From: marco@thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu (Marco Petroni)
Subject: Italian League: Serie A and B Results/Standings (Week 1; Sept. 6 Games)
Organization: McGill Research Centre for Intelligent Machines, Montreal, Canada
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 92 22:56:16 GMT

Hello "calcio" fans!

Serie A and B started up again on Sunday, and the first batch of
matches was not without its surprises.

On the international front, Italy will play the Netherlands in a
friendly match in Eindhoven on Wednesday, September 9, 1992. The
Azzurri will have to play without veteran libero Baresi, who had to
stay in Milan after pulling a muscle in his leg during practice prior
to the game against Foggia. Italian national team coach Arrigo Sacchi
called Apolloni from Parma to fill in the gap. Sacchi considers the
Dutch to be currently one of the strongest national teams adding that
to beat the "Oranje" one must be tactically and technically superior.
Hopefully, both teams will play a great game...

Here are the results and standings after the opening games of the
1992-93 Serie A and Serie B seasons which were played on Sunday...


Serie A, Week 1; Games played Sunday, September 6, 1992:

Atalanta	2	Parma		1
   Ganz     '27		   Melli '45 (2nd)
   Rambaudi '36 (2nd)

Atalanta played a good game, perhaps silencing some of the critics
which favour Parma over Atalanta in the league table, saying that
Atalanta transferred many key players, and apparently now lack a
leader like Glenn Stromberg. If this is the case, then it didn't show
in yesterday's match.


Cagliari	0	Juventus	0

A good game by Cagliari against Juventus, one of the favorites to win
the league championship. Cagliari had a good game from most of its
players, especially from Uruguayan Francescoli. Players in the Juve
camp were satisfied with the result, with Baggio adding that
physically, the team was at 60% efficiency, and was still in its
"break-in" period. English player David Platt didn't seem to be too
upset about not playing, adding that he would be well rested for
England's game on Wednesday.


Fiorentina	1	Genoa		1
   Effenberg '12 (2nd)	   Van't Schip '26 (2nd)

A tie which left both teams rather unhappy and bitter after the game.
Fiorentina coach Radice was pleased to see the team have the better
scoring chances, but was unhappy to see his team lose the lead, as the
team sputtered at the end. Genoa's coach was disappointed that his
players didn't capitalize on their scoring chances.


Milan		1	Foggia		0
   Grandini '13 (2nd-o.g.)

Milan wins thanks to an own goal by Foggia's Grandini who was trying
to clear away a Massaro cross, thinking that other Milan players were
closing in on the Foggia penalty area, which was not the case. Milan
had the better of the chances in this match, but full praise should go
to Zeman, who with a team made up of mostly former Serie C players,
presented a squad which was capable of playing good soccer and keeping
Milan at bay. According to a journalist who saw the game, Milan seems
to be suffering from having to chose from a wide range of equally good
players which when placed on the field, must be effective as a unit.


Napoli		0	Brescia		0

Not much news on this game, except that Napoli had a penalty kick
taken by Careca stopped by Brescia goalkeeper Landucci at the 33rd
minute of the first half. Brescia coach Lucescu should be quite happy
with the away draw, taking home an important point.


Roma		0	Pescara		1
			   Nobile '35 (2nd)

A surprising result, but one which leaves Roma coach Boskov pleased
nonetheless as in his opinion, the team played well. All smiles was
the Pescara coach who gets his first 2 points of the season which may
prove to be important in the long run when the race to avoid
relegation will start to get hot.


Sampdoria	3	Lazio		3
   Fuser '5 (o.g.)	   Signori '18
   Jugovic '37		   Signori '20
   Mancini '8 (2nd)	   Buso    '31 (2nd-o.g.)

Breaking with tradition, RAI-USA chose to broadcast this game instead
of the Milan-Foggia game. In the past, they have always shown last
season's league champion in the first game. Although I was initially
disappointed at the news, it turned out to be a good move on RAI's
part as this game was perhaps the most exciting of the Serie A games
played on this day, featuring the "post-Vialli and post-Boskov"
Sampdoria playing against a new and improved Lazio. Own-goals opened
and closed the scoring in this match, with Lazio's Fuser giving Samp
the early lead and Samp's Buso equalizing for Lazio with 15 minutes
left to play in the match. Both teams played very open and very
offensive soccer practically from start to finish, which made for some
very exciting plays. Two beautiful goals were scored by ex-Foggia
player Signori, who showed his skill in the Lazio attack, scoring the
first goal in the Serie A season. Samp's new acquisition Jugovic, also
displayed his skill in taking free kicks, scoring on one taken from
well outside the Lazio box. Perhaps the down side in both teams is the
lack of a solid defense.  Both Lazio and Samp were guilty of some poor
marking and sloppy clearing on a few occasions. All things considered
though, a very good match...


