Dida made the trip but has a slight knock so hasn't been playing. Also, traditionally clubs don't always field their #1 keeper (and Dida is the #1 for now while Abbiati is recovering from the torn acl) during summer tournaments.

One note: 'flu' in the above quote about Borriello recovering is probably better translated as 'cold'.

so who all is coming to this game?

and were any of you at the (cancelled) practice session yesterday?
I saw Nesta and got his autograph!

I am VERY jealous, Kakasheva. btw, if you're in Baltimore and not busy today, you might hang out near the Marriott at the Inner Harbor. that's where they're staying.

Hopefully the thunderstorms won't happen again today. Pitch should certainly be nice and wet for the game though!

Saw a short highlight of the game. Gooch was faultless on the 1st goal IMO. Storari should have come out and cleared it - he had more than enough time to decide to do so.

Flamini's Pirloesque pass and Pippo's perfect finish... awesome!

really? i'll definitely try. i live like 20-30 mins away.
i also got pippo, pirlo, pato, and ambrosini's autographs. it was so surreal seeing them so close.

Pirlo!! She got Pirlo?? Did he ask how I was doing? Did you tell him I love him very very much....even more than any other member in any other forum in the whole universe??!! Did ya...did ya??

LOL @ Gattuso's moment of madness. you see, even when he gets so angry, he doesn't get himself sent off! I know it was only a friendly but in official games it's usually the same story. he confronts people and scares them, but not in a way to give the ref enough reason to show him red card. love him

Lets not!

LOL Comon don't you wanna see drogba meg kalac 5 times hahahaha!

Also from the Milan vs club america game:

Nesta Highlights:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0B192u3wHg...feature=related

Ronaldinho Highlights:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CcQ3qxy6u0...feature=related


EDIT:
Similarly, here is a clip of Ronaldinho in 2006 with Barca vs club america:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X9TFFPDmwE...feature=related

Wow was nesta always that good?? Man do I miss our defence having someone like that. Thank god he is finally back!

No thanks blue - as good as it sounds!

Hah. Nesta was much better in, say, 2001-4, Blue. Still, yes. He does seem to be getting back to good form. (Fishdoll is buying a pair of earmuffs this season; he's mad at me when I squeal at seeing Nesta and it looks like we'll be doing so).

FYI, Miz may have competition for Dida from the receptionist in my building. She thinks he's cuuuuuuuuute. (I've been showing people the D&G mag and explaining about the team. Girls like the pictures.

Also, while it's clear now, thunderstorms are predicted for the day so the pitch is going to be very soggy.

excellent can't for the kalac performance

Fishdoll

TURTLE POWER!

HT 1-1 (goals by Drogba and Seedorf)

In general terms, Milan looks better this game than the last game. There are still lots of misplaced passes and bad crosses (Oddo, of course) but things are starting to gel. Kalac is scary in goal, as ever. Nesta looked good. Pato made some nice runs. Ronaldinho is looking decent but still gets stripped of the ball. Chelsea started the better team but Milan clawed their way back into things. Borriello looked decent, Pirlo had some good passes.

First half lineup:
Kalac
Oddo Nesta Silva Zambrotta
Flamini Pirlo Seedorf
Ronaldinho
Pato Borriello

Despite seeing the final scored ended 2-1 in favor of Chelsea. I totally missed the 2nd half.
Anyone cares to explain what took place?

We stayed with them pretty much; gave up a cheap goal (not surprisingly within minutes of Nesta being subbed out in the 70th or so). But the team didn't stop fighting and had several good chances so I'm not particularly depressed. The team's getting better in terms of general play.

I know results don't say everything but I have to say not bad! losing 2-1 to a team that started their new season way before us and more importantly to a team that have more quality players than us, can't be a negative thing.

And what a joke Kalac is! he's 23788846 meters tall and couldn't save a ~30meter shot into the top corner? who exactly nicknamed him the Spider Man!?

Thanks Tennie - Good to know...

Yup Kalac is useless, forget trying to sell this fool - I say we release him one time!

How war Ronnie playing? Was it better then he did against Club America or Galaxy ?

I haven't watched the match yet, but I will tonight. From what I read of the match reports going around we were very unlucky to lose the match, as we had the farr better chances, conceeded to a cheap losing goal and hit the woodwork twice, not to mention the headers Cech saved from Pippo and Gooch in the last few minutes of the match.

I think overall, we did far better against Chelsea then Inter did and concidering how ahead of us they are in their pre-season I think this was a match to be proud of

Fishdoll agrees with your assessment, han. It was, overall, a pretty decent performance -- there are still things to be improved, but the spirit of the team is good, the fact that they had 3-4 really good chances in the last few minutes of the game is something Fishdoll was happy to see. Certainly they looked better against Chelsea than the cugini did.

The Chelsea v Milan game was exciting from the first minute. I will try to be as unbiased as I can, but honestly I think Milan had the better of the match, hitting the cross bar on two occasions; first half with Seedorf's attempt, then the second half with Ronaldinho's free kick. Moreover, the team needs to work more with Ronaldinho, to familiarize themselves with his movements. Many passes were stolen, just because the team didn't read his movements.

With all the above in mind, I think Milan did well from the defense to the attack.

But Chelsea will no doubt make some noise this year, although aging, they have a very strong squad.

Haven't I been saying that all along? I will gladly school her on the subject if necessary.

what channels are showing the inter vs milan game?

Good post.

[Bolded Piece]: I also always found so myself. Many of the times our players don't see the plays that quickly and then the ball is lost. Should they work on this, I'm convinced their game can be improved substantialy.

