Though I appreciate Seve’s attempt to win me over by choosing a goal from my glorious AS Roma, I’m not a teenage girl that is so easily swayed. I do, however, agree on his three criteria that need to be satisfied for any of the presented goals to be considered the greatest.

While I thought about posting Gerrard’s header from the Liverpool-Milan 2005 Champions League Final due to its significance and sheer power from the top of the box or even Kaka’s superb individual goal against Manchester United in the first leg of the 2007 Champion’s League Quarterfinal match, I realized that they paled in comparison on all three counts to this goal:

I chose this goal (not just  because I’m Italian), but because it satisfies all three criteria with flying colors. First, the commentary from Fabio Caressa is classic with the yelling repetition of “Goal di Gross” and “siamo sopra e manca un minuto (we’re up and a minute remains!)”. Second, the goal is blasted in from a difficult angle that curls perfectly into the side netting. Though this doesn’t seem to compare to some of the other strikes we’ve seen, I can bet that given 100 tries most of us couldn’t reproduce it.

Finally, the significance of the goal should be obvious — a World Cup semifinal, in the 2nd period of overtime with only two minutes remaining, in an absolutely fantastic game where the future would have held a penalty kick shootout that Italy (at the time) had never won and Germany had never lost. Add to this the huge rivalry between the two teams including the fact that Germany had never lost in that particular stadium and, at the same time, Germany had never beaten Italy in World Cup play.

Instant classic.

I know that this type of argument is a bit ridiculous because goals are hard to compare, but this is most definitely my nomination for one of the greatest goals of all time. I think that the freak out by the french commentator adds a nice touch as well and though I don’t speak baguette, I’m pretty sure there are at least two references to Zizou.

Tags: Gourcuff, Great Goals

I was recently talking with a friend of mine and we stumbled upon the topic of Champions League soccer. I joked again about how I believed that Roma was going to win it this year. He laughed and said, “You should focus on winning lo scudetto, and leave the Champions League to the big teams [he’s a Juventus fan].” I brushed off the big team comment as ridiculous (since Roma definitely is) and began wondering how important domestic league wins are to CL wins (I’ve been doing a lot of stats stuff lately and yes, it’s kind of dorky). Since the tournaments inception in 1955, there have been 21 winners from 10 different countries. Here is the breakdown of each winner with the year of their first CL win in parenthesis followed by the number of league championships won prior to that (includes year they won CL, if applicable):

                        Real Madrid (1956) – 5                                    Milan (1963) – 8

                        Liverpool (1977) – 8                                        Bayern Munich (1974) – 5

                        Ajax (1971) – 14                                            Barcelona (1992) – 12

                        Internazionale (1964) – 8                               Manchester United (1968) – 7

                        Benfica (1961) – 11                                         Juventus (1985) – 21

                        Porto (1987) – 9                                             Nottingham (1979) – 1

                        Marseille (1993) – 8                                       Steaua Bucuresti (1986) – 11

                        Hamburg (1983) – 7                                      Celtic (1967) – 22

                        Borussia Dortmund (1997) – 5                        Red Star Belgrade (1991) – 10

                        PSV Eindhoven (1988) – 10                            Aston villa (1982) – 7

                        Feyenoord (1970) – 9

I know that there are a lot of other factors that need to be considered such as the year the league was created, the difficulty of competition in each league, the finances of each club, and wins after 1955, but I don’t have the time for that, so this is all you get for now.  Overall, the average number of domestic league wins is 9.43 (if we take out Celtic, Juventus, and Nottingham as outliers, the average is 8.55) with the low being 1 for Nottingham and the high of 22 for Celtic. This isn’t great news since Roma has only won the scudetto three times in its history which means we need to win approximately 5 more championships to start to consider CL glory. Hey, if Nottingham can do it, then so can we. Forza Roma!

               It’s been a long six weeks, but the wait is finally almost over for soccer to begin again – real soccer, not MLS soccer. The red and orange in my blood has begun to boil in anticipation and, more than anything, I can’t wait for the ritual to begin again: Waking up early on Sundays to watch the games, fanatically screaming and shouting in ecstasy and despair, then going to play on my own soccer team before returning to watch an Italian sports show analysis of the day’s games while arguing both with the TV and my family.

