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| Friday 4 July, 2008 |
| Blog: Donkeys to the slaughter |
Veronese minnows Chievo thrive in the underdog role, but Paul Watson believes the Flying Donkeys have little chance of avoiding the drop
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Watching Milan Vice-President Adriano Galliani bemoaning his lack of spending power earlier in the week, I couldn’t help but wonder whether the respected transfer guru would fancy swapping places with Chievo sporting director Giovanni Sartori.
While I can understand that the challenge of rejuvenating a superpower can be frustrating, Galliani should see how the other half live. Tiny Chievo are back in the top flight, but they face an enormous challenge to stay there. An effective recruitment drive is a must, but as Galliani laments the lack of a spare £30m, Sartori is looking under the sofa cushions trying to scrape together a 10th of that.
The Ceo already seem to have given up hope of luring veteran goalkeeper Francesco Toldo and have been forced to withdraw from the race for Piacenza’s Daniele Cacia. Striking starlet Victor Obinna is on his way out the door in search of bigger wages and the only new additions so far have been plucked from the wilds of Serie B and C.
Appropriately enough, Sartori claims that he didn’t see match of Euro 2008 because he was too busy working on possible co-ownership agreements. Italian football’s equivalent of The Wombles, the Gialloblu will endeavour to hoover up the crumbs from the giants’ table, but will that be enough?
Looking at Empoli’s demise last term, things look bleak. The Tuscan minnows put together an impressive line-up of borrowed assets, including star of the future Sebastian Giovinco and his fellow Azzurrini couple Ignacio Abate and Nicola Pozzi, but they didn’t manage to stay afloat.
This isn’t the same Serie A that Chievo took by storm in 2001-02 – it is a far less forgiving habitat. And unless Sartori manages to do the kind of work that Galliani would be proud of, the Gialloblu will be a weaker side than the one that fell through the trapdoor two years ago. In a field packed with powerful thoroughbreds, the Donkeys could be left behind.
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It is a shame how much money predetermines the standings in football today. In most of Europe’s top leagues the top four teams have been determined before the season has even started, with few surprises. That I assume is inevitable. The problem I have is with the players. Not all players, but the players at the big clubs who spend most of the middle to the end of the season complaining about the lack of playing time that they are getting. All of whom repeat the same mantra “I would gladly take a decrease in salary or go to a smaller club in order to play the game I love”. Isn’t it funny that these same players conveniently fade into the back ground during the summer transfer window only to be heard again in the middle of the following season. These a players are only slightly better that those who are nurtured and developed by a smaller club only to turn their back on them once they have become prominent.
Stuart des Vignes
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