Luciano Re Cecconi: A tragic demise, 35 years ago today
Today marks the 35th anniversary of Luciano Re Cecconi.
“Every Lazio mediano, sooner or later, has to be compared to him [Re Cecconi]. He was the most generous, the most loved and, sadly, the most unlucky.” (Cristian Ledesma, Lazio vice-captain)
Re Cecconi won the title with Lazio in the 1973-74 season. His death was an awful accident that perhaps portrays the general mood of day-to-day Italian life. It should never have ended like this though, you can read more about the event in a piece I wrote for Equaliser Blog in May.
Equaliser blog – Death in the afternoon
Guest post: Lazio’s Summer Shopping List
Lazio fans have been served the full range of emotions in the season just passed. An emphatic start was followed by a somewhat inevitable period of tailing off, eventually ending in a fifth placed finish. It was a campaign where incredibly fortunate late goals in favour of the Romans (against Udinese and Sampdoria) were countered by devastating winners against the run of play (Juventus). Despite missing out on fourth place – and thus the Champions League play off – the season provided many positives and building on this will be paramount to a successful 2011-12 season.
Read more here at Serie A Weekly
Guest post: Serie A left back of the season
Some players can go an entire season unnoticed, but they put their fair share of effort and work rate in. The results are positive and they develop both on and off the field. These silent partners in football’s team game will rarely win a game for your side, but they will certainly never lose a game for your team.
It can be difficult to understand the importance and qualities required of a good full back. There have been a number of more than capable left backs in Serie A this season; Balzaretti, Armero and Nagatomo have shone in the, traditionally, more attack minded of the full back positions. Yet the people’s choice for left back of the season has been Lazio’s Stefan Radu.
Read more here at Serie A Weekly
The Enigma of Mauro Zarate
On Sunday 31st August 2008 Lazio took to the field at the Stadio Sant Elia in Cagliari, five of the Aquile starting line up had arrived in the Summer to provide a much needed reinforcement to the side that finished a disappointing 12th the previous season. The most intriguing of the new faces was that of 21 year old Mauro Zarate.
Zarate €20million arrival from Qatari club Al-Sadd could be described as shady at best. The Argentine divided opinion some fans called him a “potential phenomenon” while others were foretelling of a colossal flop. Lazio president, Claudio Lotito, refused to sit on the fence and piled pressure on his new acquisition by boldly proclaiming “Zarate is better than Messi”
“He instantly showed what he has, in a debut which finished 4-1 to Lazio at the Sant’Elia – blazing dribbling, a powerful shot, ice cold. That, ice cold, temperament which allowed him to score the equalising penalty. The real feat came later, lobbing with his left – the boy is ambidextrous – a desperately onrushing Marchetti, with the slimmest margins of success.”
Giulio Cardone, La Repubblica
On his debut, Zarate’s sprightly young running put in a wonderful performance, but, questions were asked of him from the beginning though as Cardone goes on “Has a star been born? It’s too soon to say, he is far too in love with the ball”. Zarate went on to score 13 goals and provide 8 assists in 36 games during his first season, and at Christmas he was named one of the wonders of the Serie A season so far by Italian sports daily La Gazzetta dello Sport.
Claudio Lotito: 'Nothing so bold as a blind mare'
Sadly for Lazio fans, Maurito has failed to live up to the early promise. The goals dried up, having scored just 9 goals since the end of his first season Zarate is becoming increasingly unsettled in the Lazio side. Perhaps he is struggling to bear the hefty cross that comes with a huge price tag, or maybe he’s just an unhappy soul.
Click here to read the rest of this article…
Relative radio silence
Apologies for the lack of posts in the past couple of weeks, I’ve been a bit busy and concentrating on a few other things. There will hopefully be a few posts in the next week or two. In the mean time I’d like to invite you to read a couple of pieces I’ve written for Football Italia.
My debut for the wonderful Italian football site is The two tides that could, where I compare Napoli and Lazio to the little engine that could in Watty Piper’s children’s story.
A second offering for your eyes to consider is a resumé of Adriano’s stuttering time at Roma and his impending demise. It looks like Rome may be without an emperor once more. You can read the piece titled The Emperor’s demise here.
I hope you enjoy those.
Serie A’s bullies are still at large
In January Goran Pandev set a precedent when he was released from his contract by the Italian league and was allowed to move for free to a club that would take him in, make use of him and nurture his abilities. He moved to Inter after months of exclusion from the Lazio first team squad because of a squabble between player and chairman after the Macedonian forward asked to leave the club, hoping to move to a bigger club. Lazio paid at least €4m (this figure for the 2nd half of his co-ownership) for the player from Inter, but received nothing when he left.
The move from Lega Calcio was seen as a punishment for Lazio and their Chairman – Claudio Lotito – but also a warning to other clubs who had frozen players out of their squads because of back room squabbles. Lotito, notorious for poor relations with his players, had also frozen out midfielder Cristian Ledesma at the same time for asking for a wage increase due to his important contribution in the team’s run to the Coppa Italia in the 2008/09 season. Ledesma was later freed by the arrival of new boss Edy Reja, who demanded full control over the playing staff.
It would appear that despite the repercussions dealt out by the governing body, some chairmen still refuse to comply with the wishes of the league to protect the interests of the players playing in Italy. Last January, Antonio Cassano was briefly frozen out of the squad after moaning that he didn’t want to be deployed as a second striker by, the then boss, Gigi Del Neri. Cassano organised a move to Fiorentina late in the January transfer window, the deal had been practically agreed before Garrone convinced Antonio to stay in Genoa. Fantantonio – as he is commonly known in the Italian press – is one of two players who are currently in the spot light because they have been excluded from first team activities by their chairmen. The other is Italian goalkeeper Federico Marchetti, more about him later though.
