Some days ago we posted about Ronaldo and what his old fans were thinking about his arrival at AC Milan. Now –it’s an official news- Ronaldo is a Milan player, so we would like to know what Red and Black fans think. Best hypothesis is R9 will be unhelpful to Ancelotti, but some of them really have difficulty accepting the Brazilian Forward.

Bisax, a great fan of the Rossoneri and also a good writer, says: “Still think that there are very few people than can define themselves “Milan Fan” and at the same time exult for the arrival of the Madrid “Gordo”. For a lot of reasons. It comes to mind a “Rivaldo effect”, the Brazilian champion that came at the end of his career to hole up in Milan. Very good media deal, but insignificant on a football basis. And this is only one reason that brings Milan fan to refuse Ronaldo. It’s not for a comparison to Vieri, accepted (not welcome) to show Inter that we are able to “recycle” players they give up. No one deluded himself that Vieri could revive at Milan, no one marvelled when he left, no one misses him.
The main problem, I think, is following: Ronaldo IS Inter.
De facto Ronaldo was and still is, in any Milanist’s mind, an Inter player. In those years when he wore black and blue jersey he became every inch that club’s icon, its joys and sufferings. Ronaldo sobbing like a baby on May 5, 2002 IS Inter. This, a Milan fan cannot forget. And cannot forget Ronaldo is a traitor!
When he ran away during the night, looking for glory (he didn’y find) at Galacticos, he betrayed not only his fans, but also his opponents that hated him as we hate all dangers, but at the same time respected him. With that escape (different than Sheva’s one) Ronaldo lost all that respect.
That’s why I was so happy when I read the negotiation failed. That’s why I’ll have difficulty accepting him.”

Daw is a blogstar of the website “Il Cannocchiale” (more than one million visits) and he likes the idea of Ronaldo at Milan just in spite of Inter fans.
“Let’s talk turkey -he says- we have only one goal this season: the Champions League win. Red and black executives have just bought Ronaldo that won’t play in Champions League. What to do with him? His purchase has to be inserted in an extra sport field, it’s a sort of spite to our cousins Inter fans. As Italian league, once “the best league in the world” is having a break –all main teams not interested to Serie A, winner already determined last September and “Serie A Ltd.” value fallen over – the only satisfaction we have is to see Ronaldo the Phenomenon with red and black jersey. I’d say to Milan executives: next year, please, let’s come back to do things seriously, don’t be pranksters anymore”

Butirrometro is one of the Milan Blog Club entertainers: “Ronaldo would have been a good purchase only for free. Sign a player for 6 million Euros for an 18 months contract is not a good deal. It would make sense only if the contract would be longer or the player younger. It’s 6 million Euros you see vanish in 18 months.”

To finish, blogger “Rossonero di Vergogna” (Red and Black with Shame) is the one in the Milan Blog Club that would like a change in management ad say “Milan to Milan people”.
He put in his blog 10 ironic reasons why it’s good to see Ronaldo at Milan:

1) He’s Brazilian (well some years ago Galliani didn’t like Brazilian then he changed his mind) just like Kaka, Dida, etc.
2) He’s an over 30 as everybody at Milan, even newcomers
3) He’s not very professional and likes discos more than football as Inzaghi, Brocchi, etc.
4) He has already won
5) It’s a purchase done for mass media like Rivaldo, Redondo, etc.
6) He’s free of charge (not true, but who cares if AC Milan goes out of business?)
7) He’ll score in the derby like Bobone Vieri
8) He is making Moratti gnaw (oh, I think he’s laughing, fall guys!)
9) Because with Milan Lab he’ll be in a better shape like Crespo (the we’ll give it back to cousins)
10) Because in Brazil he’s named Ronaldinho. Well, we’ve signed Ronladinho too!

PS: it's amazing that, on arrival at Milan Airport, Ronaldo found his old Inter fans, and no Milan supporters...

It happens that a team wins 13 consecutive matches breaking all records, and leads a league with 11 points advantage, and this team is Inter Milan. It also happens that main Italian bookmaker, SNAI, decides to suspend bets on Inter due to its evident superiority. Matchpoint, another bookmaker, keeps Inter quote, but it has been lowered to 1,01, meaning that if I bet 100 Euros, I win just a one euro coin.

