Playing Catchup

By: bingitz2002 | September 13th, 2008

So, I’ve had a pretty stressful week or two, between moving back into school and various personal/family issues, but now everything’s falling into place and I’m back to blogging. Luckily, not a whole lot has happened in the world of Toro thanks/no thanks to this two week international break we’re having. I swear, FIFA needs to do better than having its international match dates just as the European season is starting, though I wouldn’t mind an earlier Serie A start either. Also David Di Michele has left Torino on loan and probably won’t be welcomed back two kindly and we played two friendly matches, with mixed results.

Over the international break, we were fortunate not too lose too many players to international duty, with only Jurgen Säumel being called up for Austria, though he did not even get on the bench in Austria’s 3-1 victory over France or their 2-0 loss to Lithuania. This is the first time in a while that we have not had players featuring at the international break. Some might say this speaks to a lack of quality in our sqaud, but to be perfectly honest I don’t think its too big a deal. If Dzemaili revives himself well, which seems to be doing (more on that later) he will probably start featuring again for Switzerland and I have a feeling Säumel will continue to be part of the Austria setup. We also have Abate on the Azzurrini, where he will likely return for the Israel playoff as we’re all hoping he’ll be fit by them, plus Rosina, Diana, and Sereni as potential Nazionale call-ups, though only Sereni is on Lippi’s 50 player mega-list. We will see what happens though. I’m satisfied with the fact that we have a solid squad of nearly all Italian players though.

We played two friendly matches over the international break and unfortunately, we lost our first game all season, falling 0-1 to Serie B side AlbinoLeffe. I’m not going to read too much into it, but I think we were bound to lose a game at some point, and in a meaningless friendly whose sole purpose was to keep our players fit over the international break, I’m not going to make a big deal out of it. Nor will I make a big deal out of our 3-0 victory over Pro Vercelli earlier this week, though from what I hear our new signing Blerim Dzemaili was quite impressive, bagging a goal in process. Abbruscato and Bianchi scored our other goals. Perhaps Dzemaili will get a starting spot against Reggina, but it seems as if De Biasi will stick with the same midfield as against Lecce. (More on the match preview this evening.)

Lastly, we cannot leave without discussing Di Michele’s acrimonious departure to West Ham. After itching for a move to Roma all summer (like that was ever going to happen, in retrospect), he scored a great goal to put Toro through in the Coppa Italia and won back alot of fans. After a day’s delay, it was revealed that Di Michele had moved to West Ham and that he was thankful for the move away. Just when we thought he might have changed his attitude he went off and disrespected the club and the fans, leaving many to hope that West Ham ends up buying him at the end of the year. To be honest, it never really seemed like he wanted to be at Torino and that we were just a stepping stone to get his career back on track after his betting scandal. Unfortunately, Cairo did pay a pretty penny for him, which is a shame, but it seems like it won’t be a huge financial blow. He was pretty erratic for us, so I’m not worried about his loss in the attack though we will lose a little bit of flair. All in all, I’m glad to see him go. Ciao, DDM, don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.