Getting Down to Business

By: bingitz2002 | August 6th, 2008

Gianni De Biasi

Hello all,

I’m Nick and I’ll be taking over the Toro blog. First off I want to thank Daryl and Chris for letting me take over this blog, its a pleasure to be able to write about the team I love in a community like this.

Just a few quick words about myself, I have followed football since watching the 1994 World Cup where I quickly fell in love with Roberto Baggio and the Italy squad who would eventually break my young heart that scorching day in Pasadena. My tortured love affair with Toro began four years later (after a short and forgettable period in which I possessd a Juve shirt) when my parents decided it would be fun to see a match while we were on a family vacation in Italy. I saw Marco Ferrante score two goals to lead Toro to a 2-0 upset over Milan and I was in love. For the past ten years I lived through the few ups and many downs the team has experienced but at the same time developed an unrequitted love for this once great team, now down on its luck, that I hope will get its act together.

Now it’s time to cut sappy stuff as there’s business to be taken care of.

Its August 2008 and we’re less than four weeks away from the Serie A kickoff. In other words, Lecce will be at the Olimpico on August 31 and by that time we will have to field a team capable of confidently beating them. Easy, right? Not until the management sorts out a few issues. First of all, word around town (I recently got back from a six week trip to Italy) is that the upper level management (Cairo and our new ds Mauro Pederzoli) are not exactly on the same page as Gianni De Biasi and the squad. It seems De Biasi has a concrete idea of what he wants to do and the type of player he needs. Cairo has a different idea of this but as has become painfully obvious, Cairo cannot run the football club on his own. Time and again he has undermined the ability of our various directors of sport (currently Pederzoli) and taken matters into his own hands despite a limited knowledge of the complex workings of the Italian mercato. You see names like Corvino, Pier Paolo Marino, etc. in the news, whereas Pederzoli is never in the news talking about Toro’s transfer dealings, its always Cairo. Don’t get me wrong, I have a massive respect for him due to what he’s done for this club, but he can’t do it all on his own. He has received (just) criticism from both De Biasi and Alessandro Rosina on this point after he has lagged behind in getting things done this summer. We have come a long ways from the controversies of one month ago, but we should get our act together and close up some of these summer-long transfer sagas.

The first player we have been talking about all summer is Nicola Pozzi. The Empoli striker is clearly talented and his club seem to realize this having stuck on an absurd €10 million price tag on him. (Raised from €6 million and then €7.5 million.) Pozzi is good, perhaps worth €6-7 million, but certainly not as much as Empoli are asking. What club in their right mind would pay €10 million for a young striker who has shown glimpses of goalscoring talent but has spent the last six months recovering from a serious injury? Empoli clearly want to keep Pozzi although he has stated his desire to play in Serie A. This leads us to our other desired striker: Rolando Bianchi.

Bianchi has been linked with our club in the previous two transfer campaigns before leaving for Manchester City last summer and Lazio on loan from the aforementioned club in the winter transfer window. This time, it actually seems as if we are favorites for him. In my mind Bianchi is definitely a talented striker and he showed that at Reggina. He is considered a flop at Man City and I agree to a certain extent but he was also able to score a few goals there. He had a mixed experience at Lazio though with Rocchi and Pandev ahead of him he didn’t get enough chances. Back to the deal at hand though it seems like the deal Toro will press ahead with is a loan deal with each club paying part of his massive wages. We would have a right to make the deal permanent at the end of season. Cairo has said he will only go for a loan, so hopefully City are cool with it.

Also, we are close to Udinese’s Giampiero Pinzi, who I frankly see as an ideal replacement for Grella should he complete his rumored move to Fulham. It seems Salvatore Lanna is also close to leaving with the left-back’s destination apparently at Bologna. Fine with me, Lanna was unimpressive last season and I’d rather give time to young Matteo Rubin who will be a stud, mark my words.

That’s all for now! Comments appreciated!

PS – Apologies for the length of the post, I’ll try and keep it shorter next time.