The Slave Camp at Lazio
August 8, 2008
This has been news in the calcio world recently. When Lazio first met up for pre-season training in mid-July, coach Delio Rossi made a list of players that did not fit into his plans for the coming season. These players are: Roberto Baronio (considered as a youngster to be the next great Italian midfielder, never happened), Simone Inzaghi (Pippo’s younger brother who has always been more technically gifted than Pippo, but not as successful), Massimo Mutarelli (a defensive midfielder who works hard all game, impressed at Palermo), Tommaso Berni (a young goalkeeper who was never given a chance), Alberto Quadri (another promising player as a youngster but has turned out to be an average player), and Guglielmo Stendardo (on loan at Juve last season, a decent defender who has also garnered interest from Milan and Inter).
So when the list of players of who would be taking part in pre-season training camp was posted, the names of these 6 players were not listed. While their teammates were off to the Italian Alps, these 6 players stayed back in Rome, and were told by the club that they were not part of the first team and had to train at Lazio’s Formello training ground by themselves with just Lazio’s athletic trainer Angelo Crialesi to look over them. In a recent interview Massimo Mutarelli said that he asked to rescind his contract, but has not received an answer yet. He said that the club has not even supplied them with equipment to train with, and it really is a scandalous situation. He said that Delio Rossi had not even told any of the players anything.
The only player that isn’t really fazed by all of this is Guglielmo Stendardo, who was expecting to leave this summer anyway, and has offers from various clubs. He also said that he has no intention to ask for his contract to be rescinded because he has an excellent rapport with Claudio Lotito. Stendardo is wanted by Bologna and was recently linked with Milan in the press. Another possible destination is his hometown club Napoli, who may trade defender Maurizio Domizzi (who has his own problems with Napoli) for him.
The main problem is that it’s almost mid-August and these players face the possibility of not finding a club at all. Lazio has really shown no desire to find them a club as well. Mutarelli is still waiting for his contract to be rescinded so he can be a free agent. Baronio has offers from clubs in Serie B and Valladolid in Spain but nothing is concrete yet. Tommaso Berni has a host of offers from Serie B clubs and may be the first to leave. Simone Inzaghi has scared many clubs away with his high salary (1.2 million per year) and therefore small clubs like Reggina who were interested are not interested unless he rescinds his contract. There was also a rumor that some MLS clubs were interested in Pippo’s younger brother. Alberto Quadri has an offer from Avellino in Serie B and Perugia in Lega Pro.
Yesterday the AIC (Italian Footballer Association) finally got involved releasing this statement:
«Enough, this has to stop, what you are doing to these 6 players is scandalous and not logical, but what is most important is that what you are doing to these players is not legitimate. We hope this is resolved quickly but if it’s not the club will have to be sanctioned in some way. It’s not true that we haven’t been following this horrible story. In fact lawyers of these players have contacted us and we are trying are best to resolve the situation. We hope that it will be resolved.»
So now the ball is in Lotito’s court. We’ll have to see what happens next in the days to come…
What do you think about Lazio’s “slave camp”? Post your thoughts in the comments section.
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AMAZING GOAL FROM MEXICO!
August 7, 2008
Perfectly realize that this is not from Spain , but from our brothers
from Nauchalpan (Mexico). This goal is soooo amazing that SFS posts
it for all of its readers who are Universal Football lovers. Watch
& enjoy!
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Turkey ranked 13th in FIFA’s ranking
August 7, 2008
Turkey has climbed from 14th into 13th place in the latest world soccer ranking published by the Federation of International Football Associations (FIFA).
IFA released its world rankings for August 2008. European champions Spain remained at the top of the list.
The first twenty teams in FIFA’s latest world ranking are as follows (previous position shown in brackets):
1. Spain (1) 1,557
2. Germany (3) 1,343
3. Italy (2) 1,320
4. Netherlands (5) 1,299
5. Croatia (7) 1,282
6. Brazil (4) 1,242
7. Argentina (6) 1,219
8. Czech Republic (8) 1,146
9. Portugal (9) 1,122
10. Russia (11) 1,023
11. Romania (12) 1,021
12. France (10) 1,012
13. TURKEY (14) 1,010
4. England (15) 1,003
15. Cameroon (13) 994
16. Scotland (16) 988
17. Bulgaria (17) 930
18. Greece (18) 896
19. Ghana (20) 892
20. Israel (21) 876
futbol, soccer, fussball, football, gol, goal, live scores, canl, live, puan durumu, puan cetveli, standings, results
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SPAIN Nº1 IN FIFA WORLD RANKING FOR JULY 2008
August 6, 2008
The World Football Governing body FIFA has released its official
Nations ranking for the month of July, with SPAIN remaining in
the Top spot.