Inter numbers are impressive: 54 points in 20 matches, best attack and best defence. Though we think that such a result should be underlined and maybe celebrated, we understand that when you are too strong and kill the competition, a lot of people might hate you. Anyway, this doesn’t justify some “whispering campaign” against Inter, lead by journalists we like to define “Moggi’s widows”. You've got to know that sport journalists are one of the categories whose image have been destroyed by Calciopoli. Last summer we could listen to wiretaps with some of main sport journalists asking Moggi and Co. what they should have written or said. Well, they are still in their place, just a couple of them were suspended by the Association of journalists for a short period. And they still are good friend of Moggi.

Last Sunday Inter won at home vs. Fiorentina. The Viola scored after 5’ with Luca Toni, and that was the only shot on goal they did in the whole match. In five minutes (19’ to 24’), two goals by Stankovic and Adriano put Inter back in control. In the second half, Inter slowed down the rhythm of the game and scored with Ibrahimovic, whose goal has been disputed by the Florentines, who stated that the ball was not completely in goal. Viola coach Prandelli and sport director Corvino after the match said none of Inter goals, especially the last one, was valid. Immediately Moggi’s widows put some poison into Inter’s win, assuming what Prandelli and Corvino said, without considering that the referee denied a couple of penalties to Inter.

In general, media like Turin newspaper Tuttosport (who is leading this campaign) and TV program Controcampo, would like to show that always the leading team has favours, and the same happened to Juventus or AC Milan during last years. And they would like also to let us know that the doubts we had in the past about Calciopoli are the same they have now. "If everybody is guity, no one is guilty", is their slogan. The problem is that they forget –or pretend to- all the stuff that came out in May 2006. A player gets a yellow card and won’t play against Inter the following weeks as he will be disqualified? Inter is doing something wrong as Juventus did, they say. But in one case we know about phone calls between Moggi and the referees chiefs, where Moggi asked to give some players a yellow or red card, now it is different.

Let’s just put an eye on some statistics of current season until now, they are self-explanatory:

Inter: 51 yellow cards, 4 red cards, penalty kicks: 3 in favour, 4 against
AS Roma: 45 yc, 1 rc, penalty kicks: 5-5
AC Milan: 37 yc, 1 rc, penalty kicks: 3-2
Palermo: 51 yc, 4 rc, penalty kicks: 5-1
Fiorentina: 47 yc, 2 rc, penalty kicks: 1-0

And here you have Ibrahimovic's 3-1 goal

Second half of Serie A starts this weekend, and everybody is waiting for an Inter false step. This championship is a sort of dictatorship. This time is Fiorentina trying to trip the Nerazzurri at San Siro, and it would be a revenge of the match played in September when Inter won 3-2 with Cambiasso’s and Toni’s doubles and the goal of Ibrahimovic. Mutu and Ujfalusi are disqualified but Mancini is distrustful and says Toni can support by himself the attack of the Viola. Inter will have Adriano-Ibra as forwards, Crespo still a little bit out of form and will seat on the bench. Last time in San Siro, on September 2005 for day 5, Inter won 1-0. It could be Inter’s thirteenth consecutive win: here in Italy, 13 is a lucky number, not like in Anglo-Saxon countries.

Roma travels to Livorno and it won’t be easy: Spalletti has to think up a new midfield, as De Rossi, Pizarro and Cassetti won’t play. The Tuscanian coach is thinking of Chivu as midfielder, let’s see. Livorno away is a hard nut to crack, especially after what happened this week: the heavy defeat in Bergamo (1-5), the president who sacks coach Arrigoni and players’ riot that makes Spinelli change his mind (we already talked about this, here). It’s obvious today the Amaranto of Livorno will do all their best to prove Spinelli’s decision was wrong.

The Sunday night game is at Stadio Olimpico in Roma, where Lazio and Milan will play for a place in UCL qualifying rounds (ok, maybe it’s too early, but we think this could be the duel for forth place). Here main issue is the decision taken by Lazio technical staff not to put Massimo Oddo in the players’ list for the match. The reason is: AC Milan probably will sign him already in January, so Lazio coach Rossi doesn’t want him to play against his next club. It’s absurd because it sounds like questioning his professionalism, especially foe the captain, meaning that he is respected by the club more than any other player. “Oddo won’t play because he asked to go away, not because is dealing with Milan” Delio Rossi says. Should we believe? He already asked to go away, even before other matches, but he always played.

