footballspectator

In football, timing is everything. As if they did not have enough motivation to beat Italy, Marco Materazzi’s ill-timed revelation of the words he used to provoke ZZ’s headbutt in July’s World Cup final on the eve of tonight’s encounter, to further fan the flames of French fury.

France were relentless. Sidney Govou opened the socring in only the second minute lashing in Gallas‘ cross with an angled drive. Sixteen minutes later it was two as Henry reacted quickest to Buffon’s save from Malouda to place the ball in the net with the aid of a deflection. Gilardino’s header shortly after gave Italy hope but in truth they were never in the game. Cassano hardly got a sniff of the ball and Semioli looked out of his depth. France created further chances in the second half and deservedly made it 3-1 through Govou’s header. They then had chances to further extend their lead but could not convert.

Italy looked like a group of players still on holiday, justifiably so given that their domestic league is yet to restart. New coach Roberto Donadoni is going to be in for a tough time if performances like this and the draw against Lithuania are repeated. His record of no wins in his first three matches in charge is one of the worst starts ever made by an Italian national coach. He will be hoping that by the time these sides next meet, most of the World Cup stars will be back and in form. For the French, tonight’s performance will go a small way towards healing the wounds inflicted on July 9th. However, the reality remains that it is Italy who proudly wear an extra star on their shirt.

Inter secured their 14th Scudetto today, without a match being played! It’s Inter’s first title since 1989. How can they have won it before the season has started you ask? Well it has been awarded to them retropectively as part of the fall-out from the Calciopoli scandal. While many teams would not have celebrated a title which was not won on the pitch, Inter are an exception, maybe because their dry spell has been so long. The club’s website featured the picture on the left.

President Massimo Moratti declared it the “Scudetto of honesty and respect“. He went on to say that it was won by the best team and the team with the right spirit and was doubly valuable because it was won at a time when everyone was following recent events. Coach Roberto Mancini said it was “just reward for our efforts and honesty. We deserve it and we are happy“.

The championship also gives Inter their first ever double. Amazingly Inter may soon win their second title in as many days, should it be decided that the title Juve “won” two years ago sould also be theirs. It’s like waiting for buses, you wait for ages and then two come along at the same time!

The appeal court announced its verdict on the calciopoli scandal earlier this evening. The big winners are Lazio and Fiorentina with both teams escaping relegation to Serie B and instead remaining in Serie A but starting the season with -11 and -19 points respectively. Milan must also be pleased. They will start with -8 instead of -15 points and crucially will be able to take part in the Champions League, although they will start from the qualifying rounds. For Juve too there was a slight reduction in penalty. They will start on -17 as opposed to -30 but remain in Serie B. They now have an outside chance of promotion.

The losers included Lecce and Treviso who will now play in Serie B - after the original verdict they had been reinstated to Serie A. Palermo also suffered with their Champions League hopes being dashed.

So it seems like the summer sales will continue at Juve. Milan will probably now be able to keep their star players like Kaka and Fiorentina will need another stupendous season from Luca Toni (if he stays) to survive. The court has been soft and the decision seems like a cop out to me unless there were darker forces involved. Berlusconi? Or perhaps Luciano Moggi himself…

FIFA passed its sentence on Marco Materazzi and Zinedine Zidane today. Zidane was fined €5,000 and banned for 3 matches. Materazzi was fined €3,500 and banned for 2 games, meaning he will miss the World Cup final repeat - Italy’s qualifier for Euro 2008 at the Stade de France, in September. FIFA confirmed that Materazzi’s verbal abuse was not racist.

Our verdict? Bizarre. Zidane’s punishment: what’s the point of banning someone who has retired? Zidane has pledged to spent 3 days doing community service instead but still, if Zizou had done what he did on the street he would be facing a jail term. The fine is pathetic. It sends out the message that it’s OK to head-butt. Materazzi’s punishment: its disproportionate. How many times do players insult each other on the pitch? How many are punished? An insult is being deemedto be almost as bad as a head-butt!
The decision is obviously politically motivated. FIFA wants to appease the French and preserve the image of Zidane as the greatest player of his generation. It’s too much of a “coincidence” that the Matrix is banned from the match in France where he was likley to receive a “special” welcome. Blatter and Co have made a mess of this one…

Following on from our earlier article, according to Sport1.de, the two additional teams being investigated for their involvement in the match-fixing scandal otherwise known as “Calciopoli” are Chievo and Reggina. Apologies to all Inter fans!

