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A sign of things to come: Zanetti & Inter beat Roma to the title - well, the Supercopa title that is.





So last night I sat down, cappucino and tiramisu at my side for added inspiration (and energy), to write this year's Serie A preview, and sat there stumped, unable to type much of anything for hours. I mean, what can you say about this summer's soccer news in Italy? Did anything happen? Were there any signings? Any controversies? Anything? Well, no news is good news, I guess. Barring any last-minute changes, here's my top five: Juventus, Milan, Inter, Fiorentina, and Lazio. Pretty much the same as last year. Good luck trying to argue that.

All kidding aside, where do you start a preview of Serie A? The biggest club in the country is in Serie B now and must overcome a 17-point penalty just to make it back to the big leagues. The second-biggest club in the country is still in Serie A but has its own 8-point penalty to deal with. One of the feel-good teams of last year also has a point penalty, not to mention a star striker that spent half the summer trying to leave. Even the Azzurri's World Cup win proved less enjoyable and harder to understand than it should have: after De Rossi's first-round elbow, the controversial win over Australia, and Materazzi's foul play in the final, was anyone outside of the Boot really all that happy to see the Italians win it all? And how was it that a team loaded with talents like Luca Toni, Alex Del Piero, Filippo Inzaghi, Alberto Gilardino and Andrea Pirlo only put together one truly impressive performance (the 2-0 semifinal win over Germany)? Maybe the answer is a testament to the shocking indictment of Italian soccer that is the Serie A scandal. Even though it proved to be a galvanizing boost for the national team in the World Cup and no punishments were handed out until a week after the final in Berlin, the scandal seemed to overshadow everything.

For many years now, Italian soccer has been viewed with more than a healthy dose of suspicion - when a country has a history of corruption like Italy's, it's not hard to understand why, but most of the skepticism also stemmed from the clearly preferential treatment enjoyed by leading clubs Juventus and AC Milan. Some chalked this bias down to the fact that both clubs were Northern powers - Italy has long been a country with a deep-rooted North/South rivalry; but one need look no further than the highly dubious calls that went against AC Milan's city rivals Internazionale to realize that this was no regional issue. And as it was revealed in a court of law this summer, it wasn't: Juve and Milan had been part of a group of teams that was wielding far too much power over referees, from which referees handled which games to what calls these referees made in said games. The aforementioned Lazio and Fiorentina were also implicated. When all four clubs were hit with harsh punishments, count me among the many who were surprised that justice had been served. But not so fast - all four clubs appealed and all four had their punishments reduced. Despite promises to the contrary, Juve's board members were in fact not all willing to accept their demotion to Serie B, so the appeals process went on. And on. And on. And around the world, soccer fans watched in horror as one of the world's greatest soccer leagues had turned into a farcical circus of lawyers, board members, and state tribunals. Somehow, after all the damage done by the initial proceedings, the guilty parties managed to make matters worse by continuing to deny, deny, deny...appeal, appeal, appeal. So here we are, in the last days of August, still two weeks away from the kick-off of this season's Calcio. And how can one possibly predict it all, what with the corruption of past years and this year's point penalties? Damned if I know, so here goes nothing:

For starters, the team on the wrong end of so many calls in recent years, Inter, now finds itself as the defending champion (despite finishing last year 15 points behind Juve and 12 behind Milan). Moreover, no team in Europe (not even Chelski or Real) managed to spend more than Inter this summer. For a little added salt on the proverbial wounds, they raided the Old Lady for Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Patrick Vieira. Massimo Moratti also signed Maxwell from Ajax, Maicon from Monaco, Fabio Grosso from Palermo, Olivier Dacourt from Roma and, from Chelsea, they got Hernan Crespo to complete the most outrageous group of strikers in recent memory: along with Ibra and Crespo, the Nerazzurri already have the likes of Adriano, Julio Cruz, and Alvaro Recoba. All of this meant that Inter themselves had to offload some talented youngsters, such as Obafemi Martins (to Newcastle) and David Pizarro (Roma). The question on everyone's minds is not if Inter have enough talent to, um, repeat as champions, but if they (specifically, coach Roberto Mancini) can mold such a bloated, ego-laden group of superstars into a coherent unit capable of equalling the sum of its parts. With an eight-point cushion to work with, they should be okay. Plus, the refs won't be conspiring against them for once. Still, if there's one team that could find a way to blow this, it's Inter. And if they do, God help them - but this has to be the first time in a long time that a team is almost in a no-win situation to start the season. If they win, then all of their rivals will claim that the season should always have an asterisk next to it. If they lose, well, let's just say that there could be dead bodies all over the San Siro & I wouldn't be surprised. They could be the first team to win back-to-back Serie A titles and not really get any credit or respect for them. Ahh, Inter - gotta love em.