Torino		4	Ancona		1
   Casagrande '32	   Detari '16 (2nd-p.k.)
   Casagande  '38
   Gadda      '42 (o.g.)
   Scifo      '28 (2nd)

Ancona gets it's first loss of the season, which will most likely be
the first of many. Torino, thought by many to be less effective this
season than they were in the last after the transfer of some important
players, managed to punch holes in the Ancona defense, easily scoring
4 goals. Next week, Ancona will play in their new stadium, where they
will host Sampdoria. Here's hoping that they can keep the "goals
against" down to a more respectable number.


Udinese		2	Inter		1
   Balbo     '25 (2nd)	   Schillaci '33 (2nd-p.k.)
   Contratto '43 (2nd)

Udinese obtained an important victory after a mini crisis in the
team's ranks ended with the firing of coach Fedele, who was replaced
with Bigon, who most recently coached Lecce and Napoli before going to
Udine.  The new Udinese coach credits the players and the old coach
for leaving him a fit and very motivated team. Inter players also
spoke highly of their opponents, saying that Udinese played well,
winning deservingly. Given the polemics that were running around in
the Udinese camp, the victory against Inter was rather surprising.


Serie A Standings after 1 game:

		W	T	L	GF	GA	PTS	MI (see below)
Torino		1	0	0	4	1	2	0
Atalanta	1	0	0	2	1	2	0
Udinese		1	0	0	2	1	2	0
Milan		1	0	0	1	0	2	0
Pescara		1	0	0	1	0	2	1
Lazio		0	1	0	3	3	1	0
Sampdoria	0	1	0	3	3	1	-1
Fiorentina	0	1	0	1	1	1	-1
Genoa		0	1	0	1	1	1	0
Brescia		0	1	0	0	0	1	0
Cagliari	0	1	0	0	0	1	-1
Juventus	0	1	0	0	0	1	0
Napoli		0	1	0	0	0	1	-1
Inter		0	0	1	1	2	0	-1
Parma		0	0	1	1	2	0	-1
Foggia		0	0	1	0	1	0	-1
Roma		0	0	1	0	1	0	-2
Ancona		0	0	1	1	4	0	-1

For this season, I've decided to include team's "Media Inglese" with
the standings. This column shows what is known in Italy as the
"English Average" for the team, which as far as I know, has almost
nothing to do with England, but that's the name given to this info in
Italy. One can consider this info to represent the pace of a team in
the "campionato": to keep a 0 (zero) in its MI field, a team has to
win its home games and tie in its away games. A draw at home gives a
-1 (one point less than expected), a loss at home gives a -2, an away
victory gives +1, and an away loss gives -1. Why include this type of
information in the standings? Well, statistics show that usually at
the end of the season the league champ almost never has a negative
English Average; in most cases, the league champion will have an
English Average very close to zero (from -1 to +2). This info may be
useful in measuring the "real" (or at least possible) position of a
team in the standings, when they have played a different number of
home and away matches, relative to other teams with the same number
points in the table...


Serie B, Week 1; Games played Sunday, September 6, 1992:

Ascoli		3	Modena		0
Bologna		0	Venezia		0
Cesena		4	Cremonese	1
Andria		1	Lucchese	1
Monza		1	Bari		0
Padova		0	Cosenza		0
Piacenza	4	Lecce		0
Reggiana	0	Verona		0
Taranto		0	Pisa		0
Ternana		1	Spal		1

A good day for Ascoli, Cesena, and Piacenza, who immediately got off
to good starts with convincing victories. On the other side of the
coin, Bari, who was relegated from the first division at the end of
last season, lost to Monza, who came up from Serie C1, and Lecce's
thrashing at the hands of Piacenza.


Serie B Standings after 1 game:

		W	T	L	GF	GA	PTS	MI
Piacenza	1	0	0	4	0	2	0
Cesena		1	0	0	4	1	2	0
Ascoli		1	0	0	3	0	2	0
Monza		1	0	0	1	0	2	0
Andria		0	1	0	1	1	1	-1
Lucchese	0	1	0	1	1	1	0
Spal		0	1	0	1	1	1	0
Ternana		0	1	0	1	1	1	-1
Bologna		0	1	0	0	0	1	-1
Cosenza		0	1	0	0	0	1	0
Padova		0	1	0	0	0	1	-1
Pisa		0	1	0	0	0	1	0
Reggiana	0	1	0	0	0	1	-1
Taranto		0	1	0	0	0	1	-1
Venezia		0	1	0	0	0	1	0
Verona		0	1	0	0	0	1	0
Bari		0	0	1	0	1	0	-1
Cremonese	0	0	1	1	4	0	-1
Modena		0	0	1	0	3	0	-1
Lecce		0	0	1	0	4	0	-1


That's all for now!

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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