City Domination, for 18 more games

Despite vowing to myself that I'd refrain to talk about big time football but since the only sports event I was able to catch up in the last couple of days was the Milan derby (and since I'm working in Milan at the moment) I'm going to write a couple of paragraphs on how it went and why.

Wel, first of all I guess everyone knows what the final score was, and I might say that only over-enthusiastic Milan fans or people who do not follow Italian football could have expected Inter to lose this game. Last week's results could have led some people to believe that Inter was not the team to beat and that Milan had finally found some groove after its disastrous pre-season. The problem is that Mourinho got what he wanted (Snejider) and was finally able to bench the useless armchair called Vieira this week. The Inter side was also able to exploit and show to everyone who still hadn't got it (like its President, who never gets anything) Milan's weaknesses: the wings. Especially on the right side Maicon and Eto'o did whatever they wanted and all the first three goals came from attacks down that side.

I won't be in the office tomorrow, but I do believe that the minority of Inter fans will send plenty of emails to the majority Milan fans (with us neutrals as cc) with jokes and trash talk. The Milan Derby is something that is strongly felt throughout the city, something enhanced by the fact that football is the official religion of Italy.

On a different note, mixed results for the teams I support during this weekend. To quote just a few:
- wins for Man City, NAC and Istra Pula
- draws for Osasuna, Bodo/Glimt and Keflavik
- losses for my beloved TPS (on ET in the Cup), Udinese and Belenenses (both 3-1s away); plus for Hannover 96

Something Different

Today I won't be writing about someone else's effort or a high (or medium) profile team. Today I'm gonna describe the climb that I rode on my 19 years old and 20kgs heavy MTB.

I climbed the 20 kms from the town of Auronzo (864 mts on the sea level) to the Pearl of the Dolomites, the beautiful Misurina at the foot of the climb towards the Tre Cime di Lavaredo. Here you can see what kind of scenery I had before my eyes when I collapsed on a bench completely spent:


It was a wonderful day for a ride and the first 12 kms until the resort of Palù San Marco (1125mts), where the Italian National Sky Team - or at least part of it - is having one of its summer camps, went smoothly despite my being completely out of form due to the sedentary job I have actually got. The road went gently upward until there but after that...

After Palù San Marco you have a couple of kms where the road hit an almost steady 6% crescent to 1250mts and ten you pass a sign or your right that read: 12% crescent ahead. My legs (who already rode 15kms in the morning) started to tell me "please, can we go home please?" to which I replied stubbornly that I wanted to climb higher. My pace slowed there and I almost never got above 10km/h again until Misurina.

The final 6 kms feature some breathtaking scenery with Mount Sorapis on your left and the Mount Cristallo (Crystal) right in front of you. And you know that at km 135 of the National Road 48 you'll find the junction that will take you to the Tre Croci pass if you turn left (it last featured in the Giro in 2007), but when you look to your right at the sign you're still at km 138,700 and you're still at the Hotel Cristallo where some of the paths leading into the Mount Sorapis begin.

I admit I couldn't do it all in one go, I had to take 3 breaks before climbing back on the bike to push it higher and higher, but the satisfaction on seeing the old hospital for asthmatic kids first (even though the slope was still going up at 7%) and finally the lake was wonderful. I reached my goal, took a picture of the scenery and sent it to a Dutch sports journalist who's a good friend of mine to tell him: "next time you come to Italy remember that the Dolomites are waiting for you" and I finally got my teeth on the sandwich I brought with me.

For the ones that feel bol enough to keep climbing after reaching Misurina there is always the road that leads up to the Rifugio Auronzo and the Tre Cime probably the most gruesome climb I've ever did (only once, back in 1997 and 10 kgs ago).

The descent back to Auronzo is a technical one until Palù San Marco, and I was unlucky since I found a damned Mondeo ahead of me that either couldn't drive or was the first time he did that road (I vote for the former). Luckily I could overcome him after 3kms and I was then able to hit 70km/h in one of the few straights before Palù San Marco. From then on it was like riding through butter with some of my strenght back courtesy of the cheese sandwich.

Right now my legs are killing me, but I feel nonetheless satisfied. The forecast for tomorrow is grim looking but if it's wrong and it doesn't rain I'll do another 20+ kms loop around Mount Rusiana.

