Reuters Soccer Blog

Would Juve not be better off selling Buffon?

Juventus need a striker desperately but don’t want to bust their budget and yet have two top goalkeepers.

The answer? Why not sell one of the goalkeepers and use part of the proceeds to recruit a world-class forward?

The only problem is the most obvious and lucrative keeper to offload is Italy number one Gianluigi Buffon, widely recognised as one of the best if not best in the game.

Many Juve fans though would agree with the idea of letting Buffon go and entrusting the keeper jersey to the ever reliable Marco Storari if it meant the likes of Diego Forlan or Luis Fabiano could ease their injury and confidence crisis upfront.

Injury-prone Buffon has only just returned after over six months out with a back problem, during which time Storari has been superb.

The spectre of Buffon leaving Turin looked quite possible at the start of January with the likes of Manchester United linked in the media but he has now committed himself to Juve as the days run down in the transfer window.

Juve though still need that striker and having missed out on lesser lights like Antonio Floro Flores, who chose Genoa over the Old Lady, it’s all looking a bit desperate.

Like many, Ronaldinho’s World Cup bid may have come too late

Ronaldinho has been left out of Brazil’s squad for next month’s friendly with Ireland, making it highly unlikely he will make Dunga’s list of 23 for June’s World Cup.

It’s quite a come down for the former world player of the year but he has been having a much better season at AC Milan following three years of problems. 

Ultimately, Ronaldinho may have timed his bid for South Africa too late just like several other players in Serie A.

Outside of Italy, MICHAEL OWEN is probably the best of example of a big name player looking set to miss the first finals in Africa.

A Champions League hat-trick for Manchester United in the group stages failed to persuade Alex Ferguson to give him more first team opportunities and the only way he can realistically make Fabio Capello’s squad now is to hope for a several injuries upfront.

But it is Serie A where a host of World Cup hopefuls are struggling to realise their dream. Here’s a list in no particular order. 

FRANCESCO TOTTI – Yes I know he is officially retired from international football but the AS Roma striker has been giving strong hints that he will make himself available for Italy’s World Cup squad after quitting following their 2006 triumph.

Toni, the natural choice to lead Euro 2008 flop XI

Almost 350 players will leave Euro 2008 disappointed but only 11 will carry the ultimate shame of making it into the Reuters Flops of the Tournament XI.

Starting at the back there is nothing like a commanding goalkeeper and we have three contenders who have been nothing like a commanding goalkeeper.

Petr Cech made a bid by dropping a straightforward catch that enabled Turkey to come from the dead and knock the Czech Republic out while Rustu Recber’s 100 percent ratio of blunders to games in his two appearances also earned notice.

However, the number one shirt goes to 38-year-old Jens Lehmann for his creaky, leaky display in Germany’s semi-final win over Turkey.

There was stiff competition at centre back too, though Marco Materazzi was an almost unanimous choice after finally rediscovering his long-lost Everton form — disappointing, shall we say — in Italy’s 3-0 defeat by the Netherlands.

Lilian Thuram, who was involved in all four goals conceded by France against the Dutch, was in there fighting but Russia’s Roman Shirokov, never to be seen again after Spain thumped four goals through, round and over him, gets the shirt.

France are well represented though as Willy Sagnol and Eric Abidal slot in at fullback.

The two Spains: the positive and the negative

THE OPTIMIST  (Elena Moya)     Spain’s chances of beating Italy and reaching the Euro 2008 semi-finals are better than ever.       ‘This time is different’ is the line that is repeated tournament after tournament, just before the team inevitably falls in the quarter-finals. But on this occasion it really is different, and here’s why.

1) Spain’s inferiority complex - based on four centuries of Inquisition, a fallen empire and a dictatorship that only finished thirty years ago - is evaporating. A winning mentality has been fostered by players like Fernando Torres and Cesc Fabregas.

2) They have traditionally been unlucky in tournaments, losing in penalty shootouts a few times including in England in 1996 against the hosts. This time, late match-winning goals by David Villa and Daniel Guiza have shown Spain can also be lucky.

3) Being lucky has given Spanish players confidence that last-minute turnarounds can actually happen in their favour. Spain’s tragic history – in football and in politics – is not inevitable. That’s what the players are now beginning to believe.

THE PESSIMIST (William Kemble-Diaz) Half-English, half-Spanish — a poisoned chalice handed down by the footballing gods. Why oh why wasn’t I born half-German, half-Argentinean, or half-Italian, half-Brazilian?      

