matio_the_daddyo

    The eightieth edition of serie A starts on 9th of September  when i campioni take on the two time champions Lazio. The 2011-12 season is promised to be more competitive than ever with the reemergence of the old forces I.e. Milan, Napoli, Lazio… and given that there are only three champions league spots to fight for due to Serie A teams poor performances in Europa league in the last few years dropping in UEFA coefficient table as a result, a competition Italian teams simply don’t give a **** about according to Aurelio De Laurentiis. This new phenomena changes the whole dynamic of the league as to how it’s going to be played out compared to seasons before.



   The defending champions Milan will start as favorites losing very little during off-season and strengthening and adding depth to few areas and injecting fresh blood. Taye Taiwo and Phillipe Mexes both arrived on free transfers, Mark Van Bommel extended his contract till the end of the season ,youth sensation Stephan El Shaarawy been acquired on a co-ownership deal with Genoa and Alberto Aquilani joining to occupy the space opened up after Andrea Pirlo’s departure ending the hunt for the proverbial Mr. X.
   While it looks all rosy for the red and black half of Milan, the same can not be said for the blue and black half. With President Moratti cashing in on his priced assets with UEFA financial fairplay kicking in the talisman Samuel Eto’o was sold to Anzhi Makhachkala and vultures circling for Wesley Sneijder, this looks to be a long season for Nerazzuri.
   Meanwhile roughly 80 miles west of Milan there has been another summer and another managerial change for the Turin club with former Juventus legend Antonio Conte being appointed this time though unlike his predecessors he will be taking the helm at the brand new Stadio delle Alpi. The old lady didn’t waste any time to give the young coach a helping hand with services of Andrea Pirlo, Arturo Vidal, Mirko Vucinic, Stephan Lichtsteiner among others being acquired.

Bets:

Back Juventus to finish ahead of Inter Milan @ 2.20  with bwin.com.
With no  European football to worry about, Juventus will have all their eyes set on the domestic competitions and would love to get one over their biggest rivals.

Back Lazio to finish ahead of Roma @ 2.55 with bwin.com.
It has been a summer of house cleaning for the Romans with ownership and managerial changes the club seems to be in the period of transition. Luis Enrique wasted little time to put his stamp on the side bringing along few Spaniards and emphasizing on playing the youth the club seems on the period of transition with more questions than answers at the moment while the old stagers Claudio Lotito and Edy Reja have done some shrewd business signing Djibril Cisse and Miroslav Klose adding pieces to an already well oiled up and fully functioning machine.

Back Marco Di Vaio to finish as capocannoniere @ 34.00 with bet365.com.
Serie A has proved to be an old man’s game time and time again over the recent years, 34/1 is an absolute steal and is not to be missed, the Rome native came close in 2009 finishing runner-up, expect the 35 years old to have one last hurrah and add-up to his already impressive tally.



Back Ac Milan to win the scudetto @ 2.30 with betfair.com
Serie A is a professional league competition for the football clubs located at the top of the Italian league system and at the end he who possesses Zlatan Ibrahimovic will emerge triumphant.

Marco Materazzi = Vinnie Jones

No comparison can be made between the two when it comes to achieving club and country honours with Marco Materazzi winning four scudetto titles, one Champions league and a small matter of scoring at the world cup final and winning it in progress while highlight of Vinnie Jones’s career was when he set-up the winner for Billy the Limpet against prison guards in a movie scene, but when it comes to unorthodox playing style these are the names that make purists spew out whatever they’re drinking upon hearing them.  They are two of the most disliked players among the fans in their respected countries and in Marco’s case throughout the world for his involvement in Zinedine Zidane’s red card at the world cup final. Widely berated as untalented brutes by their past opponents and pundits alike for most of their careers and simply branded as ‘rubbish’ and more known for their tough-tackling, elbow-leaning aerial challenges and off the field antics than footballing abilities.



They are also notorious for their petulant, dirty play and off the ball incidents away from the sights of officials with Jones once threatening to bite off Kenny Daglish’s ear and spit it into hole and squeezing Paul Gascoigne’s private parts in another match, while Materazzi infamously provoked Zidane into head-butting him by insulting the Frenchman’s sister during the aforementioned world cup final. In another very dark episode the Apulia native dished out a flying elbow right beside Juan Pablo Sorin’s eye socket causing a deep cut and severe bleeding after his team-mate’s (Sebastian Veron) request over a long dispute between the two Argentines.

Overall the two masters of the dark arts tallied up 36 red cards in-between with the Italian claiming 24 of those, 3 of which he racked-up during his short stint at Everton where couldn’t tackle a Sayers’ steak and kidney pie in his pointless spell at Goodison according to TheTimes’ Alex Murphy. The Inter Milan defender still has time to raise his tally however it is unlikely as he doesn’t see much action nowadays and solely been kept in the squad to wind-up opponents and make sure the Inter players’ lunch money isn’t stolen by Serie A bullies. 



Perhaps one can argue that making it as a professional footballer didn’t really to their ‘to do list’ chart with Marco dreaming of becoming a concert pianist in his childhood until he fell and injured his wrist while Vinnie retired from professional football at relatively young age of 34 and instead used his on-field bad boy reputation to push for a career move as a movie thug.

Juventus = Manchester United


Both are widely considered the most successful teams domestically with Juventus winning 27 or 29 scudetti (depending your view point) in peninsula and United bagging 18 league titles (given the 18th is almost bagged) and 11 FA cups in England. They've been often painted as a lucky team scoring many late goals over the years. Also the number of contentious calls that seems to go their way when they're in dire need of help and are said to benefit more than other clubs from officials.



Their fans are often termed as 'gloryhunters’ and not local – i.e. they only support the club because they are successful. This can be observed, apparently, by the relatively small number of followers from Turin and Manchester with most Mancunians are City fans while Turin-locals supporting Torino therefore the two titans get the majority of their support from the southern part of their countries.



Number of coaches carrying Manchester United fans on motorways leading to Greater Manchester when United are playing at home and 100s of Juventus fan clubs all across Italy organizing trips to Turin and away games (which is by the way a very profitable business) is a testament to that. Also the tremendous support these teams enjoy whenever they travel down south to play domestically.