The highs of 2010 for A.C. Milan

2010 was a year to forget for all Milan fans. Well, A.C. Milan fans that is. We played horrible in the Champions League, Shit the bed in the Serie A and craped out of the Copa Italia. We had no major signings for a chunk of the year and looked like garbage at the beginning of the new season. Our coach quit on us, our new coach looked like he couldn’t get the best out of our start Brazilian, and the old guard were starting to show their age. Gattuso and Pirlo looked like they did in the World Cup; Seedorf looked, well like himself and all of our new signings are playing the worst. We are giving up goals left and right and scoring none. This is going to be a long year I thought. What else can go wrong? We needed life, we needed a sign, and the team needs some heart. And then it happened.

The 6 foot 5 inch monster was transferred to Milan. And it wasn’t Inter. How in the world did A.C. Milan get the beast known as Zlatan Ibrahimovic? Well who cares. It was all up to the powers that be and he now wears the Red and Black. And boy does he look good in those colors. He is a monster and scores goals in this league that hasn’t been seen in a long time. He was unstoppable with Inter, played well in Barca, but we have high hopes for him here. Just think about it, Ibra, Pato (if he can just stay healthy) and Dinho on the same field at the same time? O boy this will be a team to watch. But the transfer window is almost over and I wonder what else we will do.

What worried me is how will Massimiliano Allegri be able to handle this team and Ibra’s locker room antics. Well here is an idea, let’s get another potential problem child. So we did and here came in ROBINHO. This is one player, being an Italy national fan, I could not stand. He is a cry baby, show off and causes problems when making more money then anyone. But as a Milan fan, o boy was I happy. He is flashy, draws attention and the thought of him, Pato and Ibra together has me smiling like a little girl. This is going to lead to greatness and I cannot wait. And after all of this, reality starts to hit me. Where have all the Italians gone on the number one Italian team?

Goalies, Defense and midfielders are Italians, but we have no strikers. Where are all the great Italian strikers? Well Juventus has a couple, Roma received one of my favorites in Marco Borriello and Totti. And we cannot over look the great (past two years in league play anyway) striker in Udine based striker Antonio Di Natale who has been leading the league in scoring. But not use, Milan have none. Well we do have Filippo Inzaghi, but he is done for the season and is on the bench most of the time. So I will consider him not on team at this moment. So what does this mean for the striking ability of these Italian giants. Well nothing really, just that there are no Italian greats. For now!

A.C. Milan December 29, 2010

December 29,2010 is a day that will be a day of infamy forever to all A.C. Milan supporters. If there was ever a way to just slap us in the face, our city rivals have figured it out. As if winning everything last year, and I do mean everything, wasn’t enough, they had to go and do this. How could they? How could he? Why? What was he thinking? What is Adriano Galliani thinking? Well let me tell you what I am thinking.

Leonardo was a A.C. Milan legend not only as a player, but as a figure head for the team, what they were, what they are, and what they were to become. He came up through the ranks not only as a player, but also as a coach. He was THE Brazilian that was Milan. And the real Milan, not that other blue and black team. He wore the red and black proud and transcended everything that was Italian football even though he was Brazilian. You couldn’t ask for a better person in your organization at the time. He was loyal to the very end. He help all the young and old Brazilians get acclimated to the different weather and different atmosphere that is Italy. While Brazilians go to England and hate it, they come to Milan and love it. Whether it is the party life, the woman or simply the football, they end up loving it here. Was it like that before Leo? Sure. Will it be like that after Leo as well? Of course. But let’s not short change his impact over time. Leo is Milan. The only thing is this time around he is Inter Milan this time.

On December 29, 2010, Leonardo had his first press conference as the new head coach to his former bitter city rivals Inter Milan. What a blow to the A.C. Milan community. What a traitor he has become. He went from a beloved member of the rossoneri and become a villain in a weeks time. What are we to do? How can he do that? O my, he better not win anything! Well today is January 19, 2011 and let’s see where he is at this point.

Inter is not in first, well that is a plus. But they haven’t lost or even tied a game under him. OK, well that isn’t good. Some of their players are still not playing up to par, like Snyder, which is a plus. But others like Et’o are starting to play stellar. Players are still getting hurt and are still hurt, like Cesar. Then there is Milito who is getting healthier and playing better and better as the games go. Well it is OK. We are A. C. Milan and we are in first place. We are six points on them and we can do this. Wait, we have 1 game on them and we still have the two derby’s?? O man here we go all over again.

Inter have been playing with a spark, let’s just hope this spark will not last. A.C. needs to be the water that shuts down Inter and we better do it fast. If not, it’s going to be a long year!

