Scuffet reminds me of Bond. Great reaction times and saves. Still a lot to learn though. Flapped at a few things but looked good otherwise.
14th in the table looks really disappointing but they are 14 points above relegation but only 10 points behind the final Europa League place in 5th
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...adopt-three-day-old-baby-abandoned-train.html Antonio Floro Flores used to play for Udinese. Sounds like a nice guy.
A good post about Scuffet: http://www.goalkeepertalk.com/index...-italys-goalkeeping-wonderkid-simone-scuffet/
This evening (in 10 minutes) the big match at home against Juventus. It would be really nice to make them tremble a little more about their Scudetto, winning this one. Let's see.
Not this time. Juventus won 2-0, for those interested, two fairly early goals killed the game as a contest. Udi very firmly in lower midtable, 14th place, 13 points above relegation and 29 points below the CL places. After Granada's win vs Barca, a Udinese win vs Juventus was probably a bit too much to ask for!
A pity, the match at Torino was much better for performance. Today we were not good enough, we seemed too trembling, not enough courage to try.
Sherlock, do you think Guidolin will stay as manager next season? Seems to have been a disappointing one by Udinese's high standards.
I was already going to comment here that there are apparently serious rumours that Pozzo is not happy at all. As many fans (and he's the fan #1 beyound being a good businessman), he seems disappointed by the lack of playing style this year. A bad season may happen of course. But this year it seems the ONLY plan is to stay defensive in 3-5-1-1, waiting for the oppontent to attack and going for the counter. Even with low teams that come here to "park the bus". With so many apparently good players in the team, this is quite strange. But many of the most creative players stay on the bench while defensive midfielders play. Nico Lopez, Maicosuel, Zielinski, Muriel are not happy to play so little. And as a businessman Pozzo is not happy that the more promising ones are depreciated staying on the bench. It seems Guidolin "dares" a more offensive 4-2-3-1 fielding more attacking-minded players only in the friendlies or when we are 0-2 down. It's a pity! We all love Guidolin and he had with us the best 3 consecutive seasons in our history. But he seems to have become too "fearful" in his approach to the game.
About Di Natale, nothing known yet if he wants to continue. Anyway, from the interviews to Giaretta (our Sporting Director), it seems we want to keep both Muriel and Nico Lopez, and they are both quite good. And after them, there should be Rodrigo Aguirre, maybe after one year on loan to Granada according to some rumours. We will see this Summer.
Difficult to say! I'm quite fearful, because a change is always risky and with Guidolin you're sure at least that relegation is near impossible; but honestly, this season Udinese was so booooring to watch, contrary to previous seasons. The need would be for someone first of all very capable with young players (we have so many!). With a good playing style, capable of exalting the good talents. Yet not one going "gung-ho" in attack without caring for the defence and ending up brilliantly losing 5-4 most of the games and getting us relegated. Not easy, really!
Well, Zeman is a great person, but exactly what I said about a manager risking to lead us to serie B scoring 100 goals but conceding 150. I don't know enough about Holloway apart from his problem with the loanees. But our last English manager was Hodgson, and was sacked at half season. Don't think Pozzo will want another English manager. Also, for a long term plan, the manager should be someone who knows that each season 2-3 of the best players will be sold (to keep a sound budget) and will be substituted by some unknown young new talents and must be ready to cope with that. Really not an easy task! Probably the best would be an almost unknown brilliant manager, just as we do with players, from some serie B team doing well this season.
How did I not know Roy Hodgson had managed Udinese? In 2001, for those interested. Quite an interesting way to lose his job, too: From Wiki.
Currently 2-2 with Livorno after 30 mins. Di Natale missed a pen but scored a minute later, Badu has also scored
Verona-Udinese currently 2-1. Maybe we'll lose, but Di Natale has scored his goal #190 in serie A (reaching Hamrin at 7th place in all time scorers table) and it was an amazing goal! http://videobeste.blogspot.it/2014/05/antonio-di-natale-fantastic-volley-goal.html
FT 2-2. Badu scored the equalizer in injury time, for a well deserved draw after we had lots of chances in SH.
I hope he doesn't retire at the end of the season - no, he's not the player he once was physically, but players with his technical ability aren't born every day.
The bits that I saw (first half, and last 30 mins) looked like Watford at our most frustrating. Lots of possession followed by wasted corners, free kicks and overhit passes, spurning the few free headers and good chances. A few chances of getting caught out on the break. But, Verona got tired and Udinese duly punished them and scored a good goal in stoppage time that was pretty well worked. Pretty much the only thing about them that didn't remind me of Watford! Cracking goal from Di Natale.
Bit of news on the management front: Andrea Stramaccioni (Inter Milan manager until May 2013) is in talks to become the new manager and is 'well ahead of the rest of the candidates'. Can't see Udinese saying that unless they were confident he'd join. Maicosuel has also left, signing for Atletico Mineiro for an undisclosed fee.
I was waiting for it to be official, as days ago there were so many names still around, but now it is official. Andrea Stramaccioni should be our next manager (2 years contract). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Stramaccioni Sounds like a good choice to me. A young one, willing to work again and relaunch his career after he did not well enough (but not so bad really) in his first serie A experience at Inter. And he could have stayed at home until summer 2015 being still paid by Inter a much higher wage than what he'll receive at Udine, but he preferred to work. Sounds good.
Even better: it seems the second coach for Stramaccioni will be Dejan Stankovic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dejan_Stankovi* A player retired just last year with a huge experience and great character. Perfect to keep in line players who might not be so amazed in front of a young manager without a career as a player like Stramaccioni. I like it. Hope it works well.
