From: marco@thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu (Marco Petroni)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.soccer
Subject: Re: The 'great' Milan
Date: 22 Jan 93 16:43:19 GMT
Organization: McGill Research Centre for Intelligent Machines, Montreal, Canada

In article <9301221551.AA08857@zeus.physast.uga.edu> loris@zeus.physast.uga.edu (Loris Magnani) writes:
>
> [other stuff deleted for brevity]
>
>The only really good Milan game I've seen on TV this
>year was Fiorentina-Milan 3-7 and that was more due to Fiorentina's
>suicidal tactics. I was less than impressed in their 5-3 victory
>at home over Lazio, their 0-0 tie with Torino was a poor performance,
>their 0-1 victory against Juventus should have been 1-1 had Vialli
>not failed the pk, in their 1-1 tie with Inter, Inter dominated the
>first half...What I read in Il Guerin Sportivo and the occasional
>Gazzetta dello Sport also doesn't impress me...

I agree with you again, Loris; I also haven't been impressed with
their performance. Last year's perfromance wasn't exactly stellar
either, even if they did win the "scudetto".

> In their last 7 league
>games they have scored only 1 goal (5 times) or 2 (twice)...and as 
>Mischa points out they no longer take the game to the opposition for
>the entire match - do you remember most of their Euro Cup games
>in 88-89?? they literally would outshoot the opposition 20-2...

Those were the days!

>I believe that if the current Milan team played the 1989 version, they
>(the current guys) would lose handily. When I see Gullit, Baresi, Tassotti
>and Donadoni these days, they are but shadows of what they were...

Of the 4 players mentioned, Gullit is perhaps the one who has maintained
his form the most, and is capable of giving the team some really good
games. Donadoni sometimes plays as if he's on another planet, and as far
as the other two are concerned... well ... fortunately for Milan there's
Maldini back there...

>Ancelotti is gone and
>Lentini, Papin, and Albertini have not picked up the slack...

IMHO, Albertini is the most overrated player on the team. Perhaps
he will be a great player one day, but he's no Ancelotti. I was listening to
the play-by-play of the Italy-Mexico game the other day and Sandro Ciotti
and Bruno Gentili were commenting on how poorly Albertini was playing.
In fact, it seems that after he was substituted by Dino Baggio, the
midfield regained some depth. Bruno Gentili said that Albertini
looks good in "rossonero" because he plays alongside Rijkaard adding,
"if I played alongside Rijkaard, even *I* would look good." As for
Lentini and Papin, they are still not up to scratch, but I beleive
that they have the potential to come on strong either late in this
season, or next season. In any case, in terms of player acquisitions,
it could have been worse; Milan could have bought Vialli! :-) :-)

>The goaltending is easily the worst in the Serie A - my conclusion
>is that if this team played the 1989 team 10 times we would probably
>have a 4 W 4 T 2 L advantage for the 1989 guys.

Milan didn't have good goalkeepers in 1988-89 either, it's just
that the defense was better then than it is now, so poor goalkeeping
wasn't such an important factor, IMHO. I beleive that Antonioli and
Rossi are better than "gloves"  Galli (as he's affectionately known
here) and Pazzagli, the ex-Ascoli goalkeeper.

> I interpret their
>current win streak as due to the weakness of the Italian teams this
>year...When we talk about the 'great' Milan team, please let's talk 
>about the 1989-90 team (even if it didn't win the Italian league...)

Exactly what I said in my previous post...

>That team showed some awesome soccer...The current guys are more cynical
>and play more for the result than for the spectacle...

Here's to "calcio spettacolo"...

Regards,

Marco...
--
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- Marco Petroni - VE2VTN - "Forza Milan! En ROUGE et BLACK." "Forza Ancona!"
	-- McGill Research Centre for Intelligent Machines (McRCIM), 
                         McGill University, Montreal, Canada.  
 INTERNET/BITNET: marco@larry.mcrcim.mcgill.edu  or marco@mcrcim.mcgill.ca
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Newsgroups: rec.sport.soccer