Here you have the complete list of today’s matches (3PM CET), in brackets the first round result:
Inter-Fiorentina (3-2), Livorno-Roma (0-2), Catania-Cagliari (1-0), Siena-Chievo (2-1), Udinese-Messina (0-1), Empoli-Sampdoria (2-1), Parma-Torino (1-1). This evening (8.30PM CET) Lazio-Milan (1-2). On Saturday, Atalanta won away at Ascoli (3-1), draw without goals between Reggina and Palermo.

Italian football never stops suffering: a new scandal has come out, this time referred to some clubs’ wrong balance sheets. The Public Prosecutor’s Office in Milan, Turin, Genoa and Rome are investigating the legal representatives of Inter Milan, AC Milan, Roma, Juventus, Lazio and many other teams of any professional football leagues.
The main reason is the overrating of some players, after that Berlusconi government voted a law (later on considered illegal by EU) authorizing football clubs to spread debts over many years. What happened? The clubs –i.e. Inter and AC Milan- exchanged some young players, giving them a higher rate than they had according to the market, in order to put incomes for their sale in current balance-sheet and spread the expense for the purchase over many years. In this way, the profit and loss account of the company was better than it should. But not only players were overrated. Another example? Juventus Turin sold his headquarter with a 15 million Euros income to a real estate agency on June 30th 2005 (last day of the football season) and then the day after (in the following season) rented it.

So, though the worst situation in terms of criminal law is for Juventus, AS Roma and Lazio, as they are quoted in Italian Sock Exchange, according to Sport Justice Code (more interesting to football fans) Inter Milan is really in trouble. The reason is that without that malpractice Inter could not join in Serie A 2004-05. Art. 7 no. 3 of the Sport Code says: “The club that, by means of accounting irregularities, tries to or succeed in joining a championship to which it could not be admitted according to federal law at the moment of the fact, is punished with one of the sanctions established by art. 13, letters f), g), h) and i). So, if Inter made those accounting irregularities (at the moment there’s only the request of Public Prosecutor in Milan), and if without those irregularities Inter –as it seems- could not join Serie A in 2004-05, it risks one of these sanctions: one or more points of penalization, demotion to last place of the ranking, ban from its championship (Federal direction to assign a lower championship), and revoke of the Italian Championship title.

Though risk is high (for the club and even more for Massimo Moratti who has signed the balance sheet), and though, on the sport law side, prosecutor Borrelli says that last summer his office already investigated on it and will go on, Moratti and Inter seem to be serene, and so are Galliani and other clubs’ executives. Maybe they’re right, if we consider that Mattia Grassani, a lawyer and maximum expert in sport right, says that “in my opinion limitation has expired. This issue might be controversial, but documents has been presented in 2003-04, so the hypothetical crime cannot be prosecuted”. Just for your information, sport laws say that an irregularity involving clubs can be prosecuted within the end of the second season after the one in which the irregularity has been done. So, Inter Milan submitted the documents in 2003-04, while those documents had been used to join Serie A in 2004-05. If 2003-04 is the season, Inter is safe, in the second case there will be for sure a trial.

Whatever happens, it’s another chapter of Italian football’s “Black book”, and we cannot see how could it be better in the future if there’s always indulgence and no one will be appointed in order to write new and more rigid rules. And we cannot accept the thought that in Italy everything works this way, sport has to be a field in which probity is main valour. We see dark clouds over Italian sky, if this won’t happen, especially if we consider that next choices of Football Association executives will probably done in the name of Restoration (Matarrese was FIGC chairman in 1987 and he’s one of the main candidates after commissioner Pancalli will leave).

Maybe Ronaldo will stay in Madrid, but in the last two days everybody speaks of his possible arrival at AC Milan. Today we've asked to some of the most famous bloggers, well known as Inter (former Ronaldo club) fans, their opinion on that.

Pietro is ironic: “IMHO, Ronaldo at AC Milan is a BIG problem, but only for the club in via Turati, as they will have to enlarge the doors at the training centre in Milanello. There, everything is custom-made. For Smoje or Steinar Nielsen, I mean. Milanello is good for Ronaldinho, Fernandinho or Fernanda Lessa, that’s why they signed Vieri. But Ronaldo no, he’s too large. After that, Galliani and Braida are enlarging all Milan Lab machines, especially after space insemination done by Borriello, pointed out by Catholic Church and the Vatican.
As Inter fans, we must be happy about this transfer, we love good playing and we’ll see a fantastic team with very fast strikers, assisted by Kaka’s class. Potentially the same great team we saw in Autumn 2006, hilarious and amusing. It’s clear that AC Milan and Inter Milan balance sheets have been artificially fed with fake revenue, but still weight less than Ronaldo. So, I wouldn’t worry too much, unless they get crazy and spend a lot of money, Berlusconi will put his normal line-up, made by desperate thirty-year-old men.

