President Giovanni Cobolli Gigli spoke today......
"Our objective for this season? To gain direct access to the Champions League, but also fourth place would be fine by me,"........ "But the Scudetto is only a dream"
Well since I guess he is already conceeding the scudetto in August, im suprised his true goal wasn't to qualify for the Intertoto Cup. I understand reality is important, but instead of saying the scudetto is only a dream, it would have been nicer and more of a morale booster to hear "Champions League is a top priority, and we will battle for the Scudetto until the end, we want to bring top flight winners back to Torino" Now those are words of a leader, except I knew I lost out for the job when Cobolli Gigli showed up at the Corso Galileo Ferraris offices neatly decked out with a splash cologne, and I showed up to the interview hungover reeking of vodka and 20 minutes late. Oh well, writing for The Offside will have to do for now, but in all seriousness its very tough to judge and predict when we are still in August and looking so far down the line. Later this week I will give my season outlook and what not, but for now, we are still talking about Juventus here, La Vecchia Signora. We need optimism, who would have thought Empoli would stay as high as they were last year, or Reggina would overturn 15 points of penalization, or Parma would avoid relegation, or Francesco Coco would actualy get into THREE! Serie A games, anything can happen. I have to admit sometimes I dont agree with Ranieri but these tidbits here very sensible and im in full agreement.
-The summer is not summer without Marcelo Zalayeta transfer rumors, this time it is Napoli. Il Panterone has had a solid preseason and unfortunately like every August his space looks limited and this time it may be true. Napoli truely needs a scoring force and a role player like Zalayeta, this guy can play in big matches and has scored two of the most memorable goals in Juventus history. I will always appreciate what he has done here, I cant stand Napoli so I will remember him for his time and contribution to the Bianconeri.....along with il Panterone, Manuele Blasi will most likely be joining him.
-The transfer rumors just dont want to go away, Gilberto Silva once again. Obviously would be icing on the cake, but it seems to far into the summer for this to get done, if we hadn't jumped the gun on Tiago, this would have been sweet. But no they had to sign Tiago for way too much money and he is still a major question mark, whereas Silva is a proven star. Now we have about 20-25 million to spend but management are clueless. Silva is too important to Arsenal right now, they have one of the most stacked central midfields with Fabregas, Silva, Denilson, Flamini, Diaby, and Song, but without Silva all they have there is a lot of youth without experience. I'd take Flamini or Denilson for sure, but im just dreaming. Central midfield is not a position of major need right now with the emergance of Nocerino, and the stud that is Almiron, plus Tiago, and back up Zanetti so we should be fine barring injuries. But that unused 20 million sure would look good for a nice center back, and the media continues to claim that there will be a suprise signing despite the transfer season being closed by Ranieri and company.................. the saga continues
-Very interesting, we could have had Giueseppe Rossi if it were not for Palladino. Let me explain, according to reports Ranieri was hot on Rossi obviously, and there were plenty of suitors for Palladino including Manchester United. Perfect match eh? Not exactly, Juve felt that to shell out the cash for Rossi selling Palladino had to be done, but they liked Palladino's qualities too much......The Offside translation of all of this, Juve was too cheap to buy Rossi, and Palladino is less expensive. I could care less, Rossi is nice and going to be a star, but I like our own youngsters from our system, Palladino, Giovinco, Volpato, Lanzafame, homegrown talent = happy talent.
- Today was a slow news day so I decided to throw this in.......Remember those Claude Makelele rumors? well they are done if you were tripping on acid and actualy saw any truth in them. Obviously his agent wanted Chelsea to give him another year by throwing Juve, Barca, and Munich's names out there, congrats to the Agent for suckering Abramovich once again.
Juventus + Manchester United + Crossbar + Malaysia + August - Inter = sweet You Tube Clip....Found a nice video of a Juventus primavera free kick against Man U in the Malaysia Cup final
congrats to Chris at the Roma Offside on their Supercoppa victory