The Neapolitan prosecutor who first uncovered the involvement of Juventus, Lazio, Fiorentina and Milan in match-fixing has announced that two more as yet unnamed clubs are also being investigated. Unlike last time however, he is refusing to name the clubs before retired magistrate Franceso Saverio Borelli (who is leading the investigation) files charges. This is likely to be very shortly as a result of UEFA pressure.

This new revelation comes a few days after Luciano Moggi’s statement to the Italian media that Inter were also involved in match-fixing. At first, his comments were seen as an attempt  to “cleanse” his image, now they may be seen as prophetic…

Manchester United are apparently interested in 6 Juventus players: Gianluigi Buffon, Gianluca Zambrotta, Patrick Vieira, Fabio Cannavaro, Emerson and Lilian Thuram. Alex Ferguson said, “We were waiting to see what the situation with Juventus was. Now we know in which direction to go in terms of inquiries and, possibly, definitive offers for one or two players“.

However, according to AS, Ferguson may be too late for at least three of these. Real Madrid’s Sporting Director Predrag Mijatovic is in Turin to finalise the signings of Cannavaro, Emerson and Zambrotta. He will meet with Juve officials tomorrow to negotiate the final price - Juve are asking for €40 million and Real’s current offer is €30 million for all three. Mijatovic may also pick up Cristiano Zanetti, a favourite of Capello. These players may be joined at Real by Ruud Van Nistelrooy and Kaka.
To add a further twist Zambrotta’s agent says that his client would rather stay in Italy with AC Milan his destination. He may be joined there by Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who Carlo Ancelotti believes is the ideal partner for Alberto Gilardino.

Inter have had a €38 million bid for Fernando Torres rejected by Real Madrid. Torres is also wanted by Manchester United to replace the outgoing Van Nistelrooy. But new coach Javier Aguirre has insisted that Torres is not for sale. Marseille chairman Pape Diouf has issued similar statement regarding World Cup star Franck Ribery.

Javier Saviola’s agent has said that his client will either stay at Sevilla or move to Panathinaikos after Arsene Wenger declared yesterday that he was not interested in signing the player. Saviola spent last year on loan in Seville from Barcelona who are keen to offload the Argentine. Other players on the way are Jared Borgetti from Bolton to possibly Racing Santander and Liverpool duo Jan Kromkamp (a PSV target) and Djimi Traore who may go to Bolton or Charlton.

Finally tow players who completed moves today were Holland’s Denny Landzaat who joins Wigan from AZ Alkmaar and Croatian World Cup playmaker Niko Kranjcar who is moving to Celta Vigo from Hajduk Split.

So who you ask is Luciano Moggi? How did he managed to bring the “Old Lady“, the team that had won 29 titles (now 27) to her knees? Here is a brief biography of the man previously known as “Lucky Luciano“.

Born in Siena in 1937, Moggi’s career started as a train station attendant in Rome. Many of the most powerful men in Italian football passed through the station where he worked. He befriended many of them and soon earned his big break when Italo Allodi offered him a job working with the junior sections of Juventus in the early 70s. This was Moggi’s big chance to impress the “big cheeses” at Juve. However, he soon moved to a new role at Roma in 1979 and then on to Lazio. His first major “successes” came at Torino in the early 1980s where he helped re-establish the team among Calcio’s elite.

In 1985, Verona took the Italian championship. While the fans credit the coach and players such as Elkjaer with the success, Serie A club directors are not so convinced. Rumours of match-fixing by Verona’s president, a close friend of Moggi emerge. In a bid to distance himself from these, Moggi moves south to join Napoli. Here he is in his element and is able to “work” quietly with the support of the mafia. Napoli begin to enjoy “fairer” treatment from referees and win the championship.

Moggi leaves Napoli in 1991. Through his connections, he helps Silvio Berlusconi acquire Gianluigi Lentini from Torino, the most expensive transfer in football history at the time. Moggi himself then returns to Torino and revives their fortunes, helping them secure European football again. There is talk of the “granata” enjoying favourable refereeing decisions and Torino’s profits sore unexpectedly. The vultures begin to circle. The press are more suspicious than ever and investigations begin into the transfer of Lentini.

Moggi jumps ship and moves to Roma. His time there is short. Once again he displays excellent timing, moving to back to Juve just as a scandal is uncovered surrounding Roma’s transfer dealings (his main responsibility). Moggi brings Lippi to Juventus and Juve win their first title in 9 years in 1995 and follow it up by winning the next two scudetti. Moggi’s popularity is at its peak.

