Since you can touch everything with Italians, except their holidays, we decided to step aside with a sensational advance. After all, the heat has arrived. Actually, we had tried a few days earlier, but then Calafiori and Zaccagni ruined our holiday plans and we had to wait a little longer. Not much, anyway. But we are talking about blue after all, just to say a couple of things.
First let’s get to the point, because for once there’s more roast than smoke.
Juve has grabbed Khephren Thuram, the invaluable “brother of Marcus” and “son of Lilian”. A done deal for 20 million, some bonuses, no technical compensation. The player’s strong will has played a huge role, as he was very good at resisting Nice’s initial demands (25 million). The midfielder is joining Juventus on a 5-year contract at 2 million per season, for a “business cost” very similar to Rabiot’s net salary. In other words: out with one in.
This is a masterpiece and a great Giuntolian move, for a talent coveted by many and very suitable for Motta’s game. We’ll see how the rest of the transfer market goes, but these first few weeks tell perfectly why Napoli, having lost Giuntoli, let go of much more than any “great player”.
So, in a completely extemporaneous way, we place the quote from Pantaleo Corvino there. Wow.
First part.
“I had chosen a secluded place to talk about the contract with Gotti, so we went to a facility of a friend of mine that is only used for ceremonies. We went to dinner and we didn’t agree, so it got late and we went to sleep. At a certain point, during the night, I heard a thud. It was Gotti knocking on my door: the facility was on fire”.
Second part.
“We tried to get down, but there was too much smoke and I was fainting, so we climbed down from the first-floor window. I was confused and he said, ‘Leo, I’m here with you.’ When we got to safety I asked him, ‘How much did you want for a salary? I’ll give you double.’”
End.
Gotti is the hero Serie A didn’t know it had.
Full stop.
Buchanan, Inter’s young Canadian winger, got hurt. It’s strange that it happened a few hours after the statements of the sporting director Ausilio who somehow announced the end of the Nerazzurri market. This was the hope, where in Nerazzurri every starter already has his beautiful double at the highest level. Indeed, he had. The curly-haired player’s KO (broken tibia, see you in late autumn) will force the managers to think carefully about what to do. They will say “we’ll make do like this”, but a replacement will arrive (though not Cuadrado “back”, in case you ever thought about it).
All this in the days of the renewal of Dumfries, Dutch winger close to the white smoke (and in the quarter finals at the European Championship!). There are those who like him and those who don’t, the writer likes him a lot. Cost 12 million, he is worth much more: he lacks a bit of continuity but if only we had more wingers like him.
Ah, tomorrow is the day of the medical visits of Martinez, former Genoa goalkeeper. Full stop.
And then Milan and the age-old question of a “striker” to offer to mister Fonseca. The fans of the devil are quite annoyed, but not for the lack of announcements, but rather for clarity. The Zirkzee trail seems to have cooled, with the Dutchman and his jack-of-all-trades seriously negotiating with Manchester United. There is talk of a Lukaku alternative, which is like saying “I want risotto alla milanese but since I don’t have the money for saffron I’ll eat a three-chocolate cake”. I mean, they are both succulent dishes, but they have nothing to do with each other. And the fans (already 35 thousand season tickets) would like to know: are we going with the sweet or the savoury?
One thing about Atalanta. And about Zaniolo. A year ago Gasperini decided to believe in De Ketelaere: we know how it ended. This year they are trying to resurrect Zaniolo. Personally, I didn’t believe in the Belgian’s resurrection and I made a big mistake. That’s why I say: buy Zaniolo in Fantacalcio, in Bergamo they almost never make mistakes.
(Needless to say. I saw people crowding together to celebrate a young girl who was opening her cell phone case store. They treated her like she was an apparition. I thought, “Shit, really?” And I wanted to shake her hand, because if you can charm the masses like this, you’re not the one who’s wrong, but the ones who fall for it.)
And you will say “what does it have to do with it?”. It has nothing to do with it, but it serves to introduce the blue tragedy, one of the worst since time immemorial. Here, in this regard I submit to you a reflection written down in black and white a few days ago.
There are many ways to get out of the way, we have chosen the worst. We are returning home after four games that have been a resounding “Rossinian crescendo”, but in reverse. We ended up in the Mariana Trench of bad embarrassment, because the decent game with Albania (Donnarumma’s miracle at the end, otherwise 2-2 and goodbye) was followed by the humiliation with Spain (0-1 only for the grace received by Gigione), and the humiliation with Spain was followed by an even greater humiliation, the one with Croatia, because the Croatians were at least as boiled as us and yet we caught them again only thanks to a big shot from Calafiori (good job on him), finished by Zaccagni (good job on him too). Then Switzerland arrived and we scraped the bottom of the well, because with the watchmakers we put together the manifest inferiority shown with Spain and the tactical embarrassment seen with Croatia. And it was Switzerland, not the Brazil of Didì Vavà and Pelé.
The German European Championship is a general disaster that began well before arriving in Germany, let’s say in the two tests against Turkey and Bosnia, where a “ready” national team does the dress rehearsal and lines up the starters, but not us, we started to do experiments. And the experiments were many and so confused that we didn’t understand if Spalletti would have lined up the team with a four or three defense and today, with the Azzurri in Ibiza and Formentera, we are still here asking ourselves: “But how the fuck did we play?”, because once we saw them with three, then with four, then with two strikers and then with the trident. A general mess of very rare magnitude that had only one fixed point: Di Lorenzo.
Di Lorenzo was called up among the 26 despite having come off a horrible season. It makes sense, after all he is the captain of Napoli, champion of Italy, with Lucianone on the bench. And yet it is one thing to “call up”, another to be relentless. If you love one of your players (Di Lorenzo remains an excellent player), the worst thing you can do is throw him on the pitch when he is not at his best. If you love him, you take him out of the mix. And instead he will remain the symbol of a national team of rare ugliness, a master of disorganization, an improvised national team that has shot ten times at the opponent’s goal, but not in one match, in all four combined. Practically nothing.
And it is true that our championship offers little in terms of alternatives and alleged phenomena, but it is equally true that we are not as unpresentable as Euro 2024 said, so unpresentable that we made a better impression at the last World Cup, the one in Qatar. “But how come, we weren’t even there in the desert.” Exactly.
See you next week.