                If you haven’t already figured it out, I’m a romanista to the core and, despite the skeptics (yeah, I’m talking to you Seve), I optimistically believe that i giallorossi will win the scudetto.  I would even go so far as to say that Roma has the team this year to win the Champions League for the first time in their history. Overall, we have a solid squad with Vucinic and Pizarro in top form, and Menez quickly finding his role in this system. The eternal gladiators of De Rossi and Totti will undoubtedly give everything they have. The biggest question mark is Adriano: Can he get back to pre-drug, hookers, and booze form? Above all, the most reassuring news about the team this year is just the confidence that can be heard in interviews. It’s as if they’ve placed expectations on themselves that they have no doubt they can achieve. No longer is Roma a middle of the table squad, but slowly they have pushed themselves into the top table and will become a mainstay in the champions league for a long time to come. Opponents will enter the arena and here the shouts of the ultras: 

“Ma che siete venu’

Ma che siete venu’

Ma che siete venuti a fà!”

          I’m not going to start my first post with an exhaustive examination of Italy’s poor performance and early exit from the World Cup; instead, I’m moving on (mainly because it’s too depressing and, at times, physically painful) and looking towards the future – the youth.

          Being an internationally renowned and prestigious league has its benefits and its pitfalls. Benefits for the clubs and pitfalls for the national teams. Over the past twenty years, the big three leagues (Premier League, Seria A, and La Liga) have seen an influx of players from all over the world which has resulted in the sidelining or exporting of many homegrown players. Foreign and greedy owners have taken over and the goal has become winning championships not by developing players and building a solid team but by buying it. In the end, it’s the kids that suffer. Owners have lost patience with youth programs that don’t produce results or profits quick enough. It’s much easier to just buy the best player in each position and then try and get a coach (aka Mourinho) to teach them to play together.

Five nations represented, none are Italian.

          Case and point is the “Italian club” Inter FC. This year they joined the ranks of an elite few after winning the treble and have the opportunity of winning the “sextet”, a feat accomplished by only one other team, Barcelona. But can they really expect Italians to be proud of what they’ve done. THEY HAVE NO ITALIANS ON THE TEAM! That’s not entirely true. There are five – two of whom are goalies that have to hope that Julio Caesar gets seriously injured if they want to stand between the posts (but if that happens Inter will probably just buy another goalie) and three field players whose playing minutes are like Cristiano Ronaldo World Cup goals – few and far between. The tragedy here is that two of those benchwarmers (Santon and Balotelli) are young players that came up through the youth program but have not been able to gain experience. As a result, they are missing out on opportunities to improve and grow as players in the hope of bringing their talent and potential to the international stage.

          It’s not just Inter though. The transfer market in Italy is headlined by the possible transfer of foreigners into Italy while more and more potentially (and actually) phenomenal young Italians are fleeing the country in the hopes of garnering more respect, experience, skill, and money. As more capital is spent on these high profile players, spending on the youth programs plummets, leaving these kids to search for a club that’s willing to invest in their future and talent: within the last five years, Lazio lost Frederico Macheda to Manchester United, Parma’s Giuseppe Rossi to Villareal, Roma’s Alberto Aquilani to Liverpool, Juventus is about to lose Sebastian Giovinco, and Inter will probably lose Mario Balotelli and Davide Santon if things don’t change soon. I’m sure there are many more that I’m forgetting right now too.

Paolo Maldini's son Christian (left) and father Cesare (right)

          If left to the clubs, nothing will change. Even though all the owners of the major clubs in Italy are still Italian (unlike in England), their greed has placed the club’s success over their own country’s. This is where the FIGC (Federazione Italiana Giuoco Calcio) needs to step in. Youth promotion starts by regulating the number of foreign players that are allowed to be in the starting eleven as well as on the club’s payroll. This way the clubs are forced to produce homegrown talent that will develop and mature to be stars for not only their club but hopefully also their country like a Maldini, Totti, Nesta, or many others. In 2010, it was the young guns of Germany that carried the team while Spain has to credit the Barcelona youth program for their first World Cup and Euro wins.

          In the end, it’s a domino effect. Managerial greed and self-importance leads to buying foreign “stars” (primarily South American) which leads to reducing investment in club youth programs which leads to poor national team performances and finally results in angry and frustrated fans (myself included). Italy’s future on the international stage for both the national team and the domestic clubs depends largely on how well the FIGC can restructure its youth initiatives so that once again a city’s pride can become a national treasure.