While the decision will be applauded by many as a measure against racism in calcio, it may prove controversial. Balotelli has reported racist abuse from several sets of fans this season but the clubs in question have only received fines.

Sounds about right. I was in the Lazio curva for the Lazio-Roma game and there were racist chants against Baptista. To my knowledge, nothing has been done.

Actually at Juve it’s about 40-50%…no thanks. If Nedved stayed, he could have too.

I wonder how Legrottaglie feels about this…replaced by Cannavaro at Juve once, maybe it’ll happen again? Fuck no, man, he went to Serie B with us and he’s been as good as Chiellini this season. I want those two going to South Africa together but if Lippi won’t shelve Cannavaro I certainly want the duo staying our starting XI.

I know we don’t like goal.com, but this article (http://www.goal.com/en/news/1717/editorial/2009/4/20/1219447/calcio-debate-fabio-cannavaro-to-juventus-good-or-bad-move) made some really good points. One of them is that he would be a free transfer, and if we can get him to have low salary, we could use the money to buy a world class defender.

Right now we only have 3 central defenders (Andrade is no longer with us… he never really was :s) with experience in Serie A: Chiellini, Legro and Mellberg (and two of them are not scudetto material, just second place 10 points behind material), and granted that Ariaudo is a promissing player, we can’t really hope to win the Scudetto or Champions League (don’t even think about the 2 of them), without at least 2 good reinforcements in defense (central defense, our fullback are a headache on their own)… or a “fairly good one” (Canavaro) and the second best defender in the world (whoever he is, Chiellini is the first).

We don’t have all the money in the World to buy all the player we need to really try to win a major trophy next year. With Nedved retiring (life isn’t fair) we are reducing our monthly wages by 5 millions? (4 maybe?), and if we save money buying a Canavaro, so we can spend it in a great player (not Mellbergs, who isn’t that bad but is not good enough; not Poulsen’s, who is really bad but had not that bad season), I’ll take Canavaro.

Personally, I never considered Canavaro a traitor. He just isn’t a hero, not everyone can be (and I think going to Real Madrid is way better than going to Inter, with everyone knowing they played a huge part in Calciopoli).

Having said all this (sorry for the length), we shouldn’t take Canavaro as we did with Mellberg last year: instead of a world class defender. He should be an addition, someone who could share his experience with the youngsters (like Nedved did with De Ceglie and Marchisio this year… and NO!, Legro has no experience to share because he was a pretty bad defender until a few years ago), not a regular starter. But lets face it, Secco won’t get a world class defender (not because there are not, there are a few but their clubs won’t let them go away… and because he is Secco), so that’s the risk for me here, not Canavaro having a bad season (because we shouldn’t found our defense in him), but Secco not getting us the defender we REALLY NEED.

And last but not least… If we want to win something next season there are two big changes we will have to implement (assuming we are not changing Ranieri or Secco), play with a 4-3-1-2 with Giovinco as the “1″, and stop using that offside trap that cost us the scudetto this year. With a 4-3-1-2 you can’t play with a high defense (in which Canavaro wouldn’t be able to play anyway, because of his lack of speed).

In a nutshell (really sorry about the length), we can bring Canavaro if: we get a world class defender, we change our tactics, and Secco grows a brain (or at least a killer instinct before the end of the season), because one player won’t solve all of our problems.

Canavaro won’t be a hero, he will just be a good player who will have to work a lot for the best team in the World. We already have plenty of heroes, we need (good) workers too.