well, bu abramovich specifically). And Chelsea won their first league in 1955, but you're probably too young to know that. You know who else was two time World player of the year?? Ronaldo, and look how the mighty have fallen.

It's his fifth Serie A club tho, I'll beinterested to see if he can stick it out this time.

Edited by afromanGT: 20/7/2008 10:44:42 PM

Chelsea won their first English Premier League under mourinho. In 1955 they won their first First Division title. As for Ronaldo, he is 31 ith a broken leg, it is getting to that time of his career. Ronnaldinho on th hand is only 27 and has had a gr8 season last term bar injuries and was moved because he was somehow not in the plans for barca. He is far from fallen. I'll give you an example of fallen........Michael Owen.

Edited by PazzaInter: 21/7/2008 12:02:42 AM

Dave Kitson to Stoke City

Scott Carson to West Brom

Are you saying that the "premier league" is any different to the old "first division"?? I know a long list of players who would disagree, not to mention fans. A rose by any other name is just as sweet an all that.
Ronaldo is 31 with torn knee tentons, not a broken leg. And he has been a shadow of his former self for the last three or four years, almost since joining Madrid. Ronaldinho on the other hand, is also struggling to replicate the form that saw him win the Ballon d'Or. And what sense is there comparing Owen to Ronaldo?? Owen can still run and score goals. Funny that that'sa ll you could pick to argue with in my entire post too. Sad even.

Amaury Bischoff to Arsenal. Hasn't been confirmed but he transferred on a free from Werder Bremen I think. He will officially be unveiled as soon as UEFA figure out the compensation Arsenal have to pay. Not sure when this happened though.

Makelele has moved to PSG. Theyve come up a lot this off season. Thuram, Guily, now Makelele and i have a feeling a couple more. Although the new players are relatively old they probably have one big season left in them. All of them combined is dangerous.

Kaka to Chelski for 150million euros. Outrageous. Its good that Ronaldo wont be in the record books though. Will cut him deep.

http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/1318241/1926041

Giuly isn't as old as the others and can probably stand for 2/3 seasons. Although I can't remember him doing anything special in the last couple of seasons. Makelele is still very good and I can see PSG at least qualifying for UEFA Cup through the league finish.

Any news on Gomis? I think Arsene will get him if Adebayor goes.

PSG are looking to push lyon this season obviously, but it's been a long time since they've been able to do that. Three players won't necesasrily do that much for them I don't think.

That figure keeps changing, it's gone form 100mil euro to 100mil pound to 250mil euro to 150mil euro. I wish A)they'd make up their mind and b) Milan tell them where to go.

As a competition yes Serie A is officially on its ass and its for a number of reasons aminly to do with the way the whole league is being run atrociously.

Average attendances at games support this fact and have been declining annually since 97-98, even the World Cup win for Italy did little or nothing for the league as Serie had less of an average attendance than the Championship the following season and the premiership was nearly double that. The attendance record at one of the countries biggest clubs Juventus is comical (Most notably a total of 237 people turned up for a game v Sampdoria not so long ago)

There are numerous reasons for this. Firstly there is the ongoing investigations into numerous scandals which include Match Fixing, Dodgy Finances and Doping which has marred the reputations of almost if not all the biggest clubs in the league. Combine this with the standards of the stadiums fans have to attend matches in, many of which are out-dated and in desperate need of refurbishment or even complete renovation.

Then you have the fans, yes those wonderful passionate Italian fans, Those wonderful passionate Italian fans who call themselves the heart of clubs, the Ultras. There's a faction at every club and what they add for enthusiasm and good atmosphere they take away with mindless violence and corruption. Some much so that the league came to crisis recently when violence got so out of control that rioting took the lives of a number of people most notably in Catania. Every season there are reports of this violence ranging from missles being thrown at oppposition keepers to, and I sh!t you not when I say this, in May 2001 Atalanta fans smuggled a Moped into the San Siro and tossed it over the edge onto the tier below. The famous Curva Nord in the San Siro is also a no-go area for police.

With all this the standards are dropping on the pitch as highlighted by seasons disaster in the Champions League where all Italian clubs were dumped out with little difficulty and barely put up a fight. Italian football has been dropped by Channel 4 and Bravo in recent years because there simply isn't an interest in seeing 37 year old footballers playing at a pace that would make slo-mo look good. European clubs no longer fear the Italian giants because they know now they can match them. Internazionale and Roma were destroyed by Liverpool and Man United in the Champions League, Inter won Serie A and Liverpool just about made fourth in the Premiership- says it all really.

That contribution would have been useful about a weeka go mate:P
But you're right, the fact that nobody's sure if the Serie A results are 100% for real any more is a big blow to their integrity and makes their league look a lot more suck ass.

Then there was 2005 - "Liverpool were lining up against a team playing for the title, Milan weren't lining up against a team in the top four in england, not even the best team from Liverpool"...and yet we still won.
The Serie A is in a sorrys tate is far from the powerhouse it used to be and will never return to the way it was.

Behrami to Hammers btw.

Yeah the Serie A has gone to the dogs and i hope it gets bought back but at the moment thats not looking good. I know about the attendances Juves home ground only holds around 24 thousand

muntari to inter for 12.7million pounds.

Is that official now? Because i have been hearing it for a while

Lucareli to Parma.
Bouhlarouz to Stuttgart.

Muntari isn'ta done deal yet still.
Liverpool have confirmed the Ngog deal.
Reyes seems to be Monaco bound, which is intersting. He turned down Newcastle to do it too.
And Scholes has announced he's planning to retire in 2010 apparently.

Yeah. I jumped teh gun a bit with muntari. Not done but should be done soon. Quite disappointed to see him leave but Inter is a better club than Pompey. (No shit!)

Liverpool have signed another young spanish player. Emmanuel Mendy. An 18yo Right back who will play for the reserves this season. Free transfer.

Well if Inter sign him, they won't want our Xabi anymore, which is great. It's a bit expensive, but could well pay dividends for them.

I saw that last week and forgot to mention it. I'm a little apprehensive as to the benefit of a player coming on a free from Murcia of all clubs, but we'll see. Was he not wanted by them or just wanted to move on?

He mustnt have signed a new deal. Whether he wasnt needed/wanted or he wanted to leave i dont know.