Vuelta Preview

It’s about time for the last of the Big Tours to start. The Vuelta a España will start its 64th edition Saturday in the Assen circuit in Holland, the first time ever that the race begins outside the Iberian Peninsula. So the third major stage race of the year has decided to follow the footsteps of Giro and Tour in order to increase its visibility outside Spain.


The parcours this year is probably the most exciting of the three Big Tours, since I personally think that both Giro and Tour organizers could have done much better and provide us with more exciting races and stages. There are 3 ITTs for a total of just over 60kms and 5 mountain top finishes plus many other climbs and descents along the way. So if the contenders are game we may be in for some real fun.

Contenders we say, so who are they? The major headlines and a lot of the public’s interest are leaning towards the comeback of the great felon: Alexander Vinokourov. The Kazakh will be aching to show that he is still what he used to be (maybe even without external help) and that he can still race at the top level at 35 years of age and after a two-year ban.

Without last year’s top 3 finishers a favourite by default has to be Ezequiel Mosquera who finished fourth last year and would like to work on that result in order to climb up the podium, which would be a fantastic result for his Xacobeo-Galicia team, who were invited also to the Giro but performed poorly. Two other Spanish riders who will do their best to win it all are Alejandro Valverde and Samuel Sanchez, with the former that will try to avoid his customary day off that never allowed him to be a real contender in a 3-week race, while the latter will try to finish in the top 3 and also to arrive in top shape at the World Champ in Mendrisio which can well be perfectly suited for him.

A rider who will want to avenge a terrible season in Cadel Evans, since the aussie wants to put his horrible Tour behind him and have a strong Vuelta to show his team owners that he’s still in his prime and only had a (very) disappointing July. Another rider with something to prove, in his case that he can be a contender in a 3-week race and not only in shorter ones, is young Robert Gesink: the Dutchman will lead the Rabobank team in the Vuelta, which as said above starts in Holland this year.

The Saxo Bank team fields on paper a very strong side with the two Schlecks and youngster Fulgsang their spearheads. I sincerely doubt that both Andy and Frank will try to win the Vuelta; my opinion is that they will instead use the Vuelta as warm up for Mendrisio, where they can both be serious contenders. We can use almost the same exact words for Damiano Cunego with the Italian more focused on trimming his physical condition for the WC than on the Vuelta itself (and here I do believe he should focus more on becoming the next Bettini instead of stubbornly try to win another Grand Tour since he’s not gonna do it, but we’ll talk about that in another occasion).

The Liquigas team can be already happy of their season so far, with Pellizzotti finishing third in the Giro and winning the Polka-dot jersey at the Tour, Basso making his comeback to finish 5th in the Giro, Nibali and Kreuziger looking good for the whole Tour. Now Basso has stated that he’ll be a contender in the Vuelta, and I do hope for him that he’ll be; there are better chances for him now than he had in the Giro since now he’s more accustomed to racing while before the Giro he didn’t have much chance to race in order to get back the feeling of it that a rider needs. He’ll we helped (or he will help) the young Czech Roman Kreuziger that after more ups than downs at the Tour would love to prove that he can ride two top level Big Tours in the same season.

So, Saturday the bikes will roll in one of motorsports’ temples, with the Bern Express Cancellara in pole position to take the lead. The first hard mountaintop finish will be on the 8th stage atop the Alto de Aitana, but also in earlier stages (the one in Liége and the two in Spain before the ITT) we could be in for some real treats. Now it’s up to the riders to show that the organizers’ choices were right and that this race can be more exciting than this year’s Giro and Tour.

If I was to make a prediction I's say for the top 3:

- Evans

- Basso

- Mosquera

but not necessarily in that order.

A Home Debut With Many Firsts

The diving header is one of the most exciting way to score a goal in football, it takes timing, decision and bravery since sometimes you don’t know where other people’s foot might be – and it can happen that they’ll land exactly on your face. Yesterday’s match against Naval 1° Maio was instead decided by a play that you seldom see on a football pitch: the “diving chester”.

