Posted September 30, 200915 yr No respect. This has to be the mantra for Italian teams coming up against English opposition this year in the Champions League. Let's face it, if we believed the English media we'd all have our cupboards full of roast beef (you can put it in a cupboard right?), we'd all be salivating over women wearing 3 quarter tops in winter, their red spare tyres blowing freely in the wind, and nobody would wear armani. Rubbish. I watched last night's game in an Irish pub in Paris, and as I listened to some poor fellow struggle valiantly with his own language: "OH HE SHOULD WEAALLLWWWYY IT IT GERRARD" (I think he wanted some more shooting) I was hit by that the all too often realisation that England is an island so far further detached from Europe than Europe is from it, that not only did most people not know who Jovetic was before last night, they also were also, perched within their bubble reading the daily mail, unaware of antipasto. In the past few years the increasing Anglification of the world has everyone talking about the Premier League, but the reality is, like Mourinho, it's all talk and if the Italian teams showed as little respect for Liverpool as Fiorentina did last night, we'll begin to see again the technical qualities of Serie A players realised once again. The reality was the Fiorentina only played for 45 minutes and could have been leading by more at half time. Benitez was having a holiday- it probably wouldn't have been hard to stop them by marking Jovetic with a midfielder, but instead you saw, 5 or 6 times.. a viola player breaking through the middle with Mutu Jovetic Marchionni and Vargas staring at Liverpool's dumbstruck back 4. I thought Marchionni in particular had a great game. In the second half the Fiorentina center backs got to show their quality thanks to the laziness of the midfield and mutu, but if Prandelli can get them playing like that for an entire match they'll cause everyone problems.
September 30, 200915 yr .. increasing Anglification of the world has everyone talking about the Premier League, but the reality is, like Mourinho, it's all talk and if the Italian teams showed as little respect for Liverpool.. So you spent 04-07 following Chelsea with your head stuck up your arse?
September 30, 200915 yr Pauly, please don't ever try to sour a Dipper's loss in this way again. Here's me basking in the post match glow of the mighty eurpoean fc being humbled by some little know Italian outfit (it doesn't matter if they're not little known), then along comes a dozy bloody Italian spouting crap about how the Italians are going to reclaim their rightful place at the top of the European tree - after one victory! If I've missunderstood what you were getting at I apologise. If I haven't then you should apologise. Oh and for the record - Liverpool is not a part of England, at least not in my little world!
September 30, 200915 yr In the past few years the increasing Anglification of the world has everyone talking about the Premier League, but the reality is, like Mourinho, it's all talk and if the Italian teams showed as little respect for Liverpool as Fiorentina did last night, we'll begin to see again the technical qualities of Serie A players realised once again. Anglication of the World
September 30, 200915 yr His description of English Women is fairly good though ;) However, Italian women personal hygyene , particulalry in the bodily hair department
September 30, 200915 yr I was hit by that the all too often realisation that England is an island so far further detached from Europe than Europe is from it, that not only did most people not know who Jovetic was before last night I doubt many Italian's knew who Rubin Kazan was before last night.
September 30, 200915 yr Well, we can all hope Fat Rafa repeats his mistakes of last night and starts with Insua, Aurelio and Levia against us on Sunday. Sadly..................... he won't.
September 30, 200915 yr Rumours of the resurrection of Italian football have been outed as idle gossip. Swiss football, on the other hand...
October 1, 200915 yr Well, we can all hope Fat Rafa repeats his mistakes of last night and starts with Insua, Aurelio and Levia against us on Sunday.Sadly..................... he won't. Im actually a little worried about this. The dippers will probably be snarling after they were embarrassed. We were of course, at Wigan, but the game today wasnt really the resounding statment I was hoping to see from the team after a loss.
October 1, 200915 yr Author hehe... god forbid a discussion. Apart from the point raised about hairy Italian women to which I will once again curse the failed media program to shift that stereotype to PORTUGAL. IT'S PORTUGAL WITH THE HAIRY WOMEN PEOPLE. I wasn't touting the return of Serie A to the top of European football, in fact Inter and Milan i'll go right on the record now saying are total rubbish. Milan are having a financial year off- Got rid of a manager and a scout's wages and just made the scout a manager! Great way to save money... unless he leads the team to 7th. Inter still haven't found the Deco Mourinho was asking for and the Italian media is piling up on Mourinho in a big way. Juve have a chance and if fiorentina played as they did in the first half V liverpool they do too. The point I was trying to make was that England lives in a media bubble and that the only way for other teams to approach them is to not believe all the hype. There is a lot of hype around England about the money and the popularity of the league, but if teams go into the matches scared then there's no hope. Fiorentina have no reason at all to be scared of Liverpool. They were talking about that all week and in the end it turned out that Benayoun was the only liverpool player worth a grain of salt on the night. oh and also: anglification - 1 dictionary result An⋅gli⋅fy   /ˈæŋgləˌfaɪ/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [ang-gluh-fahy] Show IPA –verb (used with object), -fied, -fy⋅ing. (sometimes lowercase) to Anglicize. Origin: 1745–55, Americanism; angle + -ify Related forms: An⋅gli⋅fi⋅ca⋅tion, noun I nearly got it.. it's a noun. Still.......... pretty close.
