That time of summer has come when I go on vacation to Italy. So, I’ll be in the old country until August 14th, which means the Italy Offside will be dormant for around two weeks, because (1) I’m not going to be posting from Italy (2) even if I was, it would be extremely hard considering Italian technology is still stuck in 1995. I think they just introduced high speed internet a few months ago. Congratulations Italy. You’re really moving up in the world. Anyway, as I’m taking a vacation, it’s now time for you guys, my loyal readers, to take a vacation from the Italy Offside. But don’t worry, as soon as I’m back I’ll have updates going once again, and the Serie A season will be even closer! So, enjoy your vacation from the Italy Offside as I enjoy mine. Ci sentiamo! -Francesco

Mark your calendars, from Bologna to Catania, here is the Serie A 2010/2011 fixture list for F.C. Internazionale Milano.

Here we go, Inter starts away against Bologna and finishes at home against Catania:

1 – Bologna-INTER (A: Aug 29; R: Jan 16)
2 – INTER-Udinese (A: Sept 12; R. Jan 23)
3 – Palermo-INTER (A: Sept 19; R: Jan 30)
4 – INTER-Bari (A: Sept 22; R: Feb 2)
5 – Roma-INTER (A: Sept 26; R: Feb 6)
6 – INTER-Juventus (A: Oct 3; R: Feb 13)
7 – Cagliari-INTER (A: Oct 17; R: Feb 20)
8 – INTER-Sampdoria (A: Oct 24; R. Feb 27)
9 – Genoa-INTER (A: Oct 31; R: March 6)
10 – INTER-Brescia (A: Nov 7; R: March 13)
11 – Lecce-INTER (A: Nov 10; R: March 20)
12 – INTER-Milan (A: Nov 14; R: Apr 3)
13 – Chievo-INTER (A: Nov 21; R: Apr 10)
14 – INTER-Parma (A: Nov 28; R: Apr 14)
15 – Lazio-INTER (A: Dec 5; R: Apr 23)
16 – INTER-Cesena (A: Dec 12; R: May 1)
17 – Fiorentina-INTER(A: Dec 19; R: May 8 )
18 – INTER-Napoli (A: Jan 6; R: May 15)
19 – Catania-INTER (A: Jan 9; R: May 22)

FORZA INTER

The 2010/2011 Serie A season seemed so far away and it felt like 2009/2010 just ended, but the new season is upon us. With today’s calendar drawing, it officially means the season is upon us. Tomorrow will be officially one month until kickoff. The season will run from August 29th to May 22nd. The first day of the season doesn’t have any big teams squaring off, but it has some interesting encounters. The big teams will be happy with their opponents. Here is the first matchday: Bari-Juventus; Chievo-Catania; Milan-Lecce; Parma-Brescia; Roma-Cesena; Sampdoria-Lazio; Udinese-Genoa; Palermo-Cagliari; Bologna-Inter; Fiorentina-Napoli. Inter will start their title defense on Monday, since they will be involved in the European Super Cup with Atletico Madrid on August 27th. The best game looks to be Fiorentina-Napoli, a battle between two teams looking to aim high. Other good games are Sampdoria-Lazio and Bari-Juventus (especially if Giovinco goes to Bari).

And now some notable games: Roma-Inter will take place on September 26th at the Olimpico in the 5th round. The following week, Inter host Juve at the San Siro on October 3rd. Milan-Juve will take place in the 9th round on October 31st. December 19th brings about a great day of action: Milan-Roma, Fiorentina-Inter, and Sampdoria-Genoa derby.

Speaking of derbies, the first one of the season will be Lazio-Roma on November 7th, and then two weeks later on November 14th will be Inter-Milan. Sampdoria-Genoa will be on December 19th as I said above, and the Puglia derby of Lecce-Bari is back in Serie A for the first time since 2001 and will take place on January 6th.

There are three midweek rounds: September 22nd, November 10th, and February 2nd.

There will be the traditional round played on the epiphany (January 6th) after the winter break but it may not happen because the player’s association is saying they would like a longer winter break. They said they are willing to move the January 6th round to a midweek round right before Christmas to have a longer break. Apparently a petition will be signed by players and presented to the Lega.

Prandelli’s Nazionale has Euro 2012 qualifying and therefore there will be 3 national team breaks throughout the season: September 5th, October 10th, and March 27th.

For a nice interactive full Serie A 2010/2011 calendar, click here.

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Due to popular demand, we are dedicating a full post to the unveiling of the 2010/11 Serie A fixture list. I am not sure if we can liveblog it, but the draw commences at 20.30 CET and can be followed on Sky Sports 1 HD. Live streaming can be found on sky.it but I cannot guarantee that this will operate for anyone outside of Italy. However, don’t fret for a second because this post will be updated with the entire fixture list as soon as possible so stay tuned. Forza Lazio!

