So? Transfers are judged on how they perform after. Balotelli was a great deal at the time, but if he got injured and never played a game for us, I don't think we'd be saying the same thing.

You're talking about a different thing. We did not overpay for Balotelli and that's not gonna change whether he gets injured or underperforms. The amount we payed at the time was fair. The amount we payed for Pazzini at the time was not fair. If it turns out that he was worth it is a different thing. The fact that we overpayed for him does not change. No one would care anymore but the fact remains.

Fair enough, I don't think the initial deal was even 'bad'. Cassano is better. But he's also a trouble maker, wanted to leave, older and had less time to run on his contract. At most the deal was about 2m out.

If Pazzini is happy to keep the role he has for us now, I'd love to keep him for a while. He could be our new Pippo.

X-Oracle.

http://www.goalgaul.com/2011/05/giampaolo-...m-for-goal.html

That's some of the worst grammar I've ever read. Please tell me you used Google Translate or something.

The guy who posted it there must have used Google Translate. But you get the general idea.

Yeah same.

@acid a little time line of history to back up the technicality, all sourced from Wiki:

Signed from Bari for a then €30MM to Roma at the tender age of 19 in 2001.

Roma: During the 2005–06 preseason, Cassano was in constant conflict with club management over the renewal of his contract, which was due to expire on 30 June 2006. In January 2006, he acrimoniously parted ways with Roma and signed with Real Madrid for just €5MM.

Madrid: In 2007-08 he was given to Sampdoria on a one-year loan, agreeing to pay €1.2 million of his €4.2 million salary. Cassano was then acquired on a permanent basis by the club on free transfer (plus bonus) from Madrid.

Sampdoria: On October 2010 Cassano was excluded from the first team squad with immediate effect after he had a heated row with chairman Riccardo Garrone following the player's refusal to attend an award ceremony. Following such events, Sampdoria formally applied for a contract termination to a league arbitration panel, a position that was confirmed even after Cassano apologised to Garrone and the club. On 16 December, the arbitration panel ordered Sampdoria to reinclude Cassano into the first team from 1 January 2011, rejecting the blucerchiati's request for a contract termination, but also concluding Cassano will be paid only 50% of his salary for the remainder of his contract.

Milan: A.C. Milan, Sampdoria and the player agreed the installment plan to pay a €5 million to Real Madrid which was indicated in Cassano's buy-out clause when he left the Spanish club. Eventually Sampdoria paid €5 million to Real Madrid; Milan paid €3.33 million to Sampdoria, while Cassano had a wage cut with Milan.

inter: After reportedly being upset over the sale of Milan's key players, particularly Zlatan Ibrahimović and Thiago Silva, Cassano requested a transfer. On 21 August 2012, A.C. Milan and Internazionale reached an agreement over an exchange deal involving Giampaolo Pazzini and Cassano, with a compensatory sum of about €7 million in favor of the Nerazzurri. He officially joined the team the next day.


Only Bari scooped 30MM for him .. All the others made bad on their investment. The player is an exceptionally talented one, but when you weigh in the level of professionalism you would like to maintain in the club, each one of the clubs above took the risk and failed miserably in their investment. Bar inter as I believe they compliment each other.

Roma paid 30 million Euros for a 19 year old Cassano in 2001? SURELY that can't be right...

It's true. It was a big deal back then, people thought he's gonna be the next big thing. Turned out he's the next big asshole.

Now that I think about it I vaguely remember something. It just is too far fetched even in today's market. What did Bari do with that money? Buy a second squad?

You only hear about it when EPL clubs do it because people only complain then.

Probably balanced the books..

I don't think the whole of Bari is worth 30 million.

Yeah, totally, man, I'm not doubting this fact one bit. If I had my way, I'd never have signed the guy up, free or even if we were paid to do so. Some of you may recall I was not thrilled when we signed Cassano, never enthused any single time when he wore our shirt. Ibra was another thing altogether, Cassano and Robinho not.

Not many of you know this, but that was the start of a small project from Galliani, to quickly put together a half decent team made up of used chewing gums (as in rejects). It maybe had a polish, but its core was volatile. Only Ibra and Silva was the real champions, a few legends, and one potentially dynamite player (Pato).

Everything else was just plain wrong, though Baoteng and Nocerino came out good. It still wasn't a project worth investing time and money in, and was rightly scrapped. As much as it hurts me to see Silva go. Now we are building our bases with youth and doing things the right way - the way it should have been done from the start.