JETS vs. GIANTS (QB)

So here we are, it’s the end of July and the football season is almost underway. This is the time for preseason trash talk, and I have been a victim of many rants already. Living in New York City and being a fan of some of the greatest teams in any sport, I am very used to it. The only thing is I usually get it from people I know or from people whom I can see in person. But with the invention of Twitter, I have been getting it from people all over and most likely from people whom I will never meet. Well, because of this I have decided to start my season off early. And this year I will not be holding any punches. This year I will be going in on any of my GMEN haters and I will start off locally. These next couple of posts will be directed against our home town Red Headed Stepchild. If you guessed the JETS then that is correct. So without wasting another minute, I will get right into it. O and in case anyone was wondering, this goes out to @LilMissNYJet @D_wyatt13 @beeeebzy @DrewfromJersey and to the rest of you JETS fans out there. Enjoy.

I was tossing around the idea of where to start this little battle. Should I go at the teams as a whole? Naaa, I think I will go by position. This seems more fun for me and it will show where we stand against each other. So with that being said, I believe it is obvious where and what position we need to start. The quarterback position is the center piece of every team and this is so true with both teams. Eli Manning is the starting QB of my NY giants and Mark Sanchez is the starting QB of that other New York team, the NY JETS. Now I think it would be fair to start this off that Sanchez is still very new to the NFL and Eli has been around for a number of years, but it also fair to say, that I could care less about that and I will still go in on them both. So let’s start with some numbers, shall we?

One of the big numbers that most people look at when talking about QB’s is there completion percentage. With lucky for me, Eli’s was much better. At 62.3% it was almost ten points higher than Mark’s, which was 53.8%. If you put them against each other and the rest of the NFL, Eli was ranked 13 and Mark was 29th. Just to remind everyone, that was out of 32 teams. So let’s think about this for a bit, what does this actually mean? This means that every team in their division ranked higher than him. But to be fair, the same was for Eli except for Donovan McNabb. But not to be fair, this can just be assumed that the NFC East surpasses the AFC East in this regard. Well done guys.

The next stat I wanted to look at was passing yards and I noticed that Eli attempted 145 more passes than Mark did so I was a little wary about the passing yard stat. But when Eli throws for 4021 to Mark’s 2444 yards, I have decided that I will talk about this. Eli threw for over 1500 more yards than Mark and it does seem like a lot, but here is a better way to look at it. The number one ranked passer in yards per attempt in the NFL last year was Philip Rivers and it was 8.75 yards per attempt. Well if Mark attempted the same amount of passes as Eli, he would need to average 10.86 yards per catch to just match Eli’s numbers. Let’s just say that wouldn’t happen shall we.

Next up, TD’s. This will be a quick topic, no worries JETS fans. Mark threw for 12 TD’s. Yes, I said 12, Eli, threw for 27. And that is it for this topic… NEXT…

This may be my favorite number of them all. QB rating. Why is this my fav? This is the only rating system that people even pay attention to where you can get a grade over 100. That interests me and I will tell you why. The top ranked QB was Drew Brees with 109.6 and the lowest rated QB was JaMarcus Russell with a 50.0 rating. Well don’t worry JETS fans, Mark wasn’t that low. His rating was 63.0 haha, o sorry for laughing. It wasn’t as low as that bomb of a QB Russell, but it wasn’t far off. That is a horrible rating for a QB who was part of a team that went so far in the playoff. Let’s just say that if he played any better, maybe I wouldn’t be sitting here bashing the team. I can honestly say that this was the weakest part of the team and if he played any better, we would be talking about the Super Bowl winning JETS. But he didn’t so we aren’t. NEXT…

Well this will hurt us Giants fans a little. There is one category that Mark was right at the top of, where Eli was ranked lower. Mark was ranked number 2, with 20 interceptions. Eli did throw 13, but it still wasn’t 20, so I would like to say congrats to Mark for winning this round. I mean, we can’t win them all.

Now here is the part that JETS fans will without a doubt say back to me. It is the win/loss column. Which QB brought their team to the most wins. Well the JETS won 9 games to the GIANTS 8 wins. But let’s be honest here, Mark didn’t lead his team to any wins. If it wasn’t for the defense, the JETS record would be much, much worse. Eli led HIS team in those wins. Again, I know it is super early in Mark’s career, well I don’t care. We are talking about what will happen this next year. Eli’s receiving core will be the next topic of conversation and this will have a huge factor in how each QB will play next year. Have the GIANTS or the JETS gotten any better in this regard? Let’s just wait till the next blog to discuss this.

Now all the fans out there will have a lot to say about this blog. I am just putting out numbers. I am not really saying anything but stating stats. Well, numbers do not lie and it is a great way to sit back and look at things and fully assess the situation. The JETS defense was proven to be much better than the GMEN (we will discuss this and there is no doubt that the JETS will win that talk), which means that Mark really didn’t have to take as many chances as Eli, yet he wasn’t any where nearly as affective. So JETS fans, do you really want to take a step back and look at the overall picture of this QB position? I think not and I suggest you chalk this one up as a loss, because there will be many other battles.