Across town, AC Milan have done nothing, absolutely positively nothing, to inspire confidence. They lost their best player, Shevchenko, to Chelsea and replaced him with...Ricardo Oliveira?!? This guy is a Brazilian who managed to convince his former club Real Betis to let him go rehab from an injury in Brazil in the hope that he might be able to get fit in time to impress the national team coach to call him up for the World Cup. And when it comes time to go back to Betis this summer, what does he do? He bails on them, refuses to return to Spain, and then demands a transfer. Class act, that Oliveira. Other than him, the Rossoneri have signed a promising French kid, Yohan Gourcuff, and that's about it. Combine the fact that this is a thin, aging squad with an 8-point deficit and all in all, Milan will be fine with just securing a Champions League spot for next year and putting this whole fiasco behind them. With Kaka and Pirlo and Nesta still sporting the red and black, Milan should be able to do just that.

Outside the San Siro, there's just not much to be excited about. A lot of cavernous, empty stadiums, flare-throwing fans, and defensive-oriented catenaccio doesn't exactly get me fired up to watch some footie on weekend afternoons. Maybe the only other reason to pay attention to Serie A this year is a really good youth movement going on down at Roma. A la Arsenal and Borussia Dortmund and Sevilla, Roma have opted to bring in the best youngsters around and this approach is starting to pay off. This summer, the Giallorossi have brought in the aforementioned Chilean, Pizarro, and Serb striker Mirko Vucinic. These two should bring more offensive firepower to a side that already has Francesco Totti, Roberto Taddei, Vincenzo Montella, Daniele De Rossi and Mancini; at the back, Christian Chivu and Phillippe Mexes give the Romans one of the best defensive partnerships in the world. If there is any squad that can legitimately challenge Inter and Milan this year, it's Roma. And when all is said and done, that's exactly what they'll do, but look for Inter to have too much depth and experience to let this Scudetto slip away.

1. Inter
2. Roma (good to see Diadora is still churning out quality unis, from here to Scotland)
3. Milan
4. Parma (this year's Cinderella story)
5. Udinese
6. Palermo (a solid season last year, plus a great, intimidating stadium to call home)
7. Sampdoria
8. Chievo
9. Fiorentina (keeping Toni was huge)
10. Lazio (you know how we feel about sky-blue unis here at WSB)

Man of the Hour: Joaquin shows off his skills in Valencia. His former team, Albacete, had no comment.




An eventful start to la Liga, complete with a champion in crisis, a heated local derby, and a debut down in the Bernabeu. Most newsworthy, though, was the league opener - a dandy of a match-up between Valencia and Betis in Mestalla - that was completely overshadowed by the impending transfer of Betis's favorite son, Joaquin. Only in Spain, some might say. The beloved winger had declared a week earlier that his days in Sevilla had come to an end. Despite the fact that top clubs such as Chelsea, Real Madrid, and Milan had all expressed an interest in the right-winger, no one's interest was as serious as Valencia's. Still, Betis would not let them close the deal, either as a sly time-wasting tactic to keep their poster boy from debuting against them in the season opener or in an effort to hold out for more Euros. Either way, the saga soon turned farcical; the day before the match, Betis management took the shocking decision to agree to loan Joaquin to Albacete, one of la Liga's lesser-known teams. Joaquin, in fact, went so far as to turn up in Albacete for his presentation. Of course, Betis then took Joaquin back from Albacete, the loan deal apparently having only been good for an hour or two. Then, the night of the Valencia game, the Betis president summoned Joaquin to a midnight meeting with representatives of Olympique Lyon. Just when all hell seemed to be breaking lose, Valencia finally announced that they had agreed to purchase Joaquin for 25 million Euros, the second most expensive transfer of the Spanish summer. And oh yeah, Valencia beat Betis 2-1.