As for Cassano? I'll close it all by saying he's an absolute despicable character, perhaps the most in Serie A.

Nostalgia Acid?

But just so you know...we tend to idealize the good old days a bit too much [I do it way to often]. For example, in 1998 Toldo had the #1, but Pagliuca played. In 1950 Casari was #1, yet Moro and Sentimenti played. As for the 10#, just remember Milan legend Romeo Benetti. Clearly not the typical Italian maestro.

Always. I don't mind changes, it's deterioration I am up in arms against here.


Yeah very true, but that's just how it is. If I ask you to recall the memories from your childhood, the ones you will bes remember would be the good, great, fun ones. Thing here is that, in football, things and traditions that stood the test of time for years (and centuries) are just being bulldozed and butchered.

Just to freshen up your memory, I recently did something like this when talking about cartoons. I can still watch a decent Bugs Bunny cartoon (from way back in 1947) any given Sunday, but the quality of newer cartoon shows is downright forgettable. That's just how things are.

http://youtu.be/ntfNNPS8PE4

When you score a goal like this with a fractured leg, you are f@cking cool.

So Pazzo is definitively out?

He wasn't called up, the list came out since yesterday.

Argh. Very inconvenient.

He'll be out for at least two weeks.

http://youtu.be/pLFM_FTTt6c

I think we robbed Inter played on this deal. I was happy with it initially, but now it's clearly a great move. A player who's not kicked up a fuss about being on the bench, not got much playing time and still scored a tonne of goals. It would've been the complete opposite with Cassano. Good business. We could even sell Pazzini for a decent amount now.

Actually it was reported he wasn't all that happy with being a bench warmer most of the time. and we miss a player like Cassano but having him and Balotelli at the same time would've been too much. it was a good deal even though at the time most of us couldn't see it.

I hope Pazzini won't want to be a XI regular because it's unlikely that he'll get that at Milan. he can be damn good as a rotation player, playing 1 out of every 2 games for example. we need a player like that, he has that Pippo-ish quality about him that can unlock these kinds of games for us.

Blasphemy

But really, having Cassano and Balotelli in one team...would be too much. Balo alone irritates me way to often.

What's stunning is that we consider him a 'part-time' player but he's our only other player in double figures this season. We need to find a way to make this Pazzo-Balo-SeS trident work. Maybe Pazzo could get a mohawk as well?

This would place Niang exactly where a youngster with potential ought to be. On the bench or as first change.

Player for player it did turn out good for us in SOME ways. Cassano's physical and health issues being one of them

Personally I still think Cassano is the far better player, and considering our serious lack of creativity in attack we would still be in more need of a Cassano rather than a Pazzini.

But my major issue with the deal has always been that we gave Inter 7m. Which is uttur stupidity. It should have been a direct swap. And R7 will come here and talk about how Cassano wanted to leave, etc, etc and we had no choice, but the reality is that Pazzo and Inter were on bad terms and they wanted to get rid of him as much as Cassano wanted to leave.

So imo, footballing wise, it turned out a good move butn financially speaking it's still Galliani's stupidity playing out at its best

Not true. SES is at 19, and Balo is only 2 away from double figures.

"Only other player", other implying SES.

Yeah misread that. Apologies Mr. Sparrow.

But he is doing better coming off the bench than when he was a regular starter (when han used to rightfully call him a lamp post).

Just to clear something that's been bugging me. When was Pazzo supposed to be back? And when did this return date become questionable? Is this another misstep of our medical team or?

I had a search and most places seem to say unconfirmed.

He had a knee operation, based on previous experiences it would take at least 4 months

Yeah, I think they were saying October so that in the case of not making the CL they won't buy anyone while fans are assured of an October return so it's not much of a problem. We pass through to the CL and suddenly it's panic alerts to get Matri and no one knows when Pazzini will be fit again

I seriously hope that we can avoid the qualifiers next season because all this unnecessary drama our club surrounds around them is just ridiculous

This actually means getting better then last season. Problem is, while practically whole of Serie A became better, Milan, I'm afraid, still taps at the same spot.

I wouldn't be surprised if returns in November/December, or even January. This sh*t happens with us.

So, Pazzo is match-fit now, right?? Hopefully Allegri will integrate him into our system. Some stability upfront is what we need, and I think he'll be the closest we can get this season to that.

Actually he's been out for over 4 months now ... He is just coming back, so ... Not to be pre-mature

Yeah, but we do really need someone like him.