World Football Postulant

Like with my La Liga picks, I’m behind with Serie A and also forgot to pick the mid-week matches. Below is a recap of the two weeks I forgot to post my picks, followed by my picks for this weekend.

The Milan derby might be the match of the European weekend, and it could not come at a better time for Inter. They are at the top of their game, have gotten players back to health, and are catching Milan in a bit if disarray. It’s true that Carlo Ancelotti started sorting things out last weekend when Milan got their first win, benching Ronaldinho to do it. But Inter Milan’s on another level.

The scoring, which I forgot to mention in the La Liga Picks post: I win when I pick the winner correctly or I correctly pick a draw. I draw when the match ends a draw but I didn’t pick it as such. Everything else is a loss.

September 13
Palermo 3-1 Roma (pick: Roma, 2-0)
Inter Milan 2-1 Catania (pick: Inter Milan 3-0)
September 14
Lazio 2-0 Sampdoria (pick: Draw, 1-1)
Lecce 2-0 Chievo (pick: Lecce, 2-1)
Napoli 2-1 Fiorentina (pick: Napoli, 2-1)
Reggina 1-1 Torino (pick: Draw, 1-1)
Siena 2-0 Cagliari (pick: Siena, 2-1)
Bologna 0-1 Atalanta (pick: Draw, 1-1)
Genoa 2-0 AC Milan (pick: AC Milan, 2-1)
Juventus 1-0 Udinese (pick: Juventus, 3-1)

Results: 6 wins, 4 losses
Cummulative: 11 wins, 2 draws, 6 losses

September 20
Catania 1-0 Atalanta (pick: Draw, 1-1)
Roma 3-0 Reggina (pick: Roma, 2-0)
September 21
Cagliari 0-1 Juventus (pick: Juventus, 2-1)
Fiorentina 1-0 Bologna (pick: Fiorentina, 3-0)
Lecce 1-1 Siena (pick: Lecce, 2-1)
Palermo 2-1 Genoa (pick: Palermo, 2-0)
Sampdoria 1-1 Chievo (pick: Sampdoria, 3-0)
Torinto 1-3 Inter Milan (pick: Inter Milan 2-1)
Udinese 0-0 Napoli (pick: Draw, 2-2)
AC Milan 4-1 Lazio (pick: Draw, 1-1)

Results: 6 wins, 2 draws, 2 losses
Cummulative: 17 wins, 4 draws, 8 losses

September 27-Picks
Sampdoria 0-1 Juventus
Fiorentina 2-0 Genoa
September 28-Picks
Bologna 1-2 Napoli
Catania 2-1 Chievo
Lecce 2-1 Cagliari
Palermo 3-1 Reggina
Roma 2-0 Atalanta
Udinese 1-0 Siena
Torino 2-1 Lazio
AC Milan 1-2 Inter Milan

Juventus center back Giorgio Chiellini is targeting a return for the opening of Champions League.

Juventus looked like half a team during their season opener at Fiorentina, with injuries keeping them from taking advantage of Adrian Mutu’s absence. The sides played to a 1-1 draw, altering Juve as to how much injuries are taking their toll early in the season. With Champions League play set to start next week, the schedule only gets more compacted from here out. Thankfully, some of their injury concerns are starting to be alleviated.

Center-back Giorgio Chiellini has said that he hopes to be on the pitch for next week’s Champions League opener against Russia’s Zenit St. Petersburg. He will not, however, be available this weekend, when Juventus hosts Antonio Di Natale and Udinese.

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It has not been a rare occurence of late, but it’s still strange for a somebody who didn’t watch Roma that much last year to see smoebody other than Francesco Totti wearing their captain’s armband.  At the opening of the video I got, there was Daniele de Rossi, one of the best players in Serie A, meeting with Paolo Cannavaro and the referees, unable to escape the shadow of the missing captain.  Roma is still a world class club with Totti, but there is something special the club’s talisman brings to the pitch, and that something special was missed by the end of il Gialliorossi’s 1-1 draw to Napoli.  That one player who could snatch those extra points for Luciano Spalletti’s side was not on the pitch.

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Until I watched CD Numanica beat Barcelona, this was the upset of the weekend, and it still might be if you consider this match took place at the San Siro.  AC Milan dropped their opener to Bologna, a side I pegged to struggle to stay up this season.  The Rossoneri responded to an early goal from Marco Di Vaio with a goal through Massimo Ambrossini just before half-time, but Carlo Ancelotti’s second half substitutions seemed to slow the team down, and Milan eventually capitulated to a 79th minute goal from Francesco Valiani.

To me, Carlo Ancelotti’s substitutions were as interesting as the Milan loss, probably because I see them as being a major contributor to it.

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The marks of Mourinho were all over Internazionale when they debuts at Sampdoria on Saturday.  There was a crispness in their play, with their players using the maximum width of the pitch, in Jose’s preferred three midfielder, two winger formation.  And it was a brilliantly taken goal by Zlatan Ibrahimovic that put Inter up in the first half and hinted that Mourinho was ready to take Milano to another level.

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Antonio Di Natale seemed posed for a huge season after scoring two goals and leading Udinese to a 3-1 opening day victory against Palermo.  With a clinical strike opening scoring nine minutes into Udinese’s campaign, Di Natale seemed to want to assauge concerns that Udinese may not be able to replicate last season’s strong finish.  Simultaneously, Palermo backers were given further cause for worry, with a summer of losing Amauri to Juventus being capped by going one down after nine minutes.