Even though his agent Mino Raiola says nothing has been signed yet, Mario Balotelli will definitely be a Manchester City player by the end of the week. The soon to be 20 year old left with Inter for their USA tour (where they will play Manchester City in a friendly on Saturday) just to make it not obvious that he’s leaving. In the training sessions in the USA so far, the team has been working with the ball while Balotelli has been training alone in the gym and the pool. Balotelli will reunite with Roberto Mancini, who introduced Balotelli to Serie A two years ago. Love him or hate him, you have to acknowledge that Balotelli is a talent and personally I hope he fixes his head so he can finally realize his potential and become a star for Italy (especially at a time when Italy needs young talents). Am I hopeful? Not really. Balotelli is nuts. More news after the jump.

-Tomorrow the Serie A calendar will be unveiled. The same format will be used as last season (no seeding system) so it’s possible that the big teams could meet on the first day. Also the game times are a little different this season. Any team involved in a Champions League match during the week will play on Friday. Saturday stays the same with two games, one anticipo at 6 PM and a posticipo at 8:45. Sundays have changed. There will be a lunch time game like the EPL has at 12:30 pm (meaning earlier wake up times for US fans watching calcio, which stinks), followed by the other teams playing at the normal 3 PM and then the posticipo at 8:45 pm. The Lega will also experiment with a Monday night game like the EPL has, and the experiment will be used only 6 or 7 times this season. When a Monday night game is to be played, it will be the Saturday 6 PM anticipo which will be moved to the Monday slot. I don’t like this new schedule. Why did they have to change a good thing. They complain about Italian attendance records, yet they now expect people to forget about lunch on Sunday and go to a soccer game instead. Never get between Italians and food!

-Looks like Italy goalkeeper Federico Marchetti and Cagliari have decided to go their separate ways. While it’s always been known that Marchetti has had many clubs interested in him, it always looked like he would stay in Sardegna. However Cagliari owner Massimo Cellino didn’t like an interview Marchetti gave to Gazzetta dello Sport where he said he was open to leave. Cellino said Marchetti should have talked to him first. So, Cagliari have officially announced that Marchetti is on the market, and if he leaves, the starting goalkeeper will be Michele Agazzi and not Chievo goalkeeper Stefano Sorrentino as some media outlets reported. For Marchetti, the most viable option right now looks like a move to England, seeing as most Italian sides have already taken care of their goalkeeping situation.

-Wondering why Sampdoria’s transfer campaign has pretty much sucked so far? Well sporting director Sergio Gasparin said their mercato depends on what happens with the Champions League qualifier. Pretty stupid, because if Samp do qualify for the Champions League group stage, that will occur on August 25th, allowing Gasparin only 6 days to to find some players before the mercato closes on the 31st.

-Gianluca Zambrotta is an optimist I guess. He says that Milan even without a few other signings is competitive already. I don’t know Zambrotta, when your entire midfield is over 30 it’s pretty hard to be competitive…

-Parma sporting director Pietro Leonardi has come out and said that Parma looking for a player with fantasista qualities. He said that Sebastian Giovinco, Hatem Ben Arfa, and Alessandro Diamanti all fit the bill and Parma is looking to get one of the three.

-Speaking of Giovinco, it was reported today that Bari has surpassed Parma and is now in pole position to get Giovinco. I don’t know how true that is, especially since Bari owner Vincenzo Matarrese came out today and said they will only sing Giovinco on loan and nothing else. They don’t want to pay money for him.

-Fiorentina will apparently close the deal with Liverpool to bring fullback Emiliano Insua to Florence before the end of the day. Let’s see if that happens.

-Eder, dubbed the “Kaka of Serie B”, was Serie B’s top goalscorer last season and is looking for a move to a bigger club. According to reports Lazio and Empoli have been discussing a deal for weeks and apparently it is very close to being done. Lotito has to spend those 18 million euro he got for Kolarov on something…

-Inter are looking to use the money received from the Balotelli sale (and maybe eventually Maicon’s) to bring in two of Bentiez’s pupils: Mascherano and Kuyt. While it is almost fairly certain that Mascherano will be joining the Nerazzurri this summer, the Kuyt deal will be a little more complicated, but could be made easier if Liverpool wind up singing Royston Drenthe.

-Roma really want West Ham and Switzerland winger Valon Behrami. They apparently want him on loan with an option to buy, but West Ham isn’t interested in that type of deal. So Roma may have to give the London club some players, and they might decide to hand over Brazilian goalkeeper Doni and young Italian striker Stefano Okaka, who spent the second part of last season in London on loan with Fulham. I wonder how the Roma fans will react to an ex-Laziale playing for them.

