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FORZA AZZURRI



gnocche, prosciutto e formaggio

Talk about Serie A & Serie B, gli Azzurri & Azzurrini and calcio in general.

Benvenuti a tutti!!!

Three out of 4 Serie A teams clinched the first spot in their respective CL group play. One finished last in its group. Bravo Juve, Milan e Inter.

When is the official transition here taking place?

We're targeting January 1rst, Piero. But no reason we can't get going sooner.

BTW, political differences aside, I think you're a great guy and a rather smart cookie

Good to have you onboard.

Chugga Chugga

I made it.

wow this is way better! 8)

The Wall Street Journal

BY SCOTT GOTTLIEB
Friday, December 10, 2004

I knew of a doctor who injected a steroid-like drug into his skin upon landing at London's Heathrow Airport. He said it re-created nature's sleep-wake cycle. He wanted to foil jet lag on his frequent trans-Atlantic trips. The drug was supposed to trick his body's internal clock into thinking he was still in New York.

Everyone is looking for ways to give himself a boost. Television anchors extend their tube time well beyond what wrinkles allow with a nip, a tuck and a spritz of Botox. Professional musicians are known to use low doses of a certain high blood-pressure medicine, propranolol, to treat stage fright. How many reporters who dutifully decry the current steroid abuse "scandal" in baseball have used their brother's Ritalin to stay awake at the computer keyboard a little longer, or antidepressants like Paxil to fight "social phobia" or smooth over the self-loathing inside America's news rooms?

The U.S. Air Force has adopted Provigil, the alertness drug sold by the biotech company Cephalon, as one of its official "go pills" for some pilots whose missions stretch out more than 12 hours. (American sprinter Kelli White, who won the 100-meter and 200-meter world titles in Paris last year, lost after failing tests for the same stimulant.) Around the same time that Alan Greenspan decried Wall Street's "irrational exuberance," Barron's blew the cover off the real source of the Street's untamed euphoria, noting how rising sales of Prozac and similar drugs tracked the Dow's rise and playfully reporting how Wall Streeters enjoyed a higher-than-average use of antidepressants.

People's instinct to misuse powerful prescriptions to get an edge is dumb medicine but not surprising. Americans medicate every ache, opportunity and phobia. Drugs such as steroids and their analogues, illegally used by professional athletes to boost performance, are in the news after baseball star Barry Bonds confirmed in leaked testimony what everyone suspected: that he had used, among other things, a cream that contained steroids. Mr. Bonds claimed he didn't know what was in the cream, that he said he used to soothe his arthritis pain.
Mr. Bonds's testimony was part of a case being built against the founders of the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative, or Balco, which is accused of supplying the illegal drugs to athletes. Balco's founders have pleaded not guilty. Dozens of elite athletes have been paraded before the grand jury to discuss the cooperative's steroid program, and suddenly one of the most open secrets in the sport is out. Every recent power hitter is under suspicion. Sports writers think they have uncovered the juice behind baseball's home-run spike. Of course, there is nothing new about such a strategy. Athletes routinely take established drugs, ones with legitimate medical purposes, and use them as performance-enhancers.

At the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, for example, cross-country skiers were caught using darbepoetin, a drug taken by cancer patients to combat anemia. The biotech company Genentech worked nearly a decade to create Protropin, the first recombinant human growth hormone to help children with hormone deficiencies reach normal adult heights. It became a wildly popular performance enhancer. Uzbekistan track and field coach Sergei Voynov was caught trying to smuggle 15 vials of Protropin into Sydney for the Olympics, claiming he used it to help reverse his baldness. Because these products are similar to hormones produced naturally in the body, they are difficult to identify in drug tests.

The Balco story reveals that there are chemists willing to work specifically on helping athletes cheat. Even athletes opposed to doping can be inadvertently tainted by dirty dietary supplements. A recent study conducted by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency found that 41% of 624 legal supplements tested contained a steroid precursor or banned substance not listed on the label. Some contamination is from simple sloppiness--machinery that was not properly cleaned. In other cases, the contaminants are found at very high levels, and it is likely they are being added to the products to make them more effective.

