Defending Prandelli (To an Extent)

The inquest is by now underway, the nation of 60 million coaches trying to comprehend and explain what went wrong, but the fact is that Italy have been eliminated for the second consecutive time from the group stage at the World Cup. And just like in 2010, no one can deny it wasn’t merited. 

As expected Cesare Prandelli was severely criticized in the wake of the defeat to Uruguay, even more so than the defeat to Costa Rica five days prior. Ever the classy man, he resigned as boss of the Azzurri a short time after, citing ‘’ this was my technical project, and not a winning one’’, he said, dignified to the end. How can this have happened? And can we really put all of the blame on Prandelli?

Prandelli unquestionably deserves criticism for his selection choices in the remaining two group stage games, playing a 4-1-4-1 system against Costa Rica was his first major error of the tournament, yes it made sense to stick with the same tactics and same players that beat England in the opening game, but Costa Rica were never going to open themselves up and play into Italy’s hands like England in Manuas.

What if: Pele had joined Juventus in the '60s?

Pele and Sivori in 1961

If you asked people (old enough to remember of course) to describe Italian football in the 1960s, you will most likely get the same responses; ‘Catenaccio’,‘Helenio Herrera’ and ‘Nereo Rocco’. The 1960s belonged to the Milanese giants, on the domestic and European front; between them they won five Scudettos (including numerous runners up finishes), four European Cups and one Cup Winners Cup. It was the decade of La Grande Inter and Gianni Rivera.

Compare this to the fortunes of Juventus in the decade and it’s quite a stark contrast. Juve won back-to-back titles in 1959/60 and 60/61, a further title in 1966/67 and a sole Coppa Italia title in 1964/65. By La Vecchia Signora’s high standards it wasn’t the most successful of decades, but the entire landscape of Calcio could have been very different if a particular mission by the club had been successful.

The mission in question was a potential transfer that could have changed the face of Italian football in the '60s, over the years Juve have had numerous 'nearly done' transfers (Cristiano Ronaldo, Luis Figo and Xabi Alonso spring to mind), yet this 'nearly completed' transfer is by far the biggest of them all, and it is a relatively unknown story.  

The Asian Market : Premier League 1 - 0 Serie A

Beep beep, beep, beep, a familiar yet always unwelcome noise wakens me from a deep sleep, it's 3:40am on a Monday morning and the noise is my alarm clock. Why am I getting up at this ungodly hour you may ask? To watch my beloved Juventus of course, tonight’s opponents are Genoa at the Marassi.

I make my way out of the bedroom as quietly as possible and sit myself down on the sofa, still untangling the cobwebs from my head as I switch on the TV and find the channel showing the game.

The encounter itself was one worthy of curing a person with severe insomnia, that was until Andrea Pirlo stepped up in the 89th minute and curled a trademark free kick into the top corner, which caused me to run around the living room, silently screaming like a deranged lunatic at around 5.25am.

Usually only one outcome

USA '94 - The last great World Cup?

Several months ago I shared a few tweets with Tim Vickery, the BBC’s South American football expert, he was of the opinion that the 1986 World Cup was the last ‘great’ World Cup. I replied, insisting that while USA ’94 didn’t have a team that won over the hearts of the public like the ‘Danish Dynamite’ side, the overall competition was equally as good as Mexico ’86.

However is that really the case? The World Cup of 1994 was the event that opened my eyes to the world of Football and therefore has always been held on a pretty high pedestal. 

The event captivated me, from the colourful (not to mention some outlandish) jerseys to the eternal sunshine to the exotic names of countries I’d never heard of to the quality of the players on show, it was here that I found my footballing idol in Roberto Baggio, I cried for hours when he missed his penalty in the final.