A boisterous farewell to a beloved footballer and symbol of the club.
Tag: Italy
Reggiana owner Mike Piazza holds press conference to announce that he is “fricken pissed off”
The story of a baseball player turned irate football club owner.
DT Exclusive: Sam Allardyce’s interview for the Italy job
Big Sam's big attempt to put his "Sam Allardici" persona to the test.
Sweden crush Gigi Buffon and Eurosport desk after beating Italy to World Cup qualification
Destruction in every direction with an assist from Gian Piero Ventura.
Milan fans throw fake money at Donnarumma during international match
The young goalkeeper can't avoid the derision while on international duty.
Concept of a woman coaching a men’s team a bit too much for Italy U-16s to fully grasp
Patrizia Panico has made history in Italian football and her players are a little confused
When former Italian international Patrizia Panico was named coach of Italy’s male U-16 team, she made history as the first woman to coach a men’s national side. Her first two matches in charge were a pair of friendlies against Germany. Italy lost the first 4–1, but won the second 3–2.
Naturally, all of this has drawn more attention than a U-16 national team usually receives. In an interview with the BBC, Panico, who racked up over 200 caps for Italy in her playing days, revealed that her players call her “Mister.”
“The boys are used to addressing the coach in the male form, as ‘mister.’ To be honest, I don’t really mind. The important thing is that there is always respect on both sides.” she says.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TrsgIHt5Tc
Panico’s comments imply that she doesn’t interpret this as a pointed show of disrespect, but still—is it really that hard to get that right?
Titles aside, Panico’s appointment is just the latest example of increasing gender integration in football. Last month, Chan Yuen-ting of Hong Kong’s Eastern Sports Club became the first woman to lead a team in the Asian Champions League and in England, Arsenal Ladies’ U-12 and U-10 teams are participating in leagues with boys this season.
Richard Keys and Andy Gray must be rolling over in their graves.
Palermo’s crazypants president steps down after 15 years of surprisingly successful chaos
There may not have been a method to his madness, but there were some good results
The sacking of Claudio Ranieri has launched a familiar round of outraged headlines over modern football’s soulless disloyalty. Meanwhile, the one man who wouldn’t have hesitated to fire Ranieri as he lifted the Premier League trophy, Palermo president Maurizio “Get Out, No, Wait, Come Back” Zamparini has finally pulled off the ultimate sacking: himself.
Zamparini announced that a new president, representing a yet to be named American group of investors, will take charge of Palermo in the coming weeks, ending Zamparini’s 15-year campaign against logic.
The Reuters report on this story reads like a satire of modern football club owners. It includes lines like:
[Palermo] narrowly avoided another relegation in May after an extraordinary season in which the club employed seven different coaches, two of them twice.
And:
Because it is often not clear whether a manager at Palermo is considered interim or long term, and because some coaches have been appointed several times, there is no consensus over how many Zamparini has employed since he took over in 2002.
However, Italian media generally put the total at 38.
(Football Italia puts the numbers at 29 different managers who were hired, fired, and rehired a total of 40 times.)
It’s generally accepted that managers need time and football clubs need stability to succeed. By that line of thinking, turnover fueled by the manic whims of an oversensitive tyrant (“I will cut off their testacles and eat them in my salad,” he said of his own players in 2003) would be the quickest way to drive a club out of business. But under Zamparini, Palermo achieved some remarkable feats, especially when compared to other southern Italian clubs.
A year after he took charge, Palermo signed eventual World Cup winner Luca Toni and returned to Serie A for the first time in over 30 years. Since then, they have finished as high as fifth three times, qualified for what is now the Europa League five times, reached the Coppa Italia final in 2011, and only suffered one brief return to Serie B before bouncing right back to the top flight the following season. All the while, Palermo helped propel the careers of an impressive number of young talents—most notably Edinson Cavani, Javier Pastore, and Paulo Dybala.
Now sitting 18th in the table and staring down another relegation, Zamparini, who has moaned about being unappreciated by the city of Palermo nearly since the day he arrived, has finally made good on his longstanding threat to step away from the button linked to the trap door under the manager’s seat. And while the next president will almost certainly provide more stability (the only way to provide less would be to put the Stadio Renzo Barbera on wheels), it’s far from certain that they’ll be able to match Zamparini’s achievements.