However, once again a club with Moggi at the helm seems to enjoy extremely “favourable” refereeing but nothing can be proved. It’s at this time that the Juventus doping scandal surfaces. After a 5 year battle in the courts, the directors and manager are cleared of any involvement in or knowledge of the scandal. The blame is placed squarely on the shoulders of Juve’s medical team.Moggi’s uncanny ability to be close to controversy but to escape unscathed continues.

His downfall eventually comes due to his love of mobile phones. The prosecutor in the doping scandal had Moggi’s mobile tapped and in the spring of 2006, transcripts of conversations between Moggi, journalists and members of the refereeing community emerge. Moggi resigns. His arrogance knows no bounds. “The system [controlling the appoinment of referees] existed before my time. The only thing I wanted to ensure was that Juventus would not be unfairly treated. If you are looking for guilt, look at Milan” he says. This time he cannot escape. He issues one parting shot: “I am tired of football. Those who accuse me have destroyed my soul. Football will not be better without me and that will be proved shortly. When that happens I will no longer be around to be used as a scapegoat. Remember that…“.

The Italian sports tribunal investigating the match-fixing scandal involving several high profile Serie A clubs has ruled that Juventus, Fiorentina and Lazio will play next season in Serie B, while AC Milan will get to remain in Serie A, but at a heavy(ish) price.

Juventus has been hit the hardest: they have been stripped off their last two titles they won in 2004/05 and 2005/06 and will be forced to start their campaign in Serie B next year from minus 30 points. Fiorentina will start from -12 and Lazio from -7. Milan were lucky not to be relegated as well: they will stay in Serie A, although their points from last season have been reduced by 44, meaning they won’t play in Europe, they will start their campaign next year from -15.

This means that Inter, Roma, Chievo and Palermo will play in next year’s Champions’ League (the first two qualify directly), while Lecce, Messina and Treviso get another chance at playing in Serie A (they had been relegated at the end of the last season).

All in all, Milan should be extremely happy that they have been allowed to stay in Serie A: the prosecutors had originally requested that they be relegated too…Juventus should consider themselves lucky too, as the prosecutors’ original request was that they’d be relegated to Serie C… In Serie B and with 30 points penalisation, they may not get promoted back to Serie A for a while, which will make the next 1-2 years very interesting (serves them right!).

Following his resignation, Marcello Lippi has plenty of spare time on his hands and he is planning to use at least some of it to learn a new language. Apparently, he has enrolled with a foreign language school in Milan. His choice of course (English) may provide some clues as to his future destination - the English Premiership. A source close to Lippi revealed, “it is 70% certain that Lippi will work in the Premiership. If Manchester United offer him a contract he will accept. However, at the moment feels that his lack of English is a disadvantage so he is planning to start an intensive course to overcome this issue“.

Sir Alex Ferguson will be monitoring Lippi’s progress with interest as his the future may depend on Lippi’s aptitude for languages!

A lot of our articles over the past few days have focussed on the now infamous Zidane head-butt on Marco Materazzi in Sunday’s World Cup final. We have heard what the two protagonists have had to say. It is now time to put the incident to bed. Here we take one last look at how the incident was reported in different parts of the world. Remember, a picture is worth a thousand words…

According to Japanese TV:

According to Italian TV:

According to French TV:

According to American TV:

According to British TV:

According to Al Jazeera TV

Accodring to the anti-Italian German press:

Marcello Lippi and Jurgen Klinsmann both quit as coaches of Italy and Germany today. Coincidence? Probably, but these were two of the most successful coaches at the World Cup. The problem seems to have been the pressure they were both under prior to the tournament.

Klinsmann, especially, was heavily criticised in the German media due to the host nation’s poor run of form prior to the tournament. Indeed, had Germany not beaten what was effectively the US’s second team 4-1 in a friendly in Dortmund, he would have probably been sacked. Lippi’s name too had been dragged through the mud due to his links with the “calciopoli” scandal.

Yet suddenly they are both heroes who can do not wrong and all is forgotten/forgiven. While the press may have short memories, Klinsmann and Lippi do not. They know that at the first signs of things going wrong the press will turn on them again - too much success does not make an interesting story after all.Need examples? Otto Rehhagel - worshipped following Greece’s unexpected Euro 2004 victory but now “useless” after Greece’s failure to qualify for Germany. Eriksson hailed following England’s 5-1 victory in Germany in 2001, to the extent that a song was written about him, but now a waste of money for failing to inspire England’s “golden generation” who (according only to the English media) should have won the title with ease.  No question of underperforming players or overhyped expectations - no, no, it was the coach’s fault on both occasions!

Marcello, Jurgen you have done the right thing!