So I thank you all for reading and to keep an eye open for the next segment, where we will discuss the Wide Receiver position.

And sorry Drew, I will never bleed Green!

Death of the Azzurri Part 2 "The Unraveling Thread"

Every house that is built needs a foundation. Every statue needs an idea, a vision. And the same goes for a football team. You need to start with a nucleus and work your way out. This has been the idea with Italian football for as long as I can remember. And from our last World Cup win all the way back to the first, Italian football has always been the same, never flashy, but always effective. Our strength has always been to work through our foundation and progress from there. The 2010 World Cup team wasn’t any different. The only thing that everyone seems to forget is what Italian football really is.

From the naked eye, or simply a bandwagon fan, the key to an Italy victory lives and dies with one person. A single individual which holds together the team like a single thread. A thread that if pulled long enough the whole sweater will unravel. We all know that thread. It is the thread that hangs from our sweater and in order to save the sweater we have to cut it off or burn it off as to not ruin the whole piece of clothing in the long run. To them, this thread is Andrea Pirlo, the master mind and savior of our beloved Italian Azzurri. The ball starts and ends with him in their minds. And by the looks of the last match in this World Cup, they can make a valid point. When he entered the game, things seemed to be going in our direction. We seemed to be on a mission and no one was to stop us. But again I state that these thoughts were to the naked eye. Thoughts coming from people who could only tell you the name of the players who played in that final match with France, not the ones on the bench. Ask these same people who Paolo Maldini is and watch them squirm in their shorts and try to guess. And even if they do know of him, do they really know his importance to the nation and all the Azzurri faithful. My guess is a no. A huge no as a matter of fact. Which is why all of their assumptions on who the true nucleus of this team is completely wrong. It is true that Pirlo is a huge force within this team, that that is not Italian football. Italian football is built on a strong defense with a quick and tactical counter. So knowing this, all you bandwagon fans, who do you think is the Italy backbone? The Foundation on this team?

If you guessed Fabio Cannavaro, then you are correct. He is our captain, our caps leader, or simply our leader. He was loved by a nation and then some. He was the epitome of Italian football, that face, that bald head, his small stature but quick feet were known all over the world and one the best strikers in the world feared. The central defender of a defensive minded team is just as important as the coach putting together the team. This captain was given the reigns of a team, who is the returning champions, an aging team, a team who many were writing off before the World Cup even began. When people doubted the team, they turned to him for words. And words he had for everyone. He was poise, he was intelligent and calm like a true captain should be. No matter how worried people were, he seemed to put them at ease for the time being. And as we saw, that time being was very short lived.

We had high hoped for this squad and for this man. He is aging, ok he is old. A 5’9” 36 year old central defender is something that should be passed upon when entering the biggest tournament in the sport. But he wasn’t and yet we still had faith. Faith that our great captain would take us back to the promise land. Well maybe the Azzurri are a little too close to Rome and the “Faith of the Catholic Church” is rubbing off on them and us all, because in this sport, to just have faith in someone is not enough. This once great captain has lead us on a chase and we have all been fooled in the end. He has become the poster child, not for our great victory in Germany, but for this embarrassing loss in South Africa. The model of how not to form a team. One without speed and agility. One without that youthful spirit of just being glad to put on the blue Azzurri sweater over your head. But it is not just his age that we saw on display. It was his lack of ability to perform at this top level. A level that was on display during this year’s Juventus season. In a World Cup year, players tend to worked extra hard to prove to their coaches that they should play for the national team. But with him and his club team, it seemed that they were just happy to get paid, and had no worries about making the team. Well by the looks of our group stages games, maybe we should have lost faith in him a long time ago.

The group stage games were a horrible display of defense, coming from a team known for its outstanding defense. And it all leads to our captain. On every single goal that we let up, Fabio had a hand in. He was either jumped over, out run, or out smarted. In his position and his experience, he should have been not only the rock we lean on, but the conductor instructing the team where and what to do in all occasions. Well he failed us all. In the 2006 World Cup we let in 2 goals in the whole tournament, one of which was a penalty. This World Cup, five. Five goals, all of which could have and should have been avoided, if it wasn’t for our “great captain”. In two weeks time, you have taken our faith and destroyed it with sloppy play and a give up attitude. You have become that thin thread unraveled from the Azzurri sweater that should have been cut a long time ago. But instead of being cut by Lippi a long time ago, you have simply burned us. The sweater is destroyed and a new one must now be knit. Just always know that the Azzurri blue will always be more important the the yellow arm band you wore around you arm.

Death of the Azzurri

So as the Italian side went crashing out of this year’s World Cup, many of us Azzurri fans are sitting around wondering what went wrong. Well where do we begin? Well the normal person would start from the top with Marcello Lippi. But to me, that isn’t high enough. We have to go to the FIGC and place all the blame on them. And not for what happened this year. This whole mess started four years ago when a man by the name of Roberto Donadoni was named the coach of the Italian squad.