FIFA RANKING (July of 2008)
.1. Spain 1557 points
.2. Germany 1343
.3. Italy 1320
.4. Holland 1299
.5. Croacia 1282
.6. Brazil 1242
.7. Argentina 1219
.8. Chech Rep 1146
.9. Portugal 1122
10. Russia 1023
11. Rumanía 1021
12. France 1012
13. Turkey 1010
14. England 1003
15. Cameroon 994
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Some Benfica Bits and Times, They Are A Changin’
August 5, 2008
Benfica 2 - 1 Vitoria Guimarães — Benfica have had an exciting transfer period with a round of crappy pre-season results thrown in. Before defeating Vitoria Guimarães last night 2-1, the Encarnados had been winless with two draws and two defeats.
Given their massive changes in both coach and personnel, Benfica have had an even rustier pre-season than a given club would be accustomed to. The rust was compounded by these sweeping changes and they’ve looked lethargic, out of place, and incoherent for much of their time on the pitch this Summer.
While Benfica got out to an early 2-0 lead, their play was still somewhat disjointed and aided by the fact that Guimarães looked more like Intertoto Cup competitors rather than a playoff away from the group stages of the Champions League. Both teams will have to get their shit together if they plan on finishing anywhere near European competition this year as their performances thus far in the prologue to the season have been thoroughly underwhelming.
José Antonio Reyes On His Way to Da Luz — In a move that would signal their tenth addition this summer, Benfica are apparently ready to announce the acquisition of José Antonio Reyes on loan from Atlético Madrid. Benfica threw their hat into the Reyes chase a bit late but their interest had a bit more clout due to the fact that they still were “owed” something of this nature through the transfer of See-Mow Sabrosa to Atlético last year.
Reyes adds to Benfica boss Quique Flores’ attacking options, making him by my count, the seventy eighth winger added this Summer and the ninety-fifth possible attacking option at Flores’ disposal in the coming season. In all seriousness, Reyes is another pseudo-gamble that Benfica are taking on guys who peaked at one point or another and were tapped to be the “Next” (fill in appropriate fellow countryman’s name who was awesome in his prime) but never got to become one iota as good as the players they had been compared to.
Portuguese League Offside A Changin’ – In case you haven’t noticed, and judging by the site view statistics , you haven’t, the Portuguese Liga branch of The Offside is in expansion mode. Due to my fantastic blogging about the Beautiful Game from the cute little nation next to Spain, Daryl has come to his senses and finally splashed out on hiring some club-specific bloggers. Over the weekend, an Evil Empire (Porto) blog was added and I’m going to become… wait for it… the new official Sporting blogger!!!! YAY!! CLAP IT UP, SLUTS! I figured that the Porto guy couldn’t be allowed to run riot over the boards with his “We’re 20 points in front” bullshit, so I had to provide a foil to him in the form of a Sporting blog. Daryl is setting up the Sporting branch as we speak and I’ll be there with incoherent ramblings as soon as he hits my mailbox with a WordPress username and password.
The Portuguese section will hopefully expand to include a Benfiquista at the very least and I see the “Portuguese Football League” part of the site becoming less team specific and more an organic sounding board for the league as a whole. With targeted team sites, it will allow me to give more focus to the smaller teams and will still feature each club’s European ambitions and results as well as the weekly recaps, league cup competition coverage and other fun stuff all six of you have become accustomed to. I think the team-specific stuff will free me up to not worry too much about reporting on small moves the Big Three make and allow for a development of daily features and hopefully make for some fun cross-club sniping.
I want to thank Daryl for tripling my current pay ({content} * 3 = {content}) in taking on yet another fantastic responsibility here and giving me more stuff to do on my computer at work that can pass as legitimate money-making endeavors for whenever the boss passes by. The Offside truly is the gift that just keeps on givin’.
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