Something Great

Arsene Wenger cobbled together starting lineups with spit and duct tape and Denilson and somehow the team dragged its ass over the finish line in third or fourth.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Matthieu Flamini: "I've Made a Huge Mistake."

No, he didn't actually say that. But the thought must have at least crossed his mind (in French, of course), as Milan fell to Genoa in their second straight defeat. And it's not as though he'll get a chance to take his mind off their woeful league start with a Champions League tie in midweek.

The more you think about it, the more the Flamster's new club looks like what I like to call a reputation team. It's a club that supporters fear because of its big names, but that players all secretly know are beatable. The New York Yankees, since 2004, have descended into a reputation team. Sir Alex tried to imply that Chelsea were one (they're not). Barcelona are in real danger of having that label applied to them.

Essentially, Milan has compiled an All-Star team... from 2003. Ambrosini has no business starting anymore. Something is still wrong with Pirlo. Inzaghi shot his wad in the 2007 Champions League final. Maldini is perhaps the greatest defender of all time, but he's 40 years old (and was responsible for the penalty today with a very reckless challenge). Seedorf is also a legend, and has won pretty much everything a footballer can win, but his last two seasons have been really unproductive. The airlines somehow lost Shevchenko's talent and goalscoring boots on his flight from Milan to London; I doubt he'll find them again in Italy. Kaka and Ronaldinho together should be able to unlock the vault to Fort Knox, but today, they were completely ineffective in unlocking a mediocre Genoa defense. If Arsenal had a chance to take any of their players, I'd say thanks, but no thanks to just about everyone except Kaka, Flamini, and Pato. For serious.

3 comments:

JuanFucile said...

best. sentence. ever

JuanFucile said...

and you're absolutely right. I have to admit that I was back on the Milan coolaid after their off-season transfers. The problem is you and I should have trusted our previous analysis, which was that this team is old and needs to get younger. In the end, they still didnt address that issue

Ben said...

Clearly AC has gone the route of the Yankees. Overpaying for names, not results.

Sports Illustrated did a spread on all sports teams to see how much they pay for each win, I'd like to see that for soccer. I'm sure Arsenal is near the top, but I bet it'd be enlightening to view it that way. It would also be interesting to view profit margins/wins.

Juan, you have some free time, start looking into that.