The next game to kick off was the Basque derby, an always frenetic affair pitting Athletic Bilbao against Real Sociedad. Whatever you think of Athletic, you must respect the amazing fact that they have managed to survive in the top flight decade after decade while strictly adhering to a policy of fielding only Basque-born players. Imagine how long Green Bay would last in the NFL with an only Wisconsin-born squad. Their opponents from San Sebastian have their own policy, albeit a rather less risky one that permits them to play only players from the Basque country or the rest of the world, but no Spaniards. The match in Bilbao's ancient and glorious stadium San Mames, known as "El Catedral", was hardly a feast of quality football, but it came to life in minute 36 when the linesman shockingly called a penalty for Athletic. The Sociedad players were appalled, justifiably so when replays clearly showed that the ball had in fact hit the outstreched arm of a Bilbao player. Next time, before calling a penalty, the linesman might want to take note of the fact that Sociedad players were the only ones who cried foul after the play, while all the Bilbao players turned to run back downfield. Of course, the linesman can also chalk his error down to the fact that both teams wore striped uniforms, the hosts in red & white and the visitors in blue & white. Maybe the poor chap is colorblind, but it didn't matter to Bilbao, who scored the penalty but, after hanging on for most of the second half, were stunned by a late Sociedad equalizer. Justice was served: 1-1 it finished and the only loser on the day was the error-prone linesman.

Another refereeing error reared its ugly head in Barca's match against Celta. The defending champs, devoid of their star Ronaldinho, entered the game as a team in crisis, despite their fully-stocked trophy case. Last week, striker Samuel Etoo, unhappy at being substituted at halftime, stormed out of the stadium in Barca's Supercopa win over Espanyol and just a few days later, the Blaugrana were at the wrong end of a 3-0 drubbing at the hands of UEFA Cup champ Sevilla in the European Supercup. It was clear that there were problems both on and off the field for Barca. At the intermission, the problems looked set to continue: a goal from Celta striker Baiano had given the sky-blues an undeserved 1-0 lead in the Balaidos stadium. Well, whatever Frank Rijkaard said at halftime clearly worked. Of course, his team - as they did last year, too - got some help from the refs; this time the man in the middle failed to call Barca's Ludovic Giuly for offside, despite his clearly interfering with play and obstructing a Celta defender from stopping Samuel Etoo from scoring the equalizer. The shootout was on: another Barca goal, this time by Messi, was matched by Celta tying it again thanks to , setting the scene for new boy Eidur "Albino" Gudjohnsen scoring the winner just three minutes from time. So much for the crisis at the Camp Nou - Barca put any of that talk to rest with a scintillating second-half, full of the inventive midfield play and inspired attacking that made them so hard to beat and so fun to watch last season. And to think that Ronaldinho never even had to bother to lace up his boots...

Barca's main competition this year will surely come from their arch-rivals Real Madrid, despite evidence to the contrary this weekend in the Bernabue. On Fabio Capello's debut, his new team put forth exactly the type of performance that everyone expected...and everyone feared. A staunch defense, minimal attacking, and ultimately a drab 0-0 draw with Villareal. Blah blah blah - as Villareal's Italian Alessio Tacchinardi pointed out, that type of play might work in the catenaccio-crazed Serie A, but not in la Liga, where winning is nice, but "jogo bonito" is imperative. To be fair, though, Capello is caught in a catch-22: everyone agrees that Real's problem in recent years has been a lack of defensive skill to match its offensive firepower - you're just not going to win much of anything with the likes of Thomas Gravesen, Pablo Garcia, Francisco Pavon, Ivan Helguera, and Alvaro Mejia at the back, but no one really gets too excited about the signings of Fabio Cannavaro, Emerson, and and Mahamadou Diarra. Hopefully for fans of los Merengues (not the dessert, dummy), Capello will find a happy medium and all of his defensive acquisitions will give his attackers the chance to push forward with confidence. It's hard to imagine that even a coach with the defensive demands of Capello could put the brakes on an attack that boasts of Ronaldo, Raul, Robinho, Julio Baptista, Antonio Cassano and Guti, but tell that to the Madrileno fans that witnessed the scoreless snoozefest on Sunday. Ronaldo's out injured, Baptista never made it off the bench, and Robinho and Guti were only sent into the fray with half an hour to play. Cassano put in another good performance that testifies to his resurgence under his countryman Capello, Raul looked lively on the left wing, and Beckham put in another combative but not-so-effective on the right, but for the most part Van Nistelrooy was on his own up front and, despite the defense never looking too troubled, it was not an afternoon to remember at the Bernabeu. One game in the books and already the fans are restless in Madrid - when they're already two points behind Barca, not to mention cross-town rivals Atletico (1-0 winners at Racing Santander), it's easy to understand why.