When it comes to professional sports, tougher testing standards may catch more cheats. But what the Balco case also reveals is that technology for concocting designer drugs that evade detection is ahead of technology for spotting them. The big drug companies probably wish they were this good at pharmaceutical innovation.

But if everyone is using drugs to give himself a boost at work, why shouldn't baseball players? After all, many of the side effects of these drugs could probably be managed by medical supervision or mitigated by other drugs in the future. The reason is that athletics are supposed to teach us the benefits of hard work and a devotion to excellence. They are a meritocracy, with clear winners and losers at the end of the day and a second sort of competition going on, especially in baseball, with the dead heroes of the past. (That is one reason we still make players use wooden bats.) Drugs subtract from that tradition of devotion and cheapen the claims to current accomplishment.
Better than thinking that baseball can ever have perfect testing is imagining a regime of mandatory testing and zero tolerance. Players can try to outsmart the testing, but it should be game over if they get caught deliberately using banned substances. Think about the calculation you go through every time you get on the interstate. If the fine for speeding is $150 and there is a 25% chance of being nabbed, many will speed. If the chance of being caught is only 2% but the penalty is a lost license, many people will slow down.

If the baseball union will not acquiesce to that approach, baseball owners can demand that players stipulate in their contracts that they will remain drug free, a noose ready to be tightened if they are caught out. Let the union muster the gall to fight it. Right now, the Yankees would probably love to unload confessed steroid infuser Jason Giambi if they could prove that he violated his contract. Aside from the taint of his drug abuse, he is a richly paid but rotten first baseman.

As for the politicians who turned out for the Sunday talk shows--e.g., John McCain recently suggested that the government step in to require more stringent testing if baseball owners do not quickly come around to that position themselves--they should at least acknowledge that there is a fair amount of hypocrisy behind all the righteousness. With everyone else relying on biotech to improve what nature has decreed for us, do not expect Mr. Giambi to be any different. As long as there are pills to boost performance, there will be consumers ready to take them. In a culture where we medicate every opportunity, the real surprise in the wake of baseball's steroid mess may be not how many players used the drugs to gain an edge, but how few.

Dr. Gottlieb is a practicing physician and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

I made it

La Grande Giostra dei Gol
In diretta la partita di Serie A
Milan-Fiorentina
Su Rai International 1, 2, 3 domenica 12 dicembre alle 14.00 ora italiana

Calcio Serie A
Bologna-Juventus
Su Rai International 1, 2, 3 domenica 12 dicembre alle 22.30 ora italiana

Calcio Serie A
Juventus-Milan
Su Rai International 1, 2, 3 sabato 18 dicembre alle 21.15 ora italiana

why can't I be a moderator? I am almost Italian and more Italian than most folks here.

:idea:

Red...thanks for the kind words...the feeling is mutual. Also, thanks for spearheading this move. I think over time we'll all get used to it, just as we did in our prior move.

Fiorentina gets trashed 6-0 by Milan. And they want to be a contender for the CL?

Falc

Yes, some thought Fiorentina could challenge for the last CL spot, on this board probably only Zeus the moron, although I thought an UEFA cup spot was more realistic.

IMO the reason for this 6-0 skull fucking, trashing, beating etc is exactly one: Sergio Buso: With Mondonico Fiorentina didn't start off too well, slowly began to play better, then he decided that he couldn't stand the pressure and got himself fired. Buso was supposed to be an interim coach, managed a draw against Inter (nothing special there...) and a big win against Lecce. A fairly lucky win, if Lecce had scored in the first half they would have lost. He still played with a 4-4-2 in both occasions. Since then he has changed everything to a 3-5-1-1 or something like that. 3 central defenders, Ujfalusi on the right, Chiellini on the left, Obodo and Maresca centrally, and since Jörgensen and Ariatti are injured usually another stiff in the middle. Plus Miccoli and Rigano up front. Problem: Absolutely unable to create anything. Obodo and Maresca play far back, and the play goes through them. What can they do?