The Inter Milan gam will be shown on ESPN it think for those of you who are in the US. Look for me at the game. Though you dont know what I look like haha. I am in one of the corners 11 rows back. And im superexcited. im gunna try and get some autographs and buy a new jersey. Forza Milan!!

Oooh! Have fun at the game!!!

As for Ronaldinho and the debate, Fishdoll is going to play devil's advocate on this one. He thinks that Ronaldinho needs to not keep losing the ball - and that it's more his fault for running into space with three defenders around him than it is the fault of the other 10 Milan players on the pitch.

The game was better than the one with club America but Chelsea were fare superior in every position on the pitch, even there bench was superior. They dominated posession and looked good

Milan
forwards
-big proems with having no #9 center forward as Leonardo was saying he thought they would get one and it affected the tactics.
- distribution problems from the full backs and ronaldinho did nothing but a couple free kicks.
- same big issues over the past couple years

midfield
-Chelsea completely dominated. Ronaldinho was silenced except for some trickery which led to nothing and free kicks showing that he is a shadow of his former self.
-pirlo coninues to decline in quality- to me he is overrated and hasn't been world class for a couple seasons
-above all the same boring ancelotti tactics that we've watched for the past 6 years- while inter and juventus have gotten stronger while Milan have got older and weaker

defense
nesta was the best player for us. Thank god he's back
silva worked well with himagainst the constant Chelsea threat
- fullbacks are weak- oddo sucked he was kicking field goalls over crosses
big problem- distribution is weak to forwards defensive strength is lacking
- no depth in central defense- if nesta gets injured we will suffer

Fishdoll thinks we might want to cut Pirlo and Pato a wee bit of slack -- that was their first game back with the team and match fitness would be an issue.

As for the utter dominance of Chelsea, Fishdoll debates that too - yes they dominated in the first few minutes but Milan clawed its way back into the game.

Fishdoll also thinks that this preseason is far better than last year's based on what's been seen so far. He also thinks maybe we might want to at least try not to get all down on the team just yet. What we're seeing is after 2 weeks of training. Things take time to gel.

I think his problem is speed, he always used to do that in the past but the difference is that he was a lot faster, so he was tricky to get a hold of. Do I think he could regain his speed back? Maybe some of it. But I think he will adjust to his limitations, he just needs some time.


I think your assesment is way too harsh and you're acting like this is a February CL match, when in reality it was our 4th game of pre season where some players have just come back out of holiday this week, not to mention playing against a team that are 2 weeks ahead of us in pre-season and did not have players in the Confedarations Cup. It makes a BIG difference.

Not to mention the fact that Leo himself said that he needs 2 players to make this system really tick. We need a real target man, something we don't have, you might say Boriello but imo, he's not good enough, he's been bad in pre-season and I don't really have any hope that he might improve all that much. Not to mention the fullback problem we have. Zambrotta is our only quality fullback. We need another one, but I don't really see us getting anyone else in defence

Fishdoll would still like to see Abate fielded as RB. Zambrotta can play on the left as well as the right.

Photos from Milan vs chelsea:

http://74.125.67.132/translate_c?hl=en&...gVfhmC8K2L26_XA

Well we lost 5-0 to Chelsea last season so it'd be difficult to be worse...

But I feel most of Abate's effectiveness would be lost at RB.

I think Leo should really give him a chance in the next friendly to start on the right of the 3 in attack. There's nothing to lose and it would be better then seeing Boriello disappear again

I would really like to see this against Inter tonight



Something else no one has mentioned so far. Seedorf has been amazing so far in pre-season, and I know some would say that its his usual pre-season performances, but its not that as usually he would still jog around all match long and then score a goal, but he's really been playing amazing so far, really involved pushing forward, helping the defence, linking well with Dinho. I'm very hopeful that this is the Leo factor and not just because its pre-season

Hopefully ypu're right, but I was thinking more along the lines of the 'preseason option'
But - well see...

does anyone know what time our match vs inter is?

IIRC its at 11pm CET

Would you settle for this:

Zambro-Nesta-Thiago-Antonini
Rino-Pirlo-Flamini
Abate-Pato-Ronaldinho

The reason for the switches is that Seedorf trained separately today. He could slot in for Seedorf but I tihnk they'd probably push him up to the wing instead.

Sure why not, As long as we see Abate on that right wing and the most probable starting 11 that we'll see throughout the season.

I think if this were any other season I really wouldn't care, but I think its best if Leo uses all these games to really get everything down and really see what he wants to do throughout the entire season. I think this is why we're not seeing the kids get as much chance.

It would have been better had any new players already been with the team but that's Galliani's problem.

well...US is getting completely owned by Mexico in the Gold Cup

hopefully milan can lift my spirits with a win over inter

Good shot from Pato

Wow!!

Kalac

Beaten at the near post with a shocker. Ridiculous goal

Starting with Kalac is always like starting with the 2 goal disadvantage

Let's see how long it will take for the 2nd blunder to happen

a goalie (at any level) should never get beaten at the near post

we're amazing at getting it to the top of the box

once it gets there though, everything just falls apart

LOLLLL

Most hysterical moment of the tournament.

Ref springs reds on Dinho, very quicly realises his oops moment and puts it back down to get the yellow

I don't understand how Ambro is a professional football player he's so clumsy with the ball its ridiculous

But then again we have kalac on the team, so who am I to judge?

We really need something a lot better in midfield Rino and Ambro not cutting it. Does anyone know who else is on the bench?