Agreed, but I think that was only one game that this happened, sure we expect him to do his best in every game. And I remember both yourself and I myself commenting on Kaka's indifferent performance in this particular game.

And I agree that he should be criticised, but it's not like he does this every week like for example Seedorf who picks and chooses the games he decides are important enough for him to do his best in.

I'm not saying Kaka is above criticism, but to criticise him for dropping in performance after the past 2 seasons were he has been carrying the team is more then harsh, especially when people start comparing his bad performances to what Emerson is.


If you look back a at my posts a couple of days ago, you would see that I personally hold Pirlo in as much high regard as Kaka, and that even though he's not been at his best since the WC, he's still an untouchable player in my eyes and that people should not suddenly throw the book at him because he's trying to recover from injury and being unable to play at his best. Yes we can comment on how he's been of the pace for 2 years now, just like I said that Kaka has not been himself this season but to criticise either of these players and suddenly turn our backs on them is completely unfair. These guys have been over played and over burdened by the club, it's like Newton's law. If the spring is over extended then it's basically ruined. This is what we've done to Kaka and Pirlo, they've been over used and burned out now we're seeing the consequences. And to see people comparing these guys to Emerson just p!sses me off to no end. This guy has done absolutely nothing for except cost us matches. To see him coming onto the pitch, jog around and foul opposing players in dangerous areas, I just keep thinking to myself how could this good for nothing ****** be at a club like Milan, and not only that playing games as a starter ahead of players who are younger and far better then him. This just baffles me to no end.

@ Jack Yes Favalli and Emerson are third choice, like I said in my previous post they are supposed to be here as back ups for the back ups. And no one expects them to play like Nesta or Gattuso. But again, why are they being treated as first choices by the coach? This is the thing that us on the other hand are 'griping' about. Why does Emerson come onto the field when Flamini is on the bench??? This is all on the coaches' head. He decides to pick the old heads for his own piece of mind and usually it bites us in the @ss. This is what I am griping about Jack

Welcome to the club, mate. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

Ambrosini is a good player, but he shouldn't be starting, and nor should he be our next captain. Maldini annoyed me by announcing the next captain, it isn't his decision, it is Carlo's.

The reason he is not getting rated at the moment, and I am one of these people, is because he's being used in a role that he is not effective in. He's a DM, yet is being asked to get forward when he's played with Pirlo and Gattuso. As such, he looks rubbish because a defensive player is being asked to attack and doesn't have the necessary skills.

Regarding Kaká, he is not immune from criticism. But his past efforts probably give him more leeway than other players. Pirlo performed badly last year, and has continued this year, so fans' patience may be running out. Kaká carried us for most of last year, while everyone else around him was underperforming.

precisely.

this is my last tid bit on this topic.

the main reason I took up kaka's side so vigorously in this debate is because we are comparing kaka's struggles to emerson's. And they simply are not on the same plane to try and compare. Kaka has been our flag bearer, match winner, face of the club, and that's not fanboy to say, all it requires is to be awake and watching when milan has played these last few seasons..it's logical that when he suffers we suffer. But Emerson on the other hand was a washed up player, and a typical Berlu 'Grande Brazilian Milan' signing that hasn't necessarily done ANYTHING to justify playing ahead of some of the players he plays ahead of. (i will go as far to say that Ronaldo 99 also falls into this category of signing old fart Brazilians for the sake of romance.)

i don't see anything fanboyish about being more lenient to a player in kaka who has excelled for us for years now, and cutting him some slack now that he's finally struggling a TAD bit. Emerson is simply not in that boat. He should be a fringe squad player, not prominently figuring. So kaka must play, and if he struggles we have to live with it. You live by overly depending on him, you die by overly depending on him..Emerson on the other hand hasn't helped us all that much, and only hurt us when we DO play him. To say that a player like say Emerson is equally important to us as kaka, and therefore criticism towards the two should be equal, would be to completely ignore what the former has done for us for the last 3-4 years.

