So Lorenzo and Alessio had a good idea for a post, we are going to crown Serie A's Ugliest Footballer. There are quite a few of them, and this is the post where we'll nominate footballers. I'll list some here, and if you have a nomination state it in the comments section and I'll add him to the running.

In the present state of modern football with the physical nature of the game becoming more important than the technical nature, there seems to be less and less room for the fantasista, a player that has always been the focal point in the Italian game. The fantasista is the player with sublime technique, the player that you pay to watch, the one that can change the game at any second.

Since their existence, the Italian national team has always worn "Azzurro", the shade of blue that is known in the English-speaking world as "Azure Blue". The color comes from the Royal family of Savoia, and all of Italy's national sports team wear it to this day. That's where the national team got their nickname, "Gli Azzurri".

Happy Thanksgiving (or Tacchino Day) to all the Italy Offside readers! Enjoy your day and eat lots of food! I tried to find a picture of an Italian turkey, this the best I could do (or google image search could do), a turkey with the Italian name for turkey next to it.

This now leads me to my bad Italian calcio Thanksgiving joke:

Which Italian soccer player's favorite holiday is Thanksgiving?

Roberto Baggio. Giuseppe Signori. Marco Di Vaio. What do all these players have in common? Yes they are all Italian, yes they are all strikers, but the main similarity is that when each of these players went to play for Bologna, their careers were rejuvenated.

There is something about the capital city of the Emilia-Romagna region that just rejuvenates a player's career.

Funny and odd thing happened in this weekend's game between Catania and Torino. Catania had a free kick from about 25 yards out and Catania attacking midfielder Giuseppe Mascara lined up to take it. Everything looked routine, Torino goalkeeper Matteo Sereni set up his wall, and then something very strange occurred.

Roma, languishing in the relegation zone before the derby, took on Lazio, who are flying high in the upper echelons of the table. Roma needed a victory over their rivals to kick-start their season and boost morale, while Lazio were looking to confirm themselves as a side to be reckoned with this season.

News today is that Antonio Cassano has (with the help of writer Gianluigi Pardo) authored his first autobiography, entitled "Vi Dico Tutto" (I'll tell you everything). And as always, Cassano does indeed tell us everything. We'll have to wait for the book to actually be released (it will be on Italian bookshelves next week, November 19 to be exact) to read everything but some excerpts were released and they are quite amusing and interesting.

Since retiring from the calcio world, Roberto Baggio has dedicated himself to his family and has stepped out of the limelight, preferring to live the normal life. Every now and again he'll give the odd interview, and when he does it's always interesting to see what the most skillful player Italy has produced in the last 25 years has to say about the current state of the calcio world.

If you find yourself watching the Serie A game of your choice this Sunday and start yawning (not due to tiredness but due to the boredom of the game), try and find a way to switch over to Napoli-Sampdoria. With Ezequiel Lavezzi leading the Partenopei and Antonio Cassano leading the Blucerchiati, there should be fireworks.

Here's what I found interesting after reading various calcio news sites today:

-First, we have another managerial change in Serie A. Chievo haven't won since the first week of the season and manager Beppe Iachini has been sacked. Taking his place will be Domenico Di Carlo, who was in charge of Parma until March of last season.

I want to apologize to everyone that loves to read this blog for my sporadic blogging on all that is new in the calcio world. When I took over the Italy Offside after the departure of Martha I wanted to pick up where she left off and even I have to admit that I haven't fulfilled my duties up until now.

Today former Milan and Italy defender Alessandro Costacurta was named head coach of Serie B club Mantova. Costacurta got his coaching license immediately after retiring from the game in 2007. Last year he did a little learning experience with Milan as one of Carlo Ancelotti's assistants and this summer he was linked with some jobs (most notably Pisa), but he turned it down because he wanted a place that was closer to his home in Varese.

In the current calcio world of teams that are constantly undergoing financial troubles, that jump between Serie A and Serie B, that get relegated and never come back, that have crazy owners who fire managers left and right, that have locker room problems, there is one club that defies all of these qualities and performs miracles every year.

Serie B has always been an interesting championship. There's always a good mix of clubs that were just in Serie A, clubs with lots of history and tradition, yo-yo Serie B/C clubs, and little teams that performed miracles by just getting promoted to Serie B. There are always those teams out to surprise, and this year the Italian second division has been extremely interesting.

Maradona, Caniggia, Sensini, Balbo, Chamot, Simeone, Redondo, Batistuta, Crespo, Veron. The list of great Argentinian players to grace the pitches of Serie A can go on and on. And pretty soon we might have to add another name to the list: Mauro Zarate. The 21 year old striker is on fire, leading the Serie A scoring charts with 6 goals in the first 5 games and giving defenders nightmares.

For all those who have Serie A fantasy teams, here's a tip for you: Don't pick Fabiano Santacroce. Who says? Santacroce himself! The Italy U-21 defender (who has an Italian father and a Brazilian mother) is one of the most promising defenders in all of Italy, and has drawn comparisons to Alessandro Nesta.