The newly signed Cameroonian striker Yontcha threw himself in the air, in my opinion badly misjudging the time of the dive, and with a spectacular chest movement netted the ball for the first Belenenses’ goal of the season. Yontcha was also instrumental for the set up of the second goal, when he received the ball from right-back Mano and crossed the ball that Ivan Santos left-footed into the net for the final goal of Belenenses 2 – 0 win against Naval.

The win is the first ever at home against Naval for the Azuis (and I have crystal clear memories of that horrible scoreless draw back in October 2006 that had been my first ever game at the Estàdio do Restelo) and avenged last March’s 1-2 defeat that sent Belenenses deep into the downward spiral that led towards relegation.

The game was a two-faced one: it was terrible, to say the least in the first half, with both teams focused more on preventing their opponent from scoring than on build dangerous attacks. Naval was probably the better team throughout the half, but they never managed to pose real threats for Nélson. The Belenenses’ defensive line proved to be rock solid for the second game in a row despite having a former midfielder at right back (Mano) and a 19 y.o. youngster at left back (André Pires).

The second half of the game developed differently from the first especially after Fredy, who was active but in a Denilson mid-‘90s style until then (read: useless), skipped past his man on the right side of the area and crossed the ball to Yontcha who scored in that unusual way. The game sped up after the tie was broken but Naval’s reaction was sterile and fruitless with Belenenses attending their opponents in their own 25m ready to counter-attack. A funny and frustrating event occurred in the 74th minute when the referee, instead of focusing on the game, booked centre back Rodrigo Arroz while the player was outside the pitch waiting to re-enter the contest. Even the – boring and not-so-competent Portuguese commentators were surprised by this decision and said that the ref should have focused on the play instead of doing such a theatrical act.

The only real scare for Belenenses came in the 88th minute when a freekick from the edge of area was sent inches above the bar by Diego Ângelo. Moreover, three minutes later Mano came out of his own half with the ball, timed perfectly his forward pass down the right side for Yontcha who then centered the ball where another new signing, Ivan Santos, one-timed it into the net to put an end to the ballgame.

This season has then, so far, started very differently than the last one, and Belenenses was able to capitalize on the chance of getting immediately a win on their home debut (while last year we had to thank Rodrigo Arroz whose 95th minute goal evened the score against Paços de Ferreira). It’ll be fundamental for this young Belenenses side to win as many games as possible against fellow mid-table contenders such as Naval in order to, firstly, have a quite and sufferance-free campaign (something that we fans would love after last year’s struggles) and, secondly, who knows maybe aim higher.

Next game will be Sunday in Braga against a strong Sporting Braga side which won its first two matches. I’d personally be more than happy to come out of the pitch with a point, something that can be possible if the Azuis keep playing like they did in the second half of the game yesterday.

The Confirmation of New Phenomena

In Berlin everyone was talking about the Usain "Ich Bin Ein Berlino" Bolt sensation thanks to his 3 gold medals and the two impressive world records in the 100 and 200 meters earlier this week

but the Jamaican has not been the only phenomenon to confirm the impressive results and achievements done in the recent past.

Among them I'd like to single out Andreas Thorkildsen,

the Norwegian javelin thrower who doubled last year's olympic gold winning today's competition pretty easily, I might say. Now he has become the first athlete to become the reigning European, World and Olympic champion in the discipline, something that not even the great Jan Zelezny has ever achieved. It's true that the man who could have been his closest rival (and who is my personal favorite since he comes from the small finnish twon where my brother spent his AFS year in high school) went through a terrible week: Tero Pitkamaki first suffered from flu and than had to be hospitalized this morning because of an ear infection and nevertheless managed to finish 5th: but Thorkildsen was impressive in the way he did throw the 89.59m that granted him the win with a margin of more than 3 meters on the cuban runner up.

Thorkildsen threw the distance almost with ease, saving his best two throws of the year for the clutch moment - he had been beaten more than once by Pitkamaki this year in the Golden League circuit - of the entire season. Impressive was the fact that he made this sensational throw appear almost like a training throw because he didn't show any hint of fatigue during the run up, during and after the throwing motion. After watching his effort I focused on the other contenders and you could see that they were giving all they had in the tanks, or even something more in the case of Guillermo Martinez who showed that not only the female Cubans can be top level javelin throwers, but Thorkildsen appeared like he could still go a meter further if the situation called for it. An impressive show of power and the demonstration that he's so self-confident of his strength that all the other contenders had no chances today.

