Weekend Thoughts

By: bingitz2002 | August 10th, 2008

These summer weekends can often seem long and tedious to the average calcio fan, full of meaningless friendlies and ridiculous transfer rumors, but luckily for us granata fans there is plenty for us to wrap our heads around. That’s right, a meaningful(ish) friendly and not-so-ridiculous transfer rumors!

First off, we traveled to London on Saturday to play Fulham in what will probably be our most testing friendly (perhaps we should start looking for better opposition?). Went down 2-0 despite having most of the play and lo and behold, we could not finish! However, Abbruscato scored a left-footed volley and youngster Ogbonna added a second late on to stage a superb comeback. Although we probably should have won this 4-2, one positive that can be taken away from it is that we have some solid fitness levels throughout the squad. Both of our goals came late on, which says something about the athletic preparation we’ve been going through. Now GDB has a couple weeks to teach our players how to score goals against teams that are not local Sunday League sides.

Speaking of local Sunday league sides, the day we returned from London we crushed the local side from Sommarrivo Perna 11-0 fielding the players that didn’t play the full 90 minutes against Fulham. Abbruscato, Di Michele, Stellone, and Ventola all scored braces, while Franceschini, Malonga, and Vailatti rounding out the scoring. We face Ivrea on Wednesday to finish out our preseason.

Fulham-Torino Highlights:

Also, Ignazio Abate again came on as a sub for the Olympic team, replacing Sebastian Giovinco in the 77th minute and made the tackle that started the move ending in Montolivo’s goal. Solid.

The Wide World of Transfers

-Salvatore Lanna has left Torino for Bologna in a co-ownership deal. This is good as neither GDB or myself saw any need for him when we have two better left-backs in Marco Pisano and Matteo Rubin.

-Our loan bid for Bianchi failed, as apparently Manchester City want a little more compensation than we were ready to offer. It is rumored in the Italian press that we will make another bid for him this week and that Genoa is also preparing to offer €3.5 million to get Bianchi on a permanent basis. If we lose this bid for him, I will fly back to Turin and give Cairo, Pederzoli & Co. a piece of my mind and maybe my boot as well.

-We have been linked with Argentine defender Alexis Ferrero. Who, you ask? I was asking the same question, though apparently he’s not half bad. Ferrero is 29 years old and currently plays with the Rio club Botafogo in the Brazilian Série A. He can play both right and center back, is solid at defense, and can push up to help the attack occasionally. He spent many years in the Argentine lower divisions before helping Tigre gain promotion to the Argentine First Division and went on to be a crucial part of the side that finished second in the 2007 Apertura, Tigre’s best ever finish. He earned a move to Botafogo this past January where he has supposedly impressed. It seems to me like he can’t be any worse than Colombo and would allow us more flexibility in our defensive choices, so as long as he’s not too expensive, I would say go for it!

-David Di Michele is rumored to be on his way out of Turin. He was left out of the squad for Fulham, ostensibly for injury reasons, but word in the media is that a number of Spanish clubs are interested in him as well as Wigan and Nantes. This of course is contingent on us bringing in a new, better striker (preferably one that could hit the broad side of a barn).

Comotto lashes out

Former Toro defender and captain Gianluca Comotto has lashed out at his former club. He does not have any problems with the club, the manger, or his former teammates, but with the way the club is being run. I know I will catch some flak for this, but I agree with Comotto. I’m waiting to reserve final judgement until the mercato is over, but right now I would say our management is not doing a great job at running this club. They haven’t followed through after stating ambitions of a European place (which is probably out of the question this season considering the strength of teams like Napoli, Genoa, and Samp). Thank you Gianluca, for saying what I feel many fans are thinking. Maybe this can provide a little extra incentive for the upper management of the club to get their asses in gear.