They are on separate tolerance curves. And I in NO way include Maldini, Pippo, Pirlo, Ambro, Rino, Sandro in this grouping with Emo and Fav. All of those aforementioned players also have earned their place in the team, and their playing time when the get it. I will live with their struggles, even if I don't necessarily agree if they're starting on a given day..Emo and Fav haven't earned their playing time and superiority over Flamini, Antonini, Darmian on merit. They've earned it on seniority..and i don't necessarily agree with that criteria.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/warriorsmiley.gif) <--- (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

This post has been edited by vnata001: Dec 5 2008, 11:11 PM

I'm going to disagree that Emerson is a waste of space. Yes, he's made some dreadful errors. But so have other players. In some games, Emerson has arguably been the best midfielder on the pitch - including Kaka and Ronaldinho. He was the only midfielder not to embarrass himself at Palermo, for example. Yet he's not given credit for that. Neither is Favalli given credit for the good games he plays - Siena, Chievo, Lecce games, for example. Sure, they're slammed from here to the moon when they make mistakes, but they're never praised when they're actually pretty good. This to me is a corollary of the Never Blame Kaka theorem.

I understand what you guys (han and vnata today) are trying to say about Kaka; I don't agree with you but I understand what you mean. Personally, I still think it verges on blind adoration (the fact that there are grudging admissions that maybe Kaka is struggling are point in fact when people went on at length about how bad Pirlo's been) that I just don't think is warranted.

I also have yet to see any counterargument to my position that there's an anti-Italian bias here.

One note to Astafjevs: the issue of captaincy is based on seniority at Milan, not on who the coach picks. Maldini didn't do anything out of context by commenting that Ambrosini will be captain when he, Maldini, retires. As for fans' patience, at least those who actually go to games, there's been criticism of Pirlo, yes. But there's been just as much criticism of Kaka, if not more. (This based on friends of mine who live in Milan and who have season tickets). These fans also are in the mutant camp with Kurt and me: they adore Ambrosini.

I'm fully aware that it's based on seniority. That's how it generally works in Italy, both at club level and the national side. My point is that he should have left it up to Carlo as he may have a different idea of seniority. While Ambrosini has been at the club longer, Gattuso has made more appearances for example.

I'm a season ticket holder myself, so I'm aware of the opinion around the ground on match days, though obviously I can't say it's representative of the tifosi as a whole. The adoration for Ambrosini is mainly based on the effort and commitment he has shown to the club, especially during the few years where he was a bench player, not for his performances.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif)

You're a season ticket holder? That's awesome!

Can you do me a favour asta and throw a pie at Mourinho's face?? Puhleeze? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

We got a season ticket holder among us!!! Bring out the red carpets, prepare the cannons, slaughter the virgins, Mike we want V3!

Just as long as you don't sacrifice innocent Fishdolls, dst. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/96.gif)

I'm sorry Tennie but I stopped reading at this comment here.

I'm a huge Azzurri fan, I love the fact that Milan has a core of Italian players and I personally think that so far this season our best players this season so far have been the Italian ones, Rino, Zambro, Bonera and to some extent Boriello in terms of overall performances not scoring.

I think you let the Brazilian versus the Italian things play on your mind way too much. We have a big core of both nationalites in our team, I'm proud that we have some of the best Italian and Brazilian players in Europe playing in our team. This does not have to be an either or situation.

Emerson and Favalli imo, are back up to the back ups, sure they have the odd good game here and there but when they cost us they usually cost us big. And the fact that Carlo treats them as first teamers is what really gets on people's nerves

As for the Palermo match, sure Emerson didn't make the usual nucence of himself, but as soon as he came on you could see our hold shifting even more then it already was, it was a bad move on Carlo's part to put him on and it showed. Ambro could have done a job twice as good as Emerson if he had stayed on, Carlo taking him off to replace him with Emerson was just pointless and continues to prove my point that he is only here because he's a Carlo favourite.