This throw earned him, as I said the "Triple Crown", an achievement that prove his consistency when the throw counts over a 3 year period, a crown that he'll try to confirm next year, when the European Championships will be staged in Barcelona. So good luck for it Andreas in the hope that Tero will be finally healthy and ready to challenge you in a major event.

Unflushables

The last five years have been a rollercoaster ride for C.F. Os Belenenses fans like myself, with the team getting relegated twice and twice being rescued because of other teams' troubles, financials or judiciaries.

The 2004-2005 season saw Belenenses finish in a comfortamble mid-table position (9th) 12 points clear of relegation, with Gabonese striker Henry Antchouet finishing fifth in the goal scorers classification.

The 2005-2006 season saw a struggling Belenenses' side finish fourth from bottom because of a worst score in games played against Academica Coimbra and Naval, who finished even on points with the Azuis. But despite the reduction of teams in the top flgiht from 18 to 16 which meant that 4 teams were getting relegated that year, Belenenses maintained its spot in the Portuguese Superliga thanks to what became the Caso Mateus, the scandal that sent Gil Vicente down into the Liga de Honra allowing the Azuis to avoid relegation.

The 2006-2007 season has been probably the most spectacular and gratifying for the Belenenses supporters in more than 15 years (and was directly followed by yours truly throughout the runs in the league and the Cup). With Jorge Jesús at the helm the Belenenses players, after a shaky start, blended wonderfully together and lead by Silas, Zé Pedro and Dady reached the Portuguese Cup Final (with highlights being a come-from-behind 2-1 victory away at Bragança in the quarterfinals and an epic extra-time victory against Sporting Braga in the semifinal) and finished 5th in the league one point shy of fourth place. The Portuguese Cup final, played in the Estadio Nacional, saw Sporting Lisbon claim a 1-0 win with a late goal from Liedson thanks to a Pedro Proença's decision not to allow Cândido Costa (Belenenses' full-back) back on the pitch after medication and before the decisive corner kick.

There were high expectations for the 2007-2008 season, but the team underperformed and was yet again involved in a scandal, this time on the losing side, when they signed Cameroonian striker Meyong on loan from Levante and played him in the Liga, officially unaware that the player had already seen action with two different teams that season hence being ineligible to play for a third under FIFA rules. For this reason Belenenses was deducted 3 points in the table and finished 8th, yet again one point below Sporting Braga, but this time this single point meant that Belenenses was out of Europe, with the minhotos claiming the last available spot.

The 2007-2008 season didn't see only the Meyong affair, but also the final word on the Apito Dourado one, which involved the (attempted or actual) bribery of referees by the Porto's teams, F.C. Porto and Boavista, with the former being penalized 6 points in the table and the latter being relegated to the Liga de Honra despite finishing 10th in the table.

The 2008-2009 season was even more frustrating than the 2005-2006 one, since Belenenses played well below its potential, changed the manager twice in 28 matches and let good chances of avoiding relegation slip between its fingers too many times conceding points in games where they could have easily gotten the win or at least draws. The team finished 15th out of 16 teams with 34 points and was hence relegated. But once again something happened, this time closer to Lisbon where Estrela Amadora was having serious financial troubles and the Portuguese Federation in the end rejected the suburbs' team inscription to the Superliga hence giving the guys from Belém another shot in the big show.

The 2009-2010 season kicked off last week and Belenenses earned a good point away in Matosinhos against a good Leixões team that finished in the top half of the table last season. The Azuis had to thank their new goalkeeper Nélson, who plays with number 3 and comes ironically from the Estrela Amadora team that allowed Belenenses to avoid being relegated, who made a crucial one-on-one save in the 69th minute.

This year Belenenses has a new manager, João Carlos Pereira, and a team that is fairly young compared to other teams in the Superliga despite the latest acquisition (33yo central defender Beto) being one that goes for experience rather than youth.

Tomorrow this new Belenenses team will make its home debut against Naval at 21.15 CEST, a game that I'll try to watch through a stream and then comment on here.

Championships of Despair

When Alex Schwazer decided to quit today's 50km Walk at the Berlin Leichtatletik Weltmeisterschaften midway through the race because of stomach problems, the (almost) last hope for Italy to finally get a medal in the competition faded away.