1) Long ball to Rigano, he'll have to wait for the others to come up.
2) Long ball to Miccoli, he'll either try to invent something or have to wait.
3) Short ball to Miccoli, who often comes back so he gets a few ball touches.
4) To Ujfalusi on the right, he'll either give a long ball to Rigano or give the ball back, what else can he do. He's a central defender not a winger.
5) To Chiellini. He can dribble, he is fast, but if he has the whole defence in front of him, with only Rigano and Miccoli up front there is only that much he can do.
6) To Maresco/Obodo, who then has the same choices.

Basically Buso has them playing way to defensively. Plus the defence isn't really all that. Delli Carri? Viali? They haven't played well for a long time, IMO because Buso is doing a horrible job. Get Nakata in there, he might suck (he did so far for Fiorentina) but he's still better than Piangerelli or Savini. Or that southamerican that was supposed to be fairly good. Can't be worse than Savini/Piangerelli or Fontana.... Or put a winger on the right, instead of Ujafusi. Guigou sucks, but he most be better offensively than Ujfalusi. (who is playing well enough IMO, just not his position) Or this Maggio dude who was supposed to be the starting right back, injured came back a while ago, happily on the bench since then. Or put in Portillo, then at least you'll have a 3-4-2-1, or Fantini either on the right or as a second striker. But so far Buso has done nothing of the sort. Can't wait to see what he does in the next game... Maybe Savini and Piangerelli and leave out Moccoli? By now I'm hoping for another 2 or 3 6-0 losses, that might get Fiorentina a new coach, eh a coach, can't really call Buso a coach judged on his perormance so far.

[/list]

Chiellini is a stud.

"When it comes to professional sports, tougher testing standards may catch more cheats. But what the Balco case also reveals is that technology for concocting designer drugs that evade detection is ahead of technology for spotting them."

Yes. The Balco case has brought this to surface in the USA.

However, Europe has been aware of this for quite some time. I remember Greg LeMond stating exactly that in an Interview on ESPN some 8-10 years ago.

Cycling is the laboratory. All the new drugs start there. Afterward they make their way to football. They are ALWAYS one step ahead of the technology for spotting them.

Carmignani named Parma Coach
Tuesday 14 December, 2004

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Parma have officially named Pietro Carmignani as their new Coach after Silvio Baldini was fired on Monday.

“Parma have given the reins of the squad to Carmignani, who will work with assistant manager Daniele Zoratto,” explained a club statement released this evening.

59-year-old Carmignani is an intriguing choice to lead the Gialloblu out of relegation trouble, as he worked for many years as assistant to Arrigo Sacchi – the current Tardini director – at Parma, Milan, Atletico Madrid and the Italian national side.

This isn’t his first senior Coaching role, as he also took charge of Serie C1 outfit Livorno in 1999. Above all, in 2002 he stepped in for sacked Daniel Passarella at Parma and went on to win the Coppa Italia as well as rescuing the team from the threat of relegation.

Nicknamed ‘Gedeone’, he had a glittering playing career as a goalkeeper for Varese, Juventus (with whom he won the Scudetto in 1971-72), Napoli and Fiorentina.

Carmignani will hold his first press conference on Wednesday afternoon and make his debut on the bench in Thursday’s UEFA Cup clash with Besiktas at the Stadio Tardini. Failure to win that match will see the club eliminated from the competition.

Saluti,

Trying to catch up from being out a few days. Work is a BEAR. Had to take a couple days off for some out-patient surgery, and now need to clear my head from those pain killers.

I saw the Milan game; they are playing exceptionally well. I expect Juve to be ready though.

Ciao, ciao for now...

Bineaz - Hope the surgery went well and that your recovery is even better. We Juventini can only hope that Milan will be overconfident going into the match on Saturday.

