It has been a chaotic and surprisingly lucrative instalment of January transfer window this season, with various big money moves occurring throughout Europe’s premier divisions. Serie A is no exception, with the likes of Milan, Inter and the Old Lady of Italy, Juventus, all “spending like madmen” as Adriano Galliani, AC Milan’s transfer guru so delicately put it. Sam Lewis rounds up all the main talking points from Italy.
The Rossineri have been perhaps the biggest beneficiaries, with Galliani’s almost inspired transfer dealings drawing comparisons with “Lucky Luciano” Moggi, the former, now disgraced Juventus transfer supremo, who brought and sold the likes of Zidane, Viera and Zlatan Ibrahimovic during his time in Turin.
AC Milan have brought in Dutch Mdfield anchor man Mark Van Bommel, Ajax winger Urby Emmanuelson, Juventus benchwarmer Nicola Legrottalie, Spanish youth prospect DidacVilar and the jewel of the Italian national team, the “Bari Brat” Antonio Cassano. As a result, Il Diavolo now have sturdy defensive and midfield cover to bolster their frankly astonishing injury list, as well as a welcome injection of youthful vigour and pace, something which Milan sides of recent years have sorely lacked. All this in additon to the signing of Cassano, who is a world class player and has already begun to repay the faith shown in him by Milan with 4 assists in 4 games, whilst fairly redundant defender Oguchi Onyewu leaves for FC Twente on loan, and former Barcelona playmaker Ronaldinho ends a disappointing Serie A career, signing for Flame go.
Across the city to rivals Inter, who have had an equally impressive transfer campaign, the key new face being the capture of Sampdoria poacher Giampaolo Pazzini, who will provide an alternative to Diego Milito, as well as a potentially explosive strike partner to the prolific Samuel Eto’o. The Nerazzuri also welcome Genoa pair Andrea Ranocchia and Houssine Kharja, with the former being vital considering Walter Samuel’s season ending injury, and the latter providing a new dynamic in the centre of the park for Leonardo’s side, whilst the French speedster Jonathan Biabiany heads to Sampdoria, and youngster Davide Santon heads to relegation battlers Cesena as part of a swap deal for full back Yuto Nagatomo.
The real disappointment of the month’s moves has to be Juventus, who spent the majority of the month on the look out for a world class forward capable of filling in for the injured Fabio Quadrille, with the likes of Luis Fabiano, Diego Forlan and the new Interista Giampaolo Pazzini all linked with the Turin giants. None of these moves materialised however, and the Bianconeri faithful will have to settle with Ex Roma and Fiorentina veteran Luca Toni as their saviour, who played 18 minutes of football in the Coppa Italia, before suffering a month long injury, essentially deeming Juve’s short term solution as an abject failure leading to the loan capture of Cagliari forward Alessandro Matri. In additon to Toni, Juventus signed Wolfsburg centre back Andrea Barzagli, to provide defensive cover for Leonardo Bonucci and one man tackling machine Giorgio Chiellini. All in all, not the most spectacular transfer campaign for the 27 time champions.
Further down the table, the likes of Lazio and Napoli doing quiet, but useful business dealings this winter, with the former bringing in Genoa forward Guiseppe Sculli to help out Edy Reja’s title push and Napoli bringing in highly rated defender Victor Luiz from Espanyol, beating off competition from Manchester City to land the Spaniard.
Fiorentina and the ever bustling Genoa also parading new faces around their various training ground’s, with La Viola bringing in West Ham forward Valon Behrami and goalkeeper Neto from Atletico Paranaense, perhaps in preparation for the allegedly outward bound Sebastian Frey.
Genoa, in keeping with recent form and sometimes over exuberant transfer strategy, brought in 9 players, including Udinese forward Antonio Floro Flores, Sevilla’s Konko, Parma duo Alberto Paloschi and Luca Antonelli, Wigan’s Mauro Boselli and Sparta Prague midfield dynamo Juraj Kucka.
Passing the new boys on the way out were the aforementioned Kharja, Ranocchia Toni and Sculli, as well as Gergely Rudolf and Raffaele Palladino, signing for Bari and Parma respectively.
Elsewhere across the peninsula, Sampdoria reacted to their losses with the arrivals of former Middlesbrough flop Massimo Maccarone and the loan signing of Man United prospect Frederico Macheda. In the relegation battle, Bari employed several new players, including the loan of Roma’s Okaka and Cesena fans will be overjoyed at the purchase of Zenit man Alessandro Rosina.
So all in all a fairly busy transfer period for Italy, where the likes of Milan and Inter will be looking forward to a 2011 packed full of new vibrant signing’s and Juventus, the once financially dominant force in Lega Calcio, will be looking at a winter of discontent in this, most bizarre transfer window.
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