Paolo Bandini

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Not everybody was caught off guard by Cesare Prandelli’s decision to include an uncapped 20-year-old Serie B midfielder in his provisional Italy squad for Euro 2012. “I’m not surprised: [Marco] Verratti knows how to play football,” declared Zdenek Zeman, the player’s club manager at Pescara. “He has natural talents and significant room for improvement. He must watch and learn from the greats, but he is on the right path.”

If that much is true, then Verratti has Zeman to thank. Although the player’s progress had been sufficient to draw the attention of Italy’s leading clubs long before his manager’s arrival in the summer of 2011, this season has nevertheless represented a turning point. At this time last year Prandelli would not even have considered Verratti as an option in midfield, because up to that point he had typically played in the hole behind the attack.

That changed during Zeman’s very first training session with the club. “Zeman’s 4-3-3 is as tolerant of trequartistas as Mormons are of pre-marital sex,” noted Gazzetta dello Sport’s Jacopo Gerna as he reflected on the immediate decision to convert the player into a deep-lying regista. The manager is famous for his commitment to open, attacking football but he recognised in Verratti a vision which could be best exploited by giving him the space to dictate play.
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As one new era dawns, so another one draws to a close. On Sunday Juventus served notice to all of Europe by claiming their first Scudetto since Calciopoli, secured without a single defeat. In the process, they also ensured Zlatan Ibrahimovic would have to go without a league winners’ medal for the first time since 2003.

“I am not used to not winning,” Ibrahimovic told reporters after Juve had sealed the title with a week to spare. Over the eight preceding seasons he had played for five clubs—Ajax, Juventus, Inter, Barcelona and Milan—spread across three different leagues, but always with the same result. As his present employers closed in on the Scudetto last year, Gazzetta dello Sport’s Alessandra Bocci quipped: “Serie A is a tournament in which various teams compete. Then at the end Zlatan Ibrahimovic wins.”

Not any more. Defeat to Inter in the Milan derby on Sunday, combined with a Juventus win against Cagliari, has left the Rossoneri four points behind the league leaders with only one game left to play. Ibrahimovic did not take the disappointment well. “I want to respect my contract, but Milan have to tell us [players] what they want to do,” said the Swede. “There used to be a great Milan project, now we’ll have to see if they take it forward. I am very disappointed. This was a great failure.”
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In tempting Marco Di Vaio away from Bologna, the Montreal Impact have pulled off a feat that not even Juventus, Milan or Inter could achieve. All three of those clubs had made enquiries about the striker within the last 18 months and all were swiftly rebuffed. Even a personal phone call from Alessandro Nesta— an old friend from their time together in the Lazio youth team—could not persuade him to consider abandoning the Rossoblù.

Speaking at a press conference this afternoon, Di Vaio confirmed that he would have turned those clubs down even today. “I could never have accepted a move to another Italian or European club,” he said. “I would sooner have retired.”

Instead he has chosen a different path, that of one last great career adventure. He spoke with some enthusiasm of “new experiences”, though it must be said that the overall mood of the press conference was a sombre one. Di Vaio had imagined finishing his career at Bologna, repeating his desire to do so innumerable times in press conferences just such as these over the last year and more. Now he simply said he did not want to be “a weight on the club”.
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Alessandro Diamanti already has one appointment this summer which must be kept. “At the end of this season, together with a few of my team-mates, I have to go and make a little homage that we promised if we avoided relegation,” he told reporters after providing two assists in Bologna’s 3-2 win over Genoa. “Every day for one week, we will set off on foot from Meloncello and climb up to the Sanctuary of San Luca.”

What comes after that may depend on Cesare Prandelli. Sat in the stands at the Stadio Renata Dall’Ara on Sunday, the Italy manager cannot have missed the crowd’s incessant cries for Diamanti to be included in his squad for Euro 2012. In such a setting it would certainly have been easy to get carried away. The touch, incisiveness and quickness of thought that he has long possessed were all on display as he repeated sliced apart Genoa’s defence.

