Udinese 0 Juve 0 Good result, they had their chances too. Di Natale suspended next game. They seem to be getting low on strikers but I expect they'll have a hidden gem tucked away somewhere.
Ah I see, yeah Geijo is injured at the moment. Perica wasn't in the squad today so not sure on his status!
A very good point. Most important: gained playing, without parking the bus. Against Napoli, without Totò, in attack there are Thereau (very good this year, a nice surprise), Aguirre and, if ready, Perica. Also Fernandes probably in starting 11 as trequartista. Awaiting the return of Zapata and Evangelista from the Uruguay Sub20. Geijo was really unlucky. With most of the strikers banned or injured or in international duty, he was called in starting 11 against Sampdoria and Roma and had 2 really excellent matches (with 1 goal). Then he had a bad injury after 20' in the match against Cagliari and will be out for quite some time. When he'll be ready, all the other strikers will be ready too, so he has missed for sheer unluck a very good chance to show what he's worth. I'm sorry for him, really. Di Natale scored a hat-trick Vs Napoli in 09/10 and another in the first match in 10/11. After that, "very often" he missed the away match with Napoli. I think he played only one in last years. Rumours say that, after that double hat-trick, Camorra (Napoli's Mafia) sent threats against his relatives (still living in Napoli), so he maybe preferred to avoid troubles. Very sad, but unfortunately also sadly believable.
Me thinks we will be getting a stadium like Udinese's too, when we become established in The Premiership.
Just seen a video on Allan's match against Juventus. Crap music but wonderful player! He's always been an excellent holding midfielder but lately, with Stramaccioni putting him slightly more forward with more freedom also to try to create, he's really shining. Yet he continues to recover countless balls in midfield in each game (he's one of the best in Europe for this statistics). Sunday he simply nullified Pogba (who should have also received a yellow for the fault made after he was dribbled (4'30" in video). http://vimeo.com/118489580 It's quite certain he'll be sold next summer, after the "typical" three years with us. I hope he'll go to some big Premier team because IMHO he might really shine in England!
Apparently Di Natale is considering a huge contract from a MLS team (triple his current wages on a 2 year deal)...
Di Natale appears to have confirmed that he'll leave Udinese in the summer. If I remember correctly, he said a similar thing last year but changed his mind, but I'd be surprised if he did the same again as last year he was due to retire rather than sign a lucrative contract. Linked with New York Red Bulls (who have recently lost Thierry Henry and Tim Cahill) and New York Cosmos (who we were supposed to play in summer). http://www1.skysports.com/football/...tale-says-he-will-leave-udinese-in-the-summer
This isn't really Udinese news, but I was listening to the Guardian football podcast and they were saying that Parma are close to going out of business? Where does that leave Tozser and Munari? could Udinese get any of their players on the cheap?
Tozser *should* be fine, I believe we're paying all his wages and he's on a 2 year contract there (with a 2 year loan deal to us) so he'll be out of contract when his loan finishes here, but since we're paying all his wages it won't affect him anyway. Munari is contracted until 2018, so I imagine they'll be eager to offload him ASAP (probably worth a cheeky bid in the summer)
Maybe, among the 100+ players they own and which will be free agents next summer, when they most likely go bankrupt, there might be someone good. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parma_F.C.#Players Cassano and other players have gone from Parma as they haven't received salaries in last 7 months. The team is firmly last in table, with about 0.001% chance of avoiding relegation, and they are full of debts. I remember last season some Udinese "fans" writing something like "Parma is a real model, hiring known players. Pozzo should do like them!" :jumping1:
Good and quite accurate article about Allan: http://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/meet-udineses-rising-ball-winner-whos-bossed-pogba-season
New Stadio Friuli is taking shape nicely. Latest photos show they have begun work on foundation pillars for the South Stand while North and East are well advanced: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpost.php?p=124649294&postcount=15994
Sherlock - When will Udinese move into the new stadium? In time for the start of the 15/16 season, or the one after?
Exactly. We have been playing half of these season with public only in main stand, while North and East were demolished and rebuilt. Next season we should play half a season in a three-sided stadium with those two stands which should be ready and finished by end of Summer. The final South stand should be ready, according to plans, at about the end of 2015.
A very long and very interesting interview from Udinese Channel to Pozzo Sr. Talking about the three teams, Granada, Watford, Di Natale, new stadium, Juventus, etc. etc. For those here who might understand spoken Italian. Sorry, it's really too long for me to take the burden of wtiting down in English what he says. Hopefully the WO will pay for an interpreter to do a transcription. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXQMA7oAwz8
You can get English captions - not sure they're very accurate unless he talks about sweat patches and grenades often...
LOL, I never noticed there's the option for subtitles. Even the ones trying auto-speech-recognition in Italian are wildly and funnily inaccurate. The English auto-translation is similar to Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky. :doh:
just a few quotes for those who didnt watch the whole video: "dd all companies that have a bomb nsa players" "but if you keep the pinball heritage must let them play" "we talk about the grenade" "we also speak of a sweat patch" "elton johns because he was born with virtualbox photo" " you can upgrade plants or make new plants" "bunny" "well organised and they arrived in the final because say pen1s I have lost it" I can't believe I actually watched all of that!
More recent photos from the huge thread (over 16k posts) about the New Stadio Friuli on a forum about architecture ( http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=1149433 ) Stands very near to be finished, field, growing South stand, external cover: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpost.php?p=124884691&postcount=16146 Internal: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpost.php?p=124913054&postcount=16172 Various: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpost.php?p=124918524&postcount=16184