So farewell to Maurizio Zamparini, Italian football’s entertainingly mad scientist who challenged conventional wisdom. Whether he intended to or not.
Italian kid draws Fiorentina’s Federico Chiesa instead of a chiesa (church) in school, gets to meet…
This kid knew exactly what he was doing
In Italian, the word chiesa means church. But when a teacher asked their class to draw a picture of a church as part of a lesson on religious buildings, six-year-old Vittorio had a different Chiesa in mind—Fiorentina’s 19-year-old striker Federico Chiesa. So that’s who he drew. A happy looking figure wearing Fiorentina purple and orange boots.
Upon seeing his son’s work (presumably at a hastily arranged parent-teacher conference), Vittorio’s father—a man who has clearly instilled his own priorities into children—knew what to do.
From Football Italia:
His father, Dario, put the image on social media and it went viral.
It came to the attention of Fiorentina and they invited Vittorio and his father to the training ground to visit the Viola squad.
This includes 19-year-old midfielder Chiesa, who has three goals and two assists in 19 competitive games this season.
And that’s how you get to meet your favorite team. Easy as that. This family is brilliant.
Juventus’ new logo is a soulless abomination of corporatized football
This is what you get when you let focus groups dictate your identity
Rarely do fans ever like even the smallest of changes to their favorite club’s badge, so it should come as no surprise that the reaction to Juventus’ new logo has been less than glowing. What is surprising, however, is just how different it is.
The new logo—and it’s important to note that it’s being called a logo, rather than a badge, crest, or anything else that traditionally represents a football club rather than a corporation—boils down elements from previous badges to a minimalistic remnant so subtle that you need to analyze it like the Zapruder film to identify them.
From Juventus’ announcement of the new identity:
Juventus’ objective is to grow in terms of presence and influence and to expand the business side of the club through a series of radically innovative initiatives, targeting both Bianconeri fans all over the world and those with less of an interest in football.
Black and White and More represents the start of a host of events relating to the Academy, immersive retail formats and a range of unique physical and digital products and services.
Translation: Juve would rather be Berkshire Hathaway than a football club. Sure, that might make sense for a traditional business. But business conglomerates don’t have fans. What Juve seem to be forgetting is that the reason people give them money is because those people have formed a personal relationship with the club. If they alienate themselves from those people in an attempt to become everything to everyone, they risk becoming nothing to anyone.
The transformation also encompasses a brand-new visual identity. The result of a bold, uncompromising approach, the new visual identity turns the sport’s traditional style on its head and sets about blazing a new trail.
A blazing new trail of unidentifiable blandness.
It is an iconic, simple design centred around sharp lines and will surely steal the spotlight no matter where it is used. The design brings to mind a famous line from Gianni Agnelli: “I get excited every time I see a word beginning with J in the papers.”
So they’ve made the new logo two J’s having sex?
“No club in Europe has so far been able to transcend sport and convey the philosophy behind that,” explains Manfredi Ricca, Chief Strategy Officer for EMEA & LatAm at Interbrand, who teamed up with Juventus to develop the identity and concept of Black and White and More.
“If there is one club capable of taking that step, it’s Juventus — the brand is synonymous with ambition and excellence and these are principles that can inspire truly unique experiences. The new visual identity has been designed to boldly take the club’s spirit into new, unexpected realms.”
Like the bargain bin at a discount store?
Here’s how the logo will look on Juve’s kits next season (viewed through the gun-barrel opening of a James Bond film?)…
And here’s how the general public views it:
New, unexpected realms, indeed.
Atalanta captain wears Frozen armband for daughter’s birthday
The latest in armband fashions
Atalanta captain Papu Gomez, who you may remember as the guy who two-footed his own son on the beach a couple weeks ago, marked his return to the pitch by wearing a custom armband featuring characters from the animated film Frozen for his daughter’s birthday. No points for guessing which is his favorite child.
Gomez ended up scoring two goals within the first half hour of his side’s 4–1 win over Chievo Verona, which you kind of have to do if you’re going to wear Disney characters on your arm while you play.
This is just the latest in a long line of topical armbands Gomez has worn, though.
Hopefully this catches on and more captains bring some personality to their armbands, but, knowing FIFA, it’s probably just a matter of time before they ban the practice.