Unfortunately, thanks to the brilliant schedule-makers at FIFA, no sooner have things gotten started when la Liga will take a two-week break for international play (and three days of last-minute transfer manuveurings). But don't despair yet - a World Cup final rematch, sans Zidane & Materazzi of course, is set for next week, with an Argentina-Brazil friendly in London a pretty intriguing appetizer. Buen provecho!

Barcelona's extra-terrestrials try to figure out how the hell they just got shellacked by a team of mere earthlings.




That thud you just heard off in the distance was the sound of the two top teams in Europe crashing back down to Earth in the first weeks of this young season. Barcelona, back-to-back la Liga champs and reigning Champions League title-holders, and Chelsea, back-to-back kings of the Premiership, have already been rudely reminded that their successes of yesteryear are no guarantee to expect more of the same this year. Not to mention, the consensus predictions of more trophies to come will not exactly instill the humility necessary to get the squads working hard. Frank Rijkaard and Jose Mourinho, the respective coaches of Barca and Chelski, have already gone on record as suggesting some humble pie for their star-studded squads. Still, the best recipe for humility is a loss and both teams have already suffered setbacks. Barca, in fact, have already tasted the nasty sting of defeat even though la Liga doesn't start until this weekend - on Thursday, Barca's stars raked in one UEFA award after another for their performances last year; on Friday, the Blaugrana went down 0-3 to fellow Spanish side Sevilla in the European Supercup, the annual match-up of Champions League and UEFA Cup winners. Up in England, the Blues, having already lost to Liverpool in the Charity Shield, contrived to do the unthinkable: blow a one-goal lead (in the past a surefire victory for Mourinho's boys) late in the game and fall 1-2 at the hands of Middlesborough, a mid-table team if ever there was one. Of course, it's still only August and there is no guarantee that these setbacks are an early taste of things to come (after all, both Barca and Chelsea won over the weekend, the former coming from behind to beat Celta 3-2 and the latter downing Blackburn 2-0), but maybe, just maybe, we're seeing yet another case of a team enjoying too much success too soon and quickly becoming a victim of their own arrogant expectations of automatic victories. Remember that it only took Real Madrid a short three months in 2003 for the wheels to come off: coming off a Champions League title in '01 and a la Liga crown in '02, los Galacticos looked to be cruising to more titles as the season entered its home stretch, but no sooner had a squad replete with stars like Zidane, Figo, Ronaldo, Beckham and Raul been upset 2-3 by Real Zaragoza in the Kings Cup, then all of a sudden los Blancos were eliminated by Monaco in the Champions League and embarking on a lengthy losing streak in la Liga. No trophies would be hoisted that year by Real, nor in the next two seasons. From an unstoppable squad to a bunch of losers in just a few months, Real's collapse should serve as a warning sign to Barca and Chelsea, as should Brazil's national team. This summer everyone had el Selecao pencilled in as World Cup champs before a ball had been kicked, but they appeared over-confident, ill-prepared, and ripe for an upset - sure enough, out they went at the hands of France. At least Barca and Chelsea are not in a single-elimination tourney at the moment, so they've got plenty of time to sort it out; if they don't, then rest assured that much-improved teams like Real Madrid and Liverpool will be ready to pounce. And if the defeats of last week are any indication, there could be some titles surprisingly changing hands this year. Watch this space.