His lack of respect from the players, with the added World Cup hangover put the FIGC is a crunch to find a new coach for the World Cup which would be in two years after Donadoni’s contract was not renewed. This mess forced them to beg Lippi to come back, when one can only guess he had no interest in coaching as he all ready won his World Cup. This lack of interest, lack of desire would then transcend onto the players, the core group of players that Lippi holds so close to the heart. Buffon, Grosso, Camoranesi, Cannavaro all showed signs of this. Only Pirlo and Gattuso in my mind still has that drive, that desire and pride to win for the nation, for the fans. Now given, Gattuso isn’t the player he once was, but in that first half, it showed that he was the only player on the pitch who knew what was at stake. He played with power and determination, but the skill wasn’t there as it once was, which brings me right back to Lippi.

I am a huge Gattuso fan, always have and always will be, but why was he on this squad? And that question could be said for a lot of people. Why was Iaquinta on the squad and not Marco Borriello? And the obvious question everyone was asking, why wasn’t Pirlo in the starting XI if he was fit enough to play the second half? And the same goes for Quagliarella. The only Italian players to show any kind of finesse were either dropped from the team, or sat on the bench every game. Whatever was going on in Lippi’s head when he made the decisions that he did, I believe it was more along the lines of let me not embarrass myself and make it home in one piece. Well I am sorry to say but he did just that. The blame rolls down hill my friends. It must start from the top. And in my next article, the ball keeps rolling!

Twitter High

As I sit here today and think about what I could possibly write about on my first blog, I catch myself going back and forth to check my Twitter account and then it hits me. I’m addicted to Twitter, so why not write about that. But what am I going to write about. About how great it is and how you meet people from all over the world? Or maybe how cool it is that you can see what celebrities are thinking at the very moment, even what they are doing or even eating? I could even write about the millions of people on Twitter and the rush you get when you find out people are actually following you and many people are reading what you are saying.
Now these ideas are all fine and dandy and to be honest, is what got me stuck on Twitter in the first place, but that is not what I am going to write about. I will write about all the other aspects of this wonder. I will write it from an eye of an outsider. An outsider, whom understands that whole concept, yet relinquishes all efforts to even make an account. An evil eye, as I will call it throughout this blog, which sees all negatives and no positives.
At first glance, the evil eye sees craziness and chaos. Millions and millions of people simply putting there current thoughts or status on a web forum for the world to see. And in its evil eye, who cares what you are doing right now and thinking. Ok so you are eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, let me shake your hand. Or maybe you would like a cookie for telling the world that? Either way, I feel you have just wasted about 2 minutes of the evil eyes time, 2 minutes in which it will never get back.
Just as if you thought this was the only reason the evil eye is upset about Twitter, it strikes again. The funniest part of this all is that if u look at Twitter from afar, it is really just a HUGE high school. There are a number of people who are supper “popular” on Twitter and a majority who are so-so, and the rest not so much at all. Just like high school, al the not popular people look up to the popular ones and watch their every move. They want to know what the other is doing all the time and what they are thinking all the time. And they try to talk to the popular kids all the time hoping for a simple response, and when we do get one, we are hooked and can’t get enough. It’s like crack, we want more and more. The so-so popular ones just live their lives as is and pay some attention to the not popular kids at times, but not all the time. They feed them just enough to keep them coming back for more, while looking up to the popular kids just the same. Now the popular kids are the funny ones. They run the “high school” and determine whom they will be friends with, whom they will interact with and when they do respond back to someone lower then them in the social ring, that lower person will brag about it to everyone they know and feel special. But unlike real high school, we will never graduate from this, we are stuck.
But what the evil eye really doesn’t understand is the Twitter lingo. Not what it all means, because it is not stupid, but why it is used so much. This “RT” thing is the worst. It seems as though everyone like to repeat what others already said. It is like writing an article and stating your sources. Well how about this source? The evil eye is me, Eric Jon Farino and as I write this I laugh to myself because these thoughts go through my mind every day, every second as I loom back and forth to the Twitter pages I call my profile.
I am an addict. I am a high school freshman. I am a not so popular kid in “high school”. I am the one telling everyone what I am doing and what I am thinking and what I am eating. I even go as far as take pictures of it so people can actually see it. So knowing all this yet being the evil eye, how can I play on both teams here? Well it is very simple really, I don’t know and I don’t care. I am happy trying to be on the varsity team and hang out with the upper classman.
Just like the New York Sate lottery says, “Hey, you never know”. So as I leave you on my first blog attempt ever, I will leave one more note to dwell upon, www.twitter.com/ejfarino follow me and enjoy the chaos. Time for class!