And yet, at 29, this is a man who so far has just a single cap to his name, earned under Prandelli in a friendly against Romania 18 months ago. Even then, many were deeply sceptical. Diamanti’s top-flight experience at that point was limited to one season with Livorno when they were relegated and one with West Ham in England when they finished 17th. He scored a combined 11 goals in 53 games across those two campaigns (albeit in-between he did score 16 in 36 for Livorno in Serie B).
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At long last, Alberto Aquilani felt like things were falling into place. “I am very happy to be here,” said the midfielder upon completion of his move from Liverpool to Milan last August. “This is a turning point for my career.”

Yes, this was another loan deal, his second in as many years, but this time things felt different. The 2010-11 season spent with Juventus had been a wonderful experience, but even during his best spell for the club Aquilani was never confident Turin could become a long-term home. Although Juventus had the option to make the deal permanent at the end of the season for €16m, Aquilani always doubted the Bianconeri had the resources to stretch so far.

He would be proved correct, as Juve were unwilling to even meet a reduced asking price of €10m once they had procured Andrea Pirlo from Milan on a free transfer. Aquilani was obliged to return to a Liverpool side where, despite public words of encouragement from Kenny Dalglish, it seemed that he was not truly wanted. Fiorentina offered to take the player out on a season-long loan of their own, but Aquilani declined on the grounds that he craved something more permanent.
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Gazzetta dello Sport compared it to Ciapa No – a popular card game which inverts the rules of another old favourite, Tressette, so that players succeed by losing points rather than accumulating them. That is how the race for Italy’s final Champions League place has felt in recent weeks, the frontrunners slowing to a near standstill, while the teams behind them politely decline the invitation to pass.

With six games remaining Lazio occupy pole position, but are they really in position to accelerate away? And if not, who might capitalise? Here’s a guide to the runners and riders.

Lazio, 54 points
League form: LLWLWL
Remaining games: Lecce (h), Novara (a), Udinese (a), Siena (h), Atalanta (a), Inter (h)

The Biancocelesti might feel entitled to a few breaks this season, having been on course for a Champions League place for almost the entire 2010-11 campaign (of their 38 league fixtures, just six finished with Lazio outside the top four), only to eventually miss out on a head-to-head tie-breaker with Udinese.

Instead what they have had so far is a campaign disrupted by constant injuries—38 in total, and with a number of them to key players. A serious thigh injury restricted the Italy midfielder Stefano Mauri to just two appearances in the first five-and-a-half months of the season, while the goalkeeper Federico Marchetti, centre-backs André Dias and Giuseppe Biava, and forward Tommaso Rocchi are among those to have also endured spells on the sideline.

Now Lazio appear likely to be without their leading goalscorer, Miroslav Klose, who has been out since mid-March, for the remainder of the campaign. The statistics suggest it is not an insurmountable loss—Lazio’s points-per-game average without Klose (1.66) is only marginally worse than their average when he is present (1.69)—but with their form slipping and key fixtures away to Udinese and at home to Inter still to come, they may yet regret failing to add another striker after Djibril Cissé was moved on in January.

Predicted finish: DWLWLD
Predicted points tally: 62
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When is a home game no longer a home game? When the ‘home’ team are obliged to abandon their stadium and host the fixture on an unfamiliar site? Perhaps when their supporters are easily outnumbered by those of the opposition? What if both of those things were true and the new venue was more than 500 miles away – as the crow flies – from their home town, on a completely different land mass?

That was the situation facing Cagliari as they hosted Internazionale on Saturday at the Stadio Nereo Rocco in Trieste. A team representing a city from the south coast of Sardinia, an island located to the west of the Italian mainland, had been transplanted to the north-east corner of the peninsula, about as far away as it is possible to be without leaving the country altogether. To get there by car from Cagliari, supporters would have to take a 1,400 mile round-trip, including a near five-hour ferry journey each way.

Those same fans would have had just five days to make their travel arrangements. News that the fixture had been moved from their existing home the Stadio Sant’Elia arrived only last Monday. Incredibly, this was not the consequence of unavoidable external factors but of a decision made by the club’s own president. Frustrated with the slow pace of rennovations being conducted by local authorities (the stadium is communally owned), Cellino had requested permission for the move directly from the league.
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