-Luca Cigarini was once touted as the new Pirlo, but hasn’t really lived up to the billing. Napoli spent a load of money on him last summer but once Mazzarri showed up he decided there was no room for Ciga in his starting 11. So Cigarini wants to move on, and Sevilla are rumored to be interested (where he would form an all-Italian central midfield pairing with Tiberio Guarente, and the two played together at Atalanta). Sevilla have supposedly put in an offer that is deemed too low for Napoli: 300,000 euro for the loan and then the option to buy for 6 million at the end of the season.

-Newly-promoted Brescia have done next to nothing on the transfer market, only signing goalkeeper Matteo Sereni so far. Manager Beppe Iachini announced to the press today that for Brescia to achieve salvation the squad needs some reinforcements. Brescia are looking at bringing in West Ham’s Alessandro Diamanti. That would be a great move, but I don’t know if Diamanti would accept a move to relegation zone team.

-Mauro Camoranesi has been linked with a move away from Juve since May. First it was thought he would go to Olympiakos, but the Greek club couldn’t finalize the deal. Now it seems newly-promoted La Liga side Hercules CF is interested in the Italo-Argentine, and they are willing to offer him two year deal worth 1.5 million euro a season.

-And finally, Nicolas Burdisso. The Argentinian defender desperately wants a permanent move to Roma, but the Giallorossi really don’t have that much money to spend. In addition, after Totti’s words to the press about Inter, they are not going to be the easiest to negotiate with. It’s almost a month until the start of the Serie A season, and Burdisso’s future is still unclear.

English and Spanish media, PR departments and supporters may not like Serie A, but their teams are willing to pay through the nose for it’s players. This, potentially, will be the second season in a row that we will make tens of millions of Euros off of a deal from at least one team that originates from either country. I am coming to see that I don’t mind one little bit.

Anyway, on to the deals and why I hope that they both leave. Feel free to reference the book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game at any time.

Maicon, or rather his agent whom he doesn’t seem to disagree with, has been angling for a ticket out of town for around two and a half seasons. He and his agent decided that Inter weren’t going to give him a double digit million Euro yearly salary in Milan. His agent, Caliendo, has been trying desperately to get a raise – either money or ire from Inter so that his client could be paid or transferred.

This it season looks like both are finally going to get their wish. Inter’s position has been consistent with their handling of Ibra a season ago – if you want to go and we can get a decent price, goodbye. Rumors say that Miacon looks like he’ll get Inter some 28 million Euros + bonuses depending on performance. How much he’ll get paid is still up in the air, but I bet it’s going to be a raise from the 4.5 million he’s making per year now. Remembering that Maicon’s rights were bought at around 6 million Euros in 2006 this would be a huge return on the investment.

I said goodbye to Maicon a year ago, even though he was when I first saw him and remains now one of my favorites. Will I be sad to see him go? Yep. Some players play for the shirt, and we have those here, but if Maicon has repeatedly stated that he wants to move on, I would be foolish to think that he would do otherwise when given a chance. So, if it’s to be farewell, then see ya.

Mario is kinda the same story. His brother used to be his agent, but either they felt out of their league or they felt that he deserved more money/consideration/playing time. It really doesn’t make any difference. As it stands right now, on this team, Mario isn’t a starter. If he had patience he could wait and learn for a year or two and then at the ripe old age of 22 he could be the main man at a team like Inter, which will hopefully challenge at the highest level for a long time and a god to its fans and a whole city. He could have written his own ticket for the rest of his life.

Instead he wants to cash out and go to a currently second tier club competing in the Europa League next season. He’ll get a raise from the 1 – 2 million per year that he’d earn from Inter. I don’t know if he’ll get the playing time that he desires but I can’t see the likes of Adebyor, Jo, Tevez or Bellamy starting ahead of him. On the other side, the refs in England have a long history of being finicky to non-English players and Mario is pretty far from the English ideal. It’ll be interesting to see how this works out.

His price was set at 35 million euros and I think that Manchester City will have to get pretty close to it in order to get him. Real Madrid and Inter actually have a relationship of dealing with each other – plus there were the residuals of Sneijder and Mourinho that can be cleared up with a negotiated Maicon to Real transfer. With no history to speak of with Inter, I can’t see Manchester City getting any great consideration. I wouldn’t bet that Mancini engenders too many warm fuzzies from Moratti. Besides, Mario’s rights were bought for something like 600,000 Euros. This would be a fantastic piece of business. The latest number I hear is 30 million +5 bonus.

