LOL, a good joke on Udinese's fans forum was that Guidolin put Zielinsky in the starting 11 because Gino Pozzo was already saying "Sooo ... I see you don't use him and don't need him ... maybe at Watford ..." Guidolin: "NO, YOU WON'T TAKE HIM AWAY LIKE VYDRA! HE'S IN STARTING 11, YOU SEE!! NEEDED HERE!"
Send us Zielinsky Giampaolo. Infact send us everyone you have....... We need all the help we can get. If you don't need one of the old stands at the Friuli Stadium send that too please.
Agreed Watford promoted, Udinese in Europe and Granada staying up would be an incredible accomplishment.
Due to Italy's weakening UEFA coefficient, Udinese need to finish at least 5th to get a European spot. Top 3 get Champions League 4th and 5th get Europa League Coppa Italia winners get 3rd Europa League space, if the winners are already in an European spot, the runner up gets it, if the runner up is also in a European spot, then 6th place in the league gets it. Roma and Lazio are the Coppa Italia finalists, and they're 5th and 6th, Udinese are 7th, so they either need to finish top 5 themselves, or finish 6th and hope Roma/Lazio finish above them. Also, if I understood the commentators right, Udinese haven't lost at home since they did to Juventus in September, if that's right that's a fantastic achievement.
Wow! Great and solid win against a strong team. Still some chances for EL qualification, but what's more important is the performance of a quite young team. Well, apart from the majestic goal from the 35YO Di Natale of course. But Zielinsky ... WTF! 18YO and he played together with Di Natale incredibly well. I said already that it seems Muriel will be next big thing, but it might be we have already also the following one! Brilliant! We might even fail qualification for EL, but I'm quite optimistic for next season with such a team. Yes, we know already that most likely this year it will be the turn of Benatia, Danilo and Basta to be sold. And no problem, they are 26-28-28 YO and if a big team (many asking for them) offers then 2x or 3x the wage they have at Udinese, it's logical they grab the chance (and Udinese grabs the money for the sell). But we have already several replacements for them at home (Herteaux, Angella, Naldo) and as usual more oncoming. As an example, from Udinese's fans forum rumours say that two brazilians born '96 and free agents are in trial in our Primavera (under 20) team. From names given they should be these ones: http://www.futebolfuturo.com/jogador/guilherme-pereira-da-silva, http://www.futebolfuturo.com/jogador/lucas-dos-santos-siridakis and the first one is said was really convinging
Yes, at http://s4.zetaboards.com/udinese/forum/3847247/ with sub-forum rules saying "In this section the languages allowed are italian and english. If non-italian fans start a thread using english, you are all kindly invited to continue using english". Sometimes English comments from WFC fans several posts from me in Italian giving the updates to the other Udinese fans about WFC. Signing required to access to forum and sometimes you may find some bitter remarks from some "Pozzo shame" so-called-fans, but don't mind them. Noisy minority there, thankfully.
So do most Udinese fans like the Pozzo family, I could imagine a lot of fans would not like the idea of loaning some of their players out purely for the benefit of other teams?
Everyone loves Sherlock aka Giampaolo ahornet. Did you not know ? In all seriousness they cannot fail to love the Pozzo's. They've established Udine as a serie A side despite it's disadvantages in terms of support and finance, ar about to rebuild the stadium, have seen a sucession of top class players arrive and develop at the club and have had European adventures too. Something which we all hope is replicated here at Watford and Granada as well.
Guidolin about the match and Zielinsky: http://www.football-italia.net/33315/guidolin-zielinski-markings-champion I love the fact that other teams spend millions for champions while we keep discovering the future ones. Zielinsky arrived here 2 years ago, 16YO, taken for 100.000€ from the famous Zaglebie Lublin! :]]
Sherlock - There's a news story here (http://metro.co.uk/2013/04/26/udine...manchester-united-to-make-summer-bid-3668254/) that says Man Utd are interested in Mehdi Benatia. Do you think this is true? How well has he done for you this season?
