One of the biggest reasons Dortmund are running away with the title.

Actually, I'm sure Pirlo a few years ago said something along the lines of "I want to end my playing days here".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/au...o-milan-chelsea

Compare Andrea's and Sheva's quotes. See the difference?

I don't see a massive difference in all honesty. I think it's all down to the eye of the beholder as it were. If people want to believe he's a traitor, they will, if people don't they won't. Though I'd take the 7 years of a world class footballer any day over a quote that probably got misconstrued by the media.

Sheva also went for £30m at that time it was a big figure. We hardly got mugged of him. If Pirlo leaves it will be on a free right? Does that add to the traitor thing, or is that not a factor taken into consideration. I just don't get how people can call players, especially like Sheva a traitor is beyond me, it really is. It was obvious he was going to end his career at Kyiv in all honesty, that's his team, then us. If he went down a notch for us like he did at the time he joined Chelsea, then left 12 months later I don't think this whole 'traitor' thing would be coming up.

I mean I'm sure for any player that has left this club I could find quotes potentially branding them certain things.

Sure, I saw the press in his time leading up to the Chelsea incident. I was disappointed by some of the things he said and then kind of went back on his word, though remember some of it was down to his wife wanting to lead the London cosmopolitan lifestyle, then realised she didn't really like it. Though for the service he gave us he is still one of the Milan greats, at least to me and I think a few others on here.

What would Gotze cost?

Call his agent: 0231 90 20-5 65

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif) too good

Considering he's been highly rated all season long and he's still producing some magic, I'd say we can't bring him for peanuts.

He reminds me so much on Thomas Hässler.

That number didn't work, I pushed the numbers just as you have them written.




















joking (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

Well man, you know, that's just like, your opinion.

Kaka' always dreamed playing for Madrid. However, he was happy in Milan. He always said in various interviews that he'd wanted to end his career here, but if and only if the club wanted the same thing. Meaning, that if the club wanted to sell him, he wouldn't oppose their decision. Now, City made their crazy offer around February of 2009 if I remember correctly. Galliani saw it as a golden opportunity to cash a mountain of pounds in order to balance the books. So it was all down to Kaka', whom after some thinking, declined the offer. He decided to stay, making it very clear to the club that he'd like to stay in Milan for as long as possible, regardless of any offer, even from Madrid, his childhood dream club. What happened next? Perez called Galliani just one week after Kaka' had declined the City offer, realizing the opportunity to sign the Brazilian was more concrete than ever. He offered him €65 million for the player, and Galliani didn't think twice. He called Kaka', told him of the offer, and said that the club would accept the money. So it was all down to Kaka' again. Of course, he felt betrayed. He had told Galliani only one week earlier that he would have liked to end his career at Milan, but it was becoming quite clear that the club wanted to "get rid of him" for the sake of the "books". So, realizing this, he made the difficult decision of accepting Madrid's offer.

This is how it really went down. Kaka's sale to Madrid was made since February of 2009, but we only came to know of it in May.

Cool story,bro. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif)

I also heard that management were getting fed up with Kaka's fathers constant wage demands for Kaka. They could not introduce a salary cap for other players while they kept increasing his wages and so, while his value was still very high, they decided the time was right to cash in.

Yep, there's more to the story, that's sure.

Thank you, saved me a lot of typing. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif) This is more or less what happened, and I remember each and every bit of it. The crying episode, to the ultimate secrecy - no one in their wildest dreams thought that Paolo's last match (Fiorentina, away) would be Kaka's too. The "book" are the happiest of the bunch I would say, now that they are balanced.

And Fillipo, yes there may very well be more to the story. But at the end of the day it was the club that made the final decision, and frankly we are paying Ibra as much, or even a bit more than Kaka.

precisely. this should somehow be bookmarked as a reference point anytime anyone has any questions about how this transfer saga went.