As for vnata and your post regarding Kaka, top class (IMG:style_emoticons/default/king.gif)

Agree with you han!

Carlo has defensive problems. I don't agree that he treats Favalli like a first team player, it's just the condition in which we are - Nesta injured from day 1, Senderos out, Maldini with problems also and Zambro for some time out too. That all didn't help! Everyone knows the ideal line-up is: Zambrotta-Nesta-Maldini-Jankulovski.

But to be honest, Bonera is the only defender not to have suffered a injury till now. All the others do.

I agree Carlo is dull or stubborn, but he's not that kind of an idiot to play Favalli just cause he's his favorite player. It's mostly out of necessity. And don't say we wouldn't criticise him for bringing up Kaladze or Senderos.

Emerson, Favalli, Kaladze - the persona non grata group here at MF.


As for the Italian players...well... I'm not sure italian players are much appreciated here. Just not sure.

I think I made myself perfectly clear about how I feel about our Italian players, I think it's mostly in people's heads and like I said there is no need to make this a Brazilian vs Italian issue. We have a group of both nationalities on our team, some of the best players around from both these nationalities and we should be proud of that. I'm a big Pirlo/Nesta/Rino fan just as much as I am a fan of Kaka. I don't like Kaka more because he's Brazilian (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif) Imo that's a pretty short sighted view to have if you think that way of Milan fans.

You're making it out like because people slate Favalli we have something against him because he's not Brazilian, but Emerson usually is the one getting the brunt of it. I think Favalli is useful to have, he's had some really solid games where I constantly think that we're lucky to have him because he a much better alternative to Kaladze, but Favalli is prone to making mistakes. And I'm not really p!ssed off about the Coppa, why should I? When our coach doesn't even care about the competition, but why not gice that spot to Darmian? That game was probably the only chance they copuld have gotten against quality opposition, yet Carlo didn't even give him that, same goes for Cardacio.

And personally I'd prefer Senderos ahead of him, so far he's played 3 games, the only time he looked shaky was in his first game after injury in the first half against Braga, but other then that he's been solid. He should be ahead of Favalli yet to Carlo Favalli is ahead of him.

Firstly, my comment wasn't adressed only or specially to you han. Don't worry...

Second, it's a bigger question then just Favalli. I cannot remember who praised Bonera for example the last time here? Even worse, Abbiati. Gattuso had excellent matches this season and well, yes he got praised.

But Ambrosini...last season he was rock-solid, made a real breakthrough-effort. And despite that fact, every bad move he makes, he's the first to be suggested ruled out from the starting XI.

I honestly don't realize a Pippo fan-club either.


And one more thing - counting on Cardacio or Darmain is as delusional as blindly defending Ancelotti IMO. I'm mostly sure about 15% of us here ever saw Darmain play more then 1 or 2 matches. We saw Cardacio last time only. And now ti suggest they should play? Isn't fair. Okay, if you're 'n insider and know who's doing well and who not. But Ancelotti, Tassotti and the others run the trainings and they can and should be able to judge wether those youngsters are prepared or not. Both Mauro and Carlo were defensive-wise players, and I'm sure they'd put Darmain in if they reconginzed a "emense potential loss". It's really not that simple to say Favalli is Carlo's pet.

I'm just a bit irritated cause...I'm sure if Carlo would have played Darmain and the young CB would make a mistake (which is logicall) he'd probably be crossed off soon here. Maybe Ancelotti thinks he's mentally not prepared to take the pressure? Gee, Baresi and Maldini are exemptional wonder-players. You can't expect everyone at Milan with 20-and-something years who's a defender expect play near to that?

So, I really think our perspective on the Milan situation is a bit shallow. It's not always that simple. We act like we know and see 100% of the things Milan surround. Yes, we see the matches, and that's more then 50% (IMO) but it's still not enough.