I am assuming that this deal will be contingent on Torres not moving to City from Liverpool. Apparently there is a feeling out of around 60 million Euros by City for Torres. Liverpool are cash strapped but Torres is one half of their entire team. I say that the odds are even that Torres stays. He won’t get Champions League with either, he has a history with Liverpool but ManCity have the resources to get better next season. Besides, Liverpool have just hired a coach that is famous for getting more with less – not an encouraging sign.

On a completely unrelated note, I’ll be curious to see if Mancini quits on his current club if he loses to Liverpool again. He’ll have several chances, that’s for sure. If he never did that to us, I wouldn’t have thing to hold against the guy.

It’s been said by Moratti that we are going to sell before we buy, but we have already seen that he was being cagey. We have bought Castellazzi, paid our share of co-ownership deals and purchased the rights for eight or ten youth players. If we don’t sell either of the above then we really don’t have any need to buy anyone else.

And really, those two players aren’t the end of our sales. We have already sold Quaresma. We still have Burdisso, Muntari and Rivas to unload. Amantino Mancini needs to find a forever home off our books but I don’t think he wants to go and may force us to keep him a while. Kerlon (who’s injured and we might have to bite the bullet on), Obinna and Suazo need to be elsewhere.

The team has already made quite a bit of pocket change in co-ownerships for around 10 youth players. Add that to the 60 odd million Euros that both Maicon and Mario would bring in. Then consider the Burdisso, Muntari, Rivas, Suazo and Obinna (potential, though soon factual, I hope) sales and we are talking almost 100 million Euros just in sales for this season. Add that to the Champions League total payout of almost 100 million Euros and we are talking about a team that is a fiscal juggernaut on the eve of the UEFA Financial Fair Play directive and a persistent credit crunch. Or a down payment on a stadium worth millions in it’s own right.

The question on such a risky ploy is do we trust Branca to get us the players that we would need to continue to compete at a high level without spending all of or wasting the money that we are earning by making such deep cuts? I think it’s important for him to remember that we are cutting technical quality from the team and we would need to replace that with more technical quality. Another defensive midfielder is great, but not exactly what I think we would need to reestablish balance to an already very gritty team.

All that being said, as of right now – no one’s been sold, except of course Quaresma. And last season, if you might remember, Moratti and Branca rather danced the same dance dangling Ibra and Maicon selling one for… coincidentally enough, almost the exact amount needed to fund an offseason’s worth of buying. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Moratti and Branca might put the kibosh on a second departure. So, for example, if Maicon’s deal goes through first, then I might expect the front office to shut further Mario negotiations down until next season’s books open up again. It’s a theory and I’ll be interested to see what happens. I just hope that they don’t wait too long to do it. Not everyone can get acclimated as quickly as Wesley did last season.

NEW INTER MILESTONE

Rankings don’t mean much but this is a “it’s a first time deal” so I’ll post it. It is the first time that Inter has ever been ahead of Milan in the UEFA club rankings. Inter are 8th, behind: Barcelona, ManU, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, Bayern Munchen and Sevilla. The rankings cover 2005-present. Roma and Fiorentina round out the Serie A teams in the top 25. Notables include Real Madrid at 13 are 1 spot ahead of Roma and Lyon at 10 – higher than I would have expected.

FORZA INTER

Looks like RAI designated today as the day they would be announcing changes in their broadcasting. First the announcement of no moviola, and now the change of commentator for Italian national team games. The national team has always had iconic commentators, like Nando Martinelli and Bruno Pizzul. For the past 6 years, the voice of the Nazionale for RAI has been Marco Civoli, who took charge in 2004 from Gianni Cerqueti. Civoli and analyst Sandro Mazzola commented Lippi’s first cycle and famously the victorious final on RAI, where Civoli exalted “Il cielo e Azzurro sopra Berlino!” (The sky is Azzurro over Berlin!). After then being Italy’s announcer for both the Donadoni years and then Lippi’s failed return (with Salvatore Bagni as the analyst), Civoli has stepped aside.

And so the new voice of the Azzurri for the next 2 years at least will be Bruno Gentili (pictured). Gentili has been a radio announcer since 1978, and has announced many Serie A games and even national team games on the radio. In 2007, Gentili called his last radio game and left the radio scene to join Raisport as the vice-director of sport. And now, with Civoli stepping aside, RAI has announced that from August 11th Bruno Gentili will officially be the voice of the national team. The only thing that hasn’t been made clear is whether the August 10th friendly will be his first game or since it says August 11th then Civoli will call his farewell game August 10th and then hand it over to Gentili for the qualifiers. We’ll see. In a new era for the national team, there is now also a new official commentator.

For those unfamiliar with Gentili, here is what he sounds like:

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