Serie A 2010/11

[Baracus]

Saw the goals from that game...surely Sanchez is nailed on for a big move in the summer. We should be all out to get him.

i've mentioned him before here. He would be beyond our price range as his club would insitgate a bidding war - thats what they live off, big money from players sold. He could well fetch 25m+

[Shaggy]

Yeah £20m plus I reckon but that shouldn't be stopping us.

[Assassin]

Yeah £20m plus I reckon but that shouldn't be stopping us.

Is he any good?

[Shaggy]

Nah he's wank.

[Assassin]

Lets buy him then, we could do with another couple of wank players

[Baracus]

Yeah £20m plus I reckon but that shouldn't be stopping us.

It certainly should not, there are few players of his calibre and style in the world.

[IN_RAFA_WE_TRUST]

I'm sure i read that he wants to play for the scum.

[IN_RAFA_WE_TRUST]

Who won yesterday in the AC v Inter match?

[Shaggy]

Milan won 3-0.

[anfieldanfield]

Should never have been 3-0.

I still think Inter could pip Milan to the title.

[Shaggy]

Paolo_Bandini Paolo Bandini
Gian Piero Gasperini officially confirmed as the new manager of Inter. Going to be an(other) interesting year.

Who?

[Chrono]

Who?

The Italian Mick McCarthy

[Imy]

Strange choice, he did ok for a while with Genoa - they played some good football but got the sack ultimately.

Inter ****ed up not supporting and then sacking Rafa. This type of appointment reeks of consolidation. It will be interesting to see if they can keep hold of Sneijder and Etoo.

[IN_RAFA_WE_TRUST]

When he is not bowling or listening to U2, Palermo playmaker Javier Pastore is working towards becoming one of the world’s greatest. James Horncastle reports

El Grafico’s headline said it all the day Javier Pastore left Huracán for Palermo. “They don’t last long,” the paper cried in resignation at the departure of yet another fine Argentine talent barely a year after he first came to light. Pastore had inspired Huracán to within a whisker of winning the 2009 Clausura championship, only for a controversial refereeing mistake in the final game against Vélez Sarsfield to cost the Buenos Aires outfit a historic title.

No sooner had the fairytale begun than it was over. The team assembled by Ángel Cappa, an Argentine Zdenek Zeman who had been César Luis Menotti’s right-hand man at Barcelona, was quickly dismantled, its key components like Matías Defederico and Mario Bolatti, known as Los Angeles, were sold.

As for Pastore, his future had already been decided in January, months before his star had even reached its ascendancy. After giving Palermo President Maurizio Zamparini a couple of DVDs to watch showcasing the youngster’s sombreros and rabonas, Walter Sabatini, the club’s director of sport, was dispatched to Buenos Aires where he shook hands on a €5.5m transfer to be finalised in June with Marcelo Simonian, the owner of the investment fund that held the player’s rights.

To say it represented a steal would be an understatement. By the time the transfer went through, Pastore’s value had unsurprisingly doubled, as became evident when Chelsea’s Frank Arnesen made Palermo an offer reportedly worth €12m before the player had even pulled on a pink and black shirt.

Palermo’s scouting department appeared to have struck gold again after the lucrative finds of Edinson Cavani, Simon Kjaer and Abel Hernández, the crown jewels of a youth policy that takes Paolo Mantovani’s Sampd’oro of Gianluca Vialli, Roberto Mancini and Pietro Vierchowod as its inspiration.

But there were still doubts about Pastore’s immediate prospects in Italy. After all, he had just one full season under his belt at Huracán and his nickname, El Flaco, indicated a waif-like physique that pundits felt would be found wanting in a League renowned for its brute physicality.

“At the beginning I was a little afraid,” Pastore told La Gazzetta dello Sport. “Not everyone believed in me.” And to be fair that wasn’t a complete surprise. After all, Walter Zenga was not Ángel Cappa – the whip had replaced the free rein.

“Pastore is a very good player,” Zenga said. “But until he understands football I will substitute him. He’ll play, but at the moment he gifts an X amount of balls away, I will change him. José Mourinho says that he uses a remote control with Mario Balotelli. I have to use a pass counter with Pastore. He has to help me help him.”

So the jury was certainly out on Pastore, although not in Zamparini’s office. Fabio Simplicio’s form in midfield merited a place in Dunga’s Brazil squad and of Palermo’s two trequartisti it appeared he would get the nod. “I felt a lot of scepticism,” Pastore claimed. Yet confidence-boosting emails would continue to arrive from his mentor Cappa “to analyse what I have done well and what I have done less well.”