This lack of medals, which would be the first ever for Italy in an Athletics World Championships worsening their previous negative record of one single bronze in the 2005 event in Helsinki, shows that the Italian athletics movement is not what it used to be. Most of the medals that were won in the last few years by Italian athletes had been the results of either "imported" talents (like Fiona May or Magdelin Martinez) or of athletes who had then been involved in doping cases (Giuseppe Gibilisco) or of a long-standing tradition and school in a complex discipline such as the Walk - in those Helsinki Champs it was the very same Alex Schwazer who salvaged the Italian pride winning the bronze (with the NR) in the 50kms.

It would be unfair to put the blame all on the shoulders of the Italian Athletics Federation or on the single trainers, even though both these parties have their fair share of blame to carry; in fact Athletics, like almost every other sport (individual or team sport), suffers in Italy the looming and larger than life presence of football. Many people in Italy joke on the first article of the consitution saying that "Italy is a Republic founded on (other people's) work (and football is its religion)".

The popularity and all-around presence of football in the average Italian's mind mean that every other sport is considered to be second-tier and when some Italian says that he's interested in other sports or (horror and shock) that he doesn't care about football he's looked at by the majority as a weirdo or a goon. Moving to the economics, this means that football gets the lion, the leoness, the tiger and the panther's share of the TV money that the different channels are willing to spend on sports in the Italian market, while the other sports are left to fight between them the few tens of thousands Euros leftovers. Unluckily, without money a sport cannot thrive and expand its popularity and the number of its practitioners because of another Italian peculiarity: everywhere in the world winning a medal in an international competition, even a silver or a bronze, would be regarded as a wonderful achievement for an athlete or a team. Not so in Italy, in the Bel Paese everything below first place is regarded as not good enough and if an athlete or a team finishes as silver or bronze medal he/she is considered a loser by the majority of the Italian people and, even when he/she wins the reaction will be: "Yes yes he/she has won, but it's not like he/she won the Football World Cup". The consequence of this peculiarity is that an achievement in any other sport different than football is forgotten after a couple of weeks, while today, more than three years after the event, the commentator of our national football team is always stressing how many "world champions" are still playing in the First XI and that we're the world champions. I wish and hope that somebody will hit him in the head with a club in order for him to understand that he's redundant and that nobody cares anymore after Euro 2008 and this summer's Confederation Cup.

All this means that most italian athletes that are involved in "minnow" sports (minnow only for football fans) have to rely on the armed forces' teams in order to be able to train sufficiently and hard enough to be able to compete at the highest level and the kind of money that an average Serie A player earns in one year they will be lucky to be able to earn it in 25. This system implies that while the big talent is still going to emerge despite all the (financial, organizational, etc.) problems that his/her federation has, a broad movement and the nurturing of additional talent that will shine if developed correctly by top-tier trainers and staff will be very difficult to obtain because the Italian state can spend only a certain amount on money on these sports because, as we all know, the Italian finances are at best a mess.

So hopefully Ciotti will prove me wrong tonight by winning a medal in the high jump final in Berlin, but the roots of the problem will remain deeply buried in the Italian society and in the coming London Olympics the U-23 Football team will continue to fly in business class despite being kicked out early from the tournament while many olympic champions will fly in economy class because the Italian National Olympic Committee has only very limited funds.

Welcome Post

Hello everyone,

please imagine a huge sports fan, one that follows almost every kind of sports (individual and team sports), who is also destined to like, love and support underdog teams and athletes.

Let's say there is a city with 2 or more teams playing the same sports, one is winning more than losing and has alot of supporters baceause of that, the other has a good history, roots in that city or in a particular neighbourhood of the city, it maybe have been extremely good some time in the past, even for a few season, even for one, but it's now playing second fiddle in the city and it's not much known or supported outside the city and abroad. Well, that will be definitively my pick!

There is an aura surrounding the underdogs, the ones who have to fight hard and suffer to achieve minimum results, that I find not even attractive but addicting.

I'll write about some of these teams that play in many different sports and I'll also write on minor and major events that happen worldwide, commenting on them and sharing my thoughts with you readers.

I hope you'll enjoy this!

Marco