Thanks Falc.

I've seen better days--and worse.

Get well soon, Bineaz.

I hear those penile extension surgeries are a bitch though

I think it's a good move. Hopefully the young players will respond to him. I think they will.

Hope you feel better.

I didn't even know you were unwell. Hope everything gets better for you soon, and that the surgery went just fine, Bineaz.

Regards,

Mark

Bineaz

Get well soon, my brother.

Hope you get prescribed some good shit!

All the best! :P

Bineaz

It must have been pretty lousy experience if you wouldn't wish it for the Master of Sardinia:)

Hang in tough and get well soon.

Hope your recovery is going well.

So what happened? You had your dick chopped off? :o)

test

RedFury wrote:Get well soon, Bineaz.

I hear those penile extension surgeries are a bitch though

Red thanks. You're not far from the truth though. It was actually the opposite of an extension. YUP OUCH.

Thanks to all the others for your well wishes.

pram yeah, part of it anyway. Painful but necessary. No wonder the Jews give wine and do it right after birth.

So your GF finally Bobitted you, eh? Did she throw it out the car window too? ;-P

Glad to hear you're doing better. Got it done now so insurance would pick it all up?

bineaz wrote:Thanks to all the others for your well wishes.

pram yeah, part of it anyway. Painful but necessary. No wonder the Jews give wine and do it right after birth.

So you shed some skin? Supposedly my doctor gave me drops of bourbon when I was an infant.

Windy,

Exactly. I maxed out my benefits so this was the time to take advantage without further cost.

Falc,

Well not all of us were lucky enough to be born in a hospital. I was born in a shed; OK it was the room above the barn, but no electricity. I still see the midwife who help deliver me. She says my mom said I was ugly (as you and Windy know), but she would take me. She has a soft spot for soccer ball heads.

bineaz wrote:Well not all of us were lucky enough to be born in a hospital. I was born in a shed; OK it was the room above the barn, but no electricity. I still see the midwife who help deliver me. She says my mom said I was ugly (as you and Windy know), but she would take me. She has a soft spot for soccer ball heads.

I forgot, you were born in the old country. I would imagine that they had some good sharp steak knives in Sicilia that would have taken care of the trick. A little homemade Sicilian vino afterwards and you would have been out for the night. Well, now that you are clean, that the knob is no longer covered, that you no longer have sagging skin, you can find yourself a nice Jewish girl.

BTW, how many days after you were born did your father record your birth at the municipio? I took my aunt to the Italian embassy today to renew her passport. Her official birthday is the 4th but she was actually born on the 3rd. The lady at the consular office also let me know that I am eligible for Italian citizenship as my parents were not naturalized Italian citizens when I was born. That could make things a little tricky for me if I ever decided to run for the White House but considering how much of a long shot that actually is, I guess I should not worry about it.

Anyway, since you replied in a sarcastic tone, I guess you are feeling better. Hope so and get well. Just remember that you for at least the next week, you need to be the master of your domain. Let the damn thing heal before you go polishing it off.

Falc

If you wanna run for it, run don't talk.

I may consider voting for a 40+ years old Dem..osthenes:)

bineaz

I thought you went for a colonoscopy(?). Oh well... Hope you feel better.

Man... I really wish I wasn't at work today. :x [/b]

Juventus got Real Madrid. Inter got Porto. And Milan has Manchester United. No easy matches for any of the three.

Other interesting matchups are Barca/Chelsea, Liverpool/Leverkusen and Munich/Aresenal. Less interesting are Bremen/Lyonnais and PSV/Monaco.

giuve will go thru, as will AC Milan and Inter.

Barça-Chelsea will be very interesting as it pairs a very defensive minded squad against a very offensive minded one.

I'm betting that Chelsea will go thru.

I won't be posting much the next 2 weeks or so, so happy holidays to all!

And Happy Hanukah to Bineaz!

;-P