Strange that some quite normal phrases become a "hint to ManU" in journalist's head, but well. It is true that rumours abound about Benatia linked with teams in Italy and abroad. Don't know what is true about this ManU rumour. It is true that, as I wrote above, Benatia together with Danilo and Basta are the most likely candidates to be sold this summer. Benatia has been overall very good and solid for us in these three seasons, top quality defender! (even if twice he had to "disappear" for some weeks in winter to play the African Cup) He's a good example of the fact that the Pozzo's style in buying players doesn't mean only very young players but also underestimated ones. Benatia was 23YO, playing "forgotten" in Ligue2 (Clermont) after a bad injury when he was 20 somehow ruined his career progression at Olympique Marseille young team. We had him for 500.000€ in 2010. Now rumours say about 12-16M€. :naughty:
On fire atm, wherever you finish this season the signs are there for next that it could be a memorable one, like last season's.
Amazing, up to 5th, lets hope you can see results go your way. Good momentum for the final few games. Is 5th and above Europe?
Big result as Inter lose to Palermo, however Udinese move down to sixth as overtaken by Roma, does this mean Udinese qualify for Europa at the moment?
No, not at moment but maybe at the end of the season 6th place will be enough to qualify. This is because the 3rd spot of europa League is assigned in italy to the winning team of Coppa Italia (more or less the italian FA cup), but if the winner is qualified already to european cup due to the championship, so the coppa italia sopt is taken by the 6th team of championship, not by the losing team of coppa italia final. This year the final teams are Lazio and Roma, so if Roma wins the cup the 6th places of championship opens for europa league spot. If lazio wins the cup, probably we are out of the cup cause lazio is not qualified with championship ranking
Not related to Udinese but it is concerned with serie A is the serious Achilles injury suffered by Javier Zanetti while Inter were playing Palermo. At his age that might be it for the legend but he has vowed to return if he can. One of my very , very favourite players. http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/04/28/uk-soccer-italy-zanetti-idUKBRE93R0B920130428 Palermo look to be escaping the trap door. I thought they would go this season with Siena and Pescara but instead Genoa are among the deadmen. Udinese are themselves second in the current form table behind Juventus. All the transfers at the season start required Guidolin like Zola to meld the side and they have consistently improved throughout the season and their EL exit has probably helped. The youth side has not been doing as well this season which is a little worrying: http://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/en/primavera-b/startseite/wettbewerb_ITJ2.html Erik Lamela as marica might appreciate continues to shine as one of the best young talents in a league which has lost a lot of it's shine and importance with respect to La Liga and the Bundesliga.
When Udinese played Liverpool away in the Europa League how many away tickets did they sell, and what was the allocation?
Come on Fiorentina a win against Roma would for them means Udinese could nick the Europa League spot tomorrow.
Ouch, 1-1. Nice shot but mistake by Basta who should have pressed the opponent. On Muriel, until he becomes more like the kind of striker that Guidolin wants, he and Di Natale playing together will be more the exception than the rule. The manager wants strikers who also come back to help in midfield and at most one can just stay in attack without participating. Di Natale is too old for such an effort and Muriel still a little too arrogant and undisciplined (although talented) to realize what a "modern" striker must be. Today Guidolin is playing 3-4-2-1 with the promising Zielinski and the excellent Pereyra playing in support to the striker. Di Natale now, probably Muriel later after the sub. Also we have another match next wednesday.
Di Natale, again! 2-1! With these 2 goals Totò has 2 more records in his CV. 4 consecutive seasons with 20+ goals in serie A! 100 goals in 4 seasons in serie A! Only Batistuta in the past did the same but he's the first Italian player to do this in history.
FT. Udinese-Sampdoria 3-1. Not easy against a well deployed Samp, we must thank an exceptional Di Natale (living legend!). Incredibly, it's the 5th consecutive win, so we're still fighting for the 5th place.