At least at this championship I’m only facing inevitable disappointment once. So here we are again at the quarter-final stage of a major tournament, where Spain usually flounder. And it’s them again — Italy.

Suspicious Italians demand Dutch courage

Italians are suspicious of everything, or so it seems. Several of my friends in Milan refuse to eat pasta or pizza outside Italy because they don’t believe it will taste the same.

They are just as circumspect when it comes to soccer.

The Dutch have already qualified for the Euro 2008 quarter-finals and meet second-placed Romania in their final Group C match in Berne on Tuesday. World champions Italy need the Dutch to get a result to have any chance of going above the Romanians by beating or drawing with France.  

The Italians are terrified that Netherlands coach Marco van Basten will put out a weakened side or the Dutch players will try to avoid injury and not give 100 percent. 

Azzurri fans already think they have been robbed by the officials who allowed Ruud van Nistelrooy’s goal in the 3-0 defeat by the Dutch and disallowed Luca Toni’s valid header in Friday’s 1-1 draw with Romania. Incidentally, that was played on Friday 13th and was the 13th game of the 13th European championship. But having said that, the unlucky number in Italy is actually 17…the date of the France game.

All this follows years of conspiracy theories which Italians have dreamt up to explain their early exit from tournaments.  

Vlog on the pitch – What will be the big close season transfers?

After Manchester United beat Chelsea to the Premier League title, the Londoners hit back by signing Porto’s Jose Bosingwa in the first big transfer of the close season (although he can’t play in next Wednesday’s Champions League final obviously).

Vlog on the pitch regulars Owen Wyatt and Jon Bramley are joined by Tony Donovan to discuss last weekend’s final day of the English league season and look ahead to what could be the main transfers in the summer window.

Berbatov to United or Chelsea? Anelka on the move again? What about David Villa coming to England?

Let us know your thoughts. Leave comments below or make your own video, load it up to youtube or wherever tagged “vlog on the pitch” and if we like it, we’ll put it up here.

Problem students have the right answer for Bayern

The German-language speaking skills of Italy’s Luca Toni and France’s Franck Ribery have suddenly become a bit of an obsession in the German media (I mentioned Toni’s one-word vocabulary last week).

There was a great quote from Toni a few days later explaining just how little work they do in the two language classes they have per week alongside their Argentine colleague Jose Ernesto Sosa.

“It’s a lot of fun because the teacher tries to explain something to us and we each answer in our own way,” Toni was quoted as saying in an interview with Tuttosport. “Me with an Italian accent, Ribery with a French accent and Sosa with an Argentine accent. We laugh a lot but at the end of the day we don’t learn much.”

Rarely have players made such light of communication difficulties as Ribery and Toni. The Italian scored Bayern’s first in the 2-1 Cup final win over Borussia Dortmund on Saturday, converting easily after a great run and cross from the French midfielder.

Toni got the winner, too – diverting a shot from Lukas Podolski in extra-time for his 35th goal since arriving from Fiorentina last year. It was the fourth game in a row featuring two goals from Toni, who has been pushing Bayern management to sign another Italian next season so he’ll have someone to talk to.

Actually, credit where it’s due, because after the Cup final the two players gave their German-speaking debuts on local TV.

If you’re only going to learn one word in German, make it ‘Tor!’

Luca Toni has evidently not learned much German in the eight months since he moved over the Alps a few hundred kilometres north of native Italy to the Bavarian capital of Munich.

With plenty of translators at his service and a wide range  of fine Italian restaurants in Munich to pick from, there’s little need to spend time studying the difficult tongue-twisting language of Goethe and Schiller. His interviews in the German media are invariably translated from Italian.

But Bayern Munich coach Ottmar Hitzfeld revealed on Sunday that Toni has in the meantime enriched his vocabulary with at least one German term – Tor (goal).

“I asked him at half-time if he wanted to play the whole match or come off and he just said ‘Tor, Tor, Tor’,” Hitzfeld said after Toni had scored twice in the first half against Dortmund, by which time they were leading 4-0.

Toni, who came to Bayern from Fiorentina in the close-season, has proven that you don’t need to speak fluent German to understand what keeps your German employers happy. That one three-letter word “Tor” is enough.

He has 31 goals in all competitions and leads the Bundesliga in scoring with 18 goals with six matches left.