Two things then happened that greatly facilitated Pastore’s rise to becoming the finest young talent in Serie A. First, Zenga was sacked in November and replaced by Delio Rossi, a Zeman disciple albeit in a much-diluted form with a track record of nurturing youth, his major success stories being Goran Pandev and Mauro Zárate at Lazio. Second, it emerged in January that Simplicio would be joining Roma at the end of the season on a Bosman free transfer, prompting Palermo to look to the future and act as if he had already gone, making Pastore a regular first team player.

After a virtuoso display against Bari in January when he scored a splendid individual goal only to end up on the losing side, Zamparini publicly rebuked Rossi. “Pass him the ball more,” the Palermo President raged. It was now becoming apparent that the Pastore lobby was unassailable, so much so that his presence on the bench against Roma a month later was described as a “blasphemy.”

One rather over the top report in La Gazzetta dello Sport only added to the build up. “The little big Javier dances and embroiders in the final third, with the gifts and the gait through which the aesthetes of football see again the genius of Kaka, the class of Riquelme, the elegance of Francescoli and the speed and cunning of Cruyff.” Putting hyperbole to one side, the tipping point had clearly been reached – Pastore was no ordinary player.

Speaking at a coaching conference in Madrid earlier this summer, Carlos Bilardo, the mastermind behind Argentina’s World Cup win in 1986, proudly said: “Pastore is the prototype of the modern regista. He is quick even if at times he doesn’t seem to be. He is an endangered species.” And the statistics are there to prove him right. A report in last Tuesday’s Il Corriere dello Sport claimed he could run 20m in just three seconds and had added 5kg of muscle to his slight frame. “I have fattened up in Palermo as a result of the sweets and delicacies,” Pastore joked.

But as with all great playmakers, it’s the state of mind and not necessarily the physical attributes that separate them from other footballers. “It’s an innate gift that I have,” Pastore explains. “I manage to read the play moments before it happens – football is speed of thought. It’s my principal characteristic. Other players are better in different ways.”

The 21-year-old would of course inspire Palermo to a fifth place finish in Serie A last season, pulling the strings in the hole either in a 4-3-1-2 or a 4-3-2-1 formation built around his creativity. “Javier is not the icing on the cake, he is the key ingredient,” Rossi smiled. But it was Cappa, not Rossi, who Pastore thanked when Diego Maradona called him up to Argentina’s World Cup squad. “My old Coach used to tell me: ‘Play for the team up until the final third, then do what you want’. I believe that in Palermo I have maintained the same attitude. In Italy, the game is more tactical and I am gradually adapting.”

In South Africa, Pastore wouldn’t show the sort of promise he did during a friendly against a Catalonia XI in December when he chipped a ball up and volleyed it into the net from outside the area, but he still managed to get Lionel Messi talking. When asked to reveal who had impressed him the most in Argentina’s squad, the Ballon d’Or winner said: “I have no doubts – Pastore. I didn’t know him. He plays really well.”

Characteristically Maradona also couldn’t help himself from blundering into a clumsy yet well-intentioned compliment. He sensationally called Pastore an “ignoramus” because “he goes out on the pitch and moves like a veteran” rather than with “the emotion of a debutante.”

Nonetheless, Maradona had a point, as there is an assurance to Pastore’s game, which has carried over into this season, his confident performances against Brescia, Juventus and Bologna being of the highest order. Pastore’s influence on the Rosanero’s fortunes is recognised in a banner often seen in the stands at the Renzo Barbera, which plays on the Italian translation of his name: “The Shepherd and his Flock.”

Zamparini now values Pastore at €60m and admits Palermo have “a 60 per cent chance” of keeping the player he calls “our Antonio Cassano” one day and “the new Zinedine Zidane” the next. So he’ll no doubt be encouraged to hear Pastore telling Radio Deejay last week that it’s his intention to stay in Sicily for another two years. After all, several members of his family have recently joined him there and he has a new girlfriend too called Chiara.

But in the long-term Pastore’s career inevitably lies elsewhere. “For an Argentine it’s normal to play in La Liga, above all for the language,” he told La Gazzetta dello Sport. “I have said that wearing the shirt of Messi’s Barcelona one day in the future is a dream, but it remains as such.” Palermo have already moved to protect themselves for when that day comes, literally lining up a like-for-like replacement. He’s young. He’s Argentine. And his name is Pastore… Juan Pastore – Javier’s 17-year-old brother.



I was going to say sign him up till i read about him wanting to stay there, but then again the right amount of money might make them sell.