Cassanata’plenty
The Bari born striker has made the headlines for the wrong reasons once more recently, laid into his chairman – Riccardo Garrone – after a request to go and collect a prize. The conversation went something like this: -
Garrone: “Come with me to collect this prize from Sestri Levante. Just stay until they give it to you, then you can leave”
Cassano: “No, I won’t come to Sestri Levante”
Garrone: “Why?”
Cassano: “Because, no. I won’t go and receive a prize from that shit-house of a hotel”
Garrone: “Who do you think you are?”
Cassano: “Why are you raising your voice?”
Garrone: “Don’t tell me I’m raising my voice, you know full well that I’ve never raised my voice with you”
Cassano then stormed off and was heard throwing a tantrum and insulting Garrone in the dressing room, some rather unsavoury stuff was reported. His chairman immediately sought out the possibility of having Cassano’s contract rescinded by the league, making a public statement saying that he was not happy for Antonio to return to the Sampdoria playing staff. Antonio made a public apology and placed much of the blame for the outburst on a particular moment of personal difficulty he was enduring with his pregnant wife but Garrone refuted it, threw it back in his face. Paolo Bandini provides a more in-depth look at the spat for The Score, if you’re interested in what went on.
The damage had been done. Cassano, together with the fire power of his agent Beppe Bozzo, has launched an offensive against the club. He is taking Sampdoria to arbitration for compensation and damages for loss of fitness, losing his place in the National squad and damage to his image.
Trouble? Who me? Nooo....
While Cassano would like to stay in Genoa, preferably at Sampdoria, if Garrone refuses to have him back then he will hope that he can find a place in the Genoa squad so he can be as close as possible to his wife with a child on the way. Otherwise a number of other clubs have come out and said they’d find a place in their squads for Cassano, most notably Palermo chairman (and Serie A’s resident loon) Maurizio Zamparini. Barring this freak outburst, he appears to have matured tremendously over the pasts few seasons and the side have been struggling in his absence – scoring just once in the past 5 games.
Financially, Sampdoria wouldn’t be too displeased if he were to leave. He is likely to be one of their highest earners on the wage bill and if he was released for free it would void a clause in his transfer contract from Real Madrid meaning that Sampdoria would not owe Real Madrid €5 million. Enough cash saved to be able to replace the striker.
The boy who dared to dream
Lurking in the shadows of Cassano’s mess stands Federico Marchetti, also the victim of an angered chairman. His tale is a different one to Cassano’s though. Marchetti went to the World Cup as Italy’s number 2 choice between the posts and had been held up by Buffon as his favourite young keeper, making him heir apparent. At half time during Italy’s first group game against Paraguay he was given the chance to accomplish what many young boys can only dream of – representing your country at the World Cup Finals™.
He left South Africa on a high despite the failure to defend Italy’s World crown, he was interviewed and asked questions about rumours linking the Cagliari keeper with a move to Sampdoria. Naturally, he stated his willingness to take his game to the next level and that a move to Sampdoria could facilitate the possibility of Champions League football which would be a dream come true.
Oh, come on... just let me play!
The reporter slyly filed the interview away for a few weeks until Cagliari went on a training retreat during which time a media ban was imposed. The reporter released the interview on July 23rd and Cagliari owner Massimo Cellino hit the roof, however Marchetti explained his way out of a fine by explaining the situation to sporting director Francesco Marroccu. He was heckled by fans in the 45 minutes he played against a local side the next day, the only minutes that Marchetti has played this season.
Seeking a move away from the club following the incident, he was linked with moves to some big names in European football (Arsenal & Bayern Munich to name a couple). His agent, coincidentally also Beppe Bozzo, issued complaints that the club had asked for too much in order to force deals to fall through. The club simply retorted that it was the agent’s fee that had been the issue in negotiations.
Marchetti has since been allowed to train with the first team, though this appears to be a measure aimed purely to disguise what is really going on behind the scenes to avoid any kind of contract rescission by Lega. Marchetti has spoken out publicly in the past few weeks, calling his treatment by the club a sort of bullying. He will be taking his case to Lega for arbitration on Thursday 18th November, hoping to be freed from his contract as well as compensation.
Cagliari president Massimo Cellino has reacted angrily, saying: “If anyone deserves money in damages then it is me, as I had to buy another goalkeeper. Cagliari cannot be accused of bullying, as we are allowing him to train regularly and giving him the chance to fight for his place.” Player and club will both await the verdict of the court on Thursday, to think that all the boy did was dare to dream. If he is able to attain freedom, he is perceived as a well behaved professional young player who should have little trouble finding a club to call home in any of Europe’s top leagues.
Tip-toeing around the strike
What makes these cases even more interesting is the impending possibility of a players strike. In September the strike was postponed after agreement was reached over 6 of the 8 points of disagreement while drawing up a collective contract for all league players. One of the 2 outstanding points regards players being frozen out from squads and being forced to train in isolation, the other is to do with clubs forcing their players to accept transfers when an agreement has been made with a club at a similar level and there is no loss of earnings.
The league and chairmen representatives will have an incredibly difficult set of negotiations ahead of them should they appear to come down unreasonably in favour of Cellino and Garrone when the cases are heard. The strike is widely recognised as being of detriment to every party involved with the sport but the players representatives have made it clear that they are determined to follow through with their threats.
Guest post: Derby della Capitale
I’ve written a preview of tomorrow’s derby in Rome for In Bed With Maradona.
Give it a read, and leave a comment if you like…