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The European Match of the Week is in Serie A, where Juventus starts their march towards recapturing the Scudetto against an Adrian Mutu-less Fiorentina side.  We’ve seen examples in the Bundesliga (Diego, Werder Bremen) and the Premiership (Cesc Fabregas, Arsenal) of what one player can mean to a team, but Mutu’s meaning to Fiorentina might prove to be just as large.  Continue Reading »

The final set of predictions for the 2008-09 European club season takes me to Italy, where your view on who will win the league will undoubtedly be dependent on what you think of Jose Mourinho.  He has been the big name transaction of the Calcio summer,  A has dominated the Italian media and made himself the face of not just Internazionale but the league.  There may not have been one better move the league could have made to reassert itself on the continent after the bad news of recent seasons.

I am a Mourinho fan and have great respect for everything he’s accomplished.  Show me a real football follower who does not respect what Mourinho has done.  And he and Internazionale are a perfect fit.  It is a club with history and resources, is ready to win now, and will appreciate Mourinho more than he ever seemed to be over the last two years at Stamford Bridge.  Everything is in place for him to succeed, and he better.  This is a club that has won the last three Scudetto.  Their management not only expects a repeat in the league but also challenge for the Champions League.  Anything less than the final four in Europe will bring questions as to whether Mourinho had a successful season.  To his credit, he seems to realize this.

Domestically, there are four teams which critics see as challengers.  There’s Adrian Mutu’s Fiorentina, but the loss of Tomas Ujfalusi and goalie Sebastien Frey coming back to Earth a bit make it unlikely they will improve on a successful 2007-08.  Milan, who finish behind Fiorentina, will have to make up 21 points on Inter despite an aging and injury-prone team.  Roma came within three points last season, but this is another case where questions can be raised as to whether they can replicate an 82 point season, especially if Francesco Totti can never find true health.

That leaves Juventus, who I was biased towards at the start of this exercise.  They have the best set of strikers in the league and could get 50-60 goals from just those four.  They can expect a little better luck with health, and they have the best goalie in the league in Gianluigi Buffon.  People outside Italy seem to forget that last season was their return to Serie A.  This year they will have no issues of adjustment.  More than any of this, though:  this team really wants to win the title.  There is a certain pride thse players have in playing for the Old Lady that’s admirable.

However, when I sat down and looked at the rosters, man-by-who should be playing man, it was just difficult to see Juve making up 13 points on Inter.  In fact, I expect Inter to improve slightly with Mourinho.  Juve will have to make up more than 13 points to take the Scudetto.

Ultimatley, I like Internazionale to win.  Again.  And thanks to a just quick fall-off in quality through the table, I think Inter (and the other top teams) to put up a lot of points.  Last season inter only lost three matches.  I don’t expect that number to increase this season.  They tied ten times.  I do see some of those matches turning into wins.

Amongst the surprise teams of the league, I like Torino to jump into UEFA Cup contention.  Lazio, I like to make the top seven, which would hopefully find them in Europe.  I also like Catania to avoid many of the struggles they had last season and easily avoid relegation battles.

At the other end of the spectrum, I like both Chievo and Lecce to stay up after being promoted from Serie B.  Bologna, I don’t see as fortunate.  Amongst the teams that I see fighting for survival:  Reggina, Palermo, and Genoa.

Other teams I expect to falter a little:  I think Udinese will finish closer to relegation than another UEFA Cup spot.  I also think Fiorentina not only will not challenge for the league, I like them to get passed by Sampdoria, both of them finishing will behind Roma for the last Champions League spot.

Former Fenerbahce midfielder Stephen Appiah left this club earlier this summer in search of a new contract while recovering from injury.  In search of a new job, Appiah has been called up for Ghana’s impending World Cup qualifier against Libya.  Ghana’s captain has been trying to link up with a big club and has said he would love to rejoin Juventus, for whom he played for two season before moving to Turkey, but more likely, he could link-up with a mid-table aspirant should he show well for Ghana.

Appiah can be a force in midfield when healthy, but with three years away from one of the bigger leagues and ten months completely off the pitch, he will have to move himself healthy before a big club will even consider him.  In that sense, the Libya match will be big for him.  If he shows well, there are a number of clubs in the Serie A who could use him in midfield.

One of the more exciting days of the European club football season is the day the Champions League group stage is drawn.

The 32 teams that have qualified for the group stage are drawn into eight, four-team groups.  Before that happens, all teams are broken into four pots, labeled A through D, where they are grouped according to a team’s strength (as determined by a formula called a coefficient).  Each of the eight groups can have no more than one team from each pot, no more than one team from a country.  The eight groups end up pretty even.

The draw is fun because you end up with a series of matches which, in addition to being high profile based on the quality of the teams involved, are rare.  In the days before the draw, you start considering the possibilities and potential story lines:  Chelsea and Fiorentina in a group, forcing Adrian Mutu to play the club he owes £14 million; Marseille being slotted with Arsenal months after having sold them Samir Nasri, and potentially getting Bayern Munich in the group, so they would have to face Franck Ribery; Barcelona being slotted with a Zenit St. Petersburg team whose star, Andrei Arshavin, so badly wanted to play at Camp Nou; FC Porto being grouped with Inter Milan and facing Jose Mourinho.

Here’s how the eight groups ended up being drawn, with the clubs listed in order of the group they were drawn from:  A to D.  Continue Reading »