Satirical website Interistiorg owners just ask themselves: “Fatso at AC Milan: a question of hours. Where the hell are terrorists when we need them?”

Cavaliere is an old fan of the Brazilian star: “I think it could be a very good deal for AC Milan, it would make club’s technical rate better and also its possibility to score. Of course, Ronie would improve any team in the world, especially if he trains with method. I am an Inter fan but also a Ronaldo fan, so I have to say –unfortunately- that if I’ll watch him with our rival it will make me sad”

Iruben is distrustful: “As Inter fan I think that Ronaldo at AC Milan won't be interesting news. Inter is going so well that Ronaldo is just a far far far memory. AC Milan is going so bad that they need another striker. Unfortunately (for the rossoneri) big young names won't come to Serie A. Meanwhile Ronaldo (for what I read on newspapers) would like leaving Madrid. If the Brazilian is back to Milan (the town) I'll be just curious to check if he's ready to play (will he need to be trained?), especially when you think about the strong Italian defenders. It won't be easy, anyway.”

Last but not least, writer and blogstar Rudi has presented again an old post he wrote when Ronaldo was supposed to play for Inter in 1997. He had a lot of trouble sleeping because of some Inter’s defeats, that neither the Juve failure in Champions League final vs. Dortmund could heal. Then, Rudi says “Some days later, while cruising, in a flash I saw something with the corner of the eye that was like an electric shock to me. I turned back until the newsstand where there was a poster with a newspaper’s headlines. The dimension of the letters reduced the headline to a couple of words: Moratti and Ronaldo. Suddenly, the black and blue colour came back like nothing, full of a bright perspective: the arrival of a Brazilian star calle "The Phenomenon", with his way of laughing after scoring a goal, other newcomers with exotic names, a new coach born in Bologna province, AC Milan not qualifying for next year’s European Cups. Moratti and Ronaldo. I have to tell this to Katia. She has to know it’s not the end, it never ended: this is the simple, precarious truth of football. With incurable hope, now I know the worst passed and everything begins again.”

Christmas is just round the corner, but the season is intense and players will join their families only this evening, after day 18 in Serie A. Kick off is at 3pm everywhere, so unusual in these years of pay-tv, and this has the taste of a time when people could only listen to the radio great speakers as Sandro Ciotti and Enrico Ameri. Then, at 6 pm, everybody was watching “90° minuto” on the TV, with the highlights of all the matches.

Really, we’re not so nostalgic, anyway we like to remember a way to live football in the past, especially from the media point of view. Recently, we also had a couple of books celebrating this legendary TV show, “Quando c’era 90° minuto” (Once upon a time 90° minuto) by Antonio Dipollina, and “Il meglio di 90° minuto” (The best of 90° minuto). The peculiarity was that highlights were not commented by Sport-Journalists, but by reporter of the local office of Italian public TV. Necessarily, they were also fans of the local team, and some times they were sending each other messages as if they were ultras or something similar.

After two decades, we look back with tenderness, and we’re conscious that -despite many people say they are disgusted by modern football- evolution and progress is always welcome. Personally, I am absolutely happy about media coverage of football events now, and it’s not because of the overdose of football on TV if we have less people going to the stadium. Maybe here in Italy we could improve stadiums architecture, making them similar to the English ones, while now they are uncomfortable and dangerous.

Ok, I was almost forgetting that this afternoon there is day 18 in Serie A. So, let’s say that new “Winter Champion” Inter would like to finish 2006 with a win, but Atalanta is a test-bed for Mancini’s boys, especially for the absence of Ibrahimovic, Materazzi, Samuel, Cordoba. 20 y.o. defender Marco Andreolli could be in the starting 11. Atalanta is a newcomer but they play a very good football. AS Roma faces Cagliari at home, AC Milan has Udinese away after doping scandal of its forward Marco Borriello, suspended by FIGC, waiting for counter analysis. Siena-Palermo, Reggina-Empoli, Fiorentina-Messina, Catania-Sampdoria, Ascoli-Chievo, Parma-Lazio and Livorno-Torino are the other matches.