After the long international break, Serie A is back! Here are some things to look out for when you're watching calcio this weekend:

Walter Zenga trying to beat his old team

Walter Zenga, an Inter legend, returns to the San Siro to take on reigning champions Inter and try to beat his former club.

When Alan Curbishley stepped down as manager of West Ham, many names were linked with the vacant job. Of these names, two Italians were listed to be in the running: Roberto Donadoni, who was fresh off his 2 year reign as Italian National Team manager and speaks fluent English after his stint in MLS with the Metrostars, and Gianfranco Zola, who spent 7 seasons with Chelsea in the EPL, making 249 appearances and scoring 89 goals, and was most recently an assistant to Pierluigi Casiraghi for the Italy U-21 squad.

Big rumor from TuttoSport today (which is a Turin-based paper) claiming that Juventus have struck a deal with Sampdoria to bring Antonio Cassano to Torino this summer. Cassano has always been linked with a move to Juve (Bari had given Cassano two options, Juve or Roma, and Cassano chose Roma because it was a better city) and then the Bianconeri have always shown a certain interest in El Pibe di Bari the past few years.

Interesting story today from Tuttosport. On the last day of the transfer window, Palermo signed 26 year old striker Davide Succi from Lega Pro side Ravenna. The Milan youth team product was one of the best strikers in Serie B last season, scoring 18 goals but unable to save Ravenna from relegation.

One of the Italians to move abroad this summer was World Cup winning fullback (and team barber) Massimo Oddo. The 32 year old right back had a nightmare season last year. He wasn't himself at all, he played poorly, all his crosses ended up in Row Z, and he found himself left out of the national team set-up, missing Euro 2008.

Who had their bets on Stefano Colantuono? The Roman manager has been sacked only after one game by Palermo president Maurizio Zamparini. Colantuono was sacked this season and replaced by Francesco Guidolin and then was brought back when Guidolin was let go and then confirmed as manager for the coming season.

So it seems to be a FIFA rule that each national team manager must submit a mega-list of 50 players that will be available for selection for World Cup qualifying games. I'm unsure about the rules of this list and if/when players can be changed or added (and info about these lists are hard to find, the list was unveiled by a Fiorentina website) but it does show you the players that the national team manager has in consideration.

So it's been roughly 4 months since I took over the reigns of the Italy Offside. I just wanted to see what the general consensus was about how am I doing. And who best to ask than the loyal people who actually enjoy (or maybe don't enjoy) reading my musings about calcio. What am I doing right?

The 2008/2009 Serie A season has finally kicked off, and what a weekend it was. There were so many interesting games and results. For the first time since 1984, none of the big teams have full points after the first game. Hopefully this is a sign that this season will be very exciting and interesting.

As each week passes Serie A gets closer and closer. This was basically the final week of the preseason, as this week there are National Team games on Wednesday and then the SuperCoppa on Sunday, and teams start there normal preparation for the start of Serie A, which will kick-off with Udinese-Palermo and Sampdoria-Inter on Saturday, August 30th.

He was the surprise call-up to begin with. Everyone looked at Casiraghi's Olympic call-ups and said with a puzzled look, "Rocchi?" (come on, you know you did it). Casiraghi gave his explanation, saying the Lazio hitman was an experienced player, a model professional, and an excellent addition to the Italy side who could score many goals in this Olympic games.

This has been news in the calcio world recently. When Lazio first met up for pre-season training in mid-July, coach Delio Rossi made a list of players that did not fit into his plans for the coming season. These players are: Roberto Baronio (considered as a youngster to be the next great Italian midfielder, never happened), Simone Inzaghi (Pippo's younger brother who has always been more technically gifted than Pippo, but not as successful), Massimo Mutarelli (a defensive midfielder who works hard all game, impressed at Palermo), Tommaso Berni (a young goalkeeper who was never given a chance), Alberto Quadri (another promising player as a youngster but has turned out to be an average player), and Guglielmo Stendardo (on loan at Juve last season, a decent defender who has also garnered interest from Milan and Inter).

Here's the calcio news that I thought was most interesting today:

-Luciano Spalletti said that: "Our club can't just go out and buy whoever it wants, everything has to be carefully done and hopefully we'll have some players that can benefit our roster. Malouda and Baptista are two targets that we want, but we'll have to see how the deals evolve.

Here's what I scrounged around for today:

-Milan striker Marco Borriello has been operated on and will now start his recovery. Reports are he will be out for around 2 months. (could be less if he puts a lot of hard work into the recovery process.)

-Pierluigi Casiraghi is predicting a big Olympic performance from Lazio striker Tommaso Rocchi.

Well, it's summer. And summer usually means vacation. So although I love writing about calcio here daily on the Offside, I'm leaving for Rome tonight and I will be in the capitale for the whole month of June. I will have limited to no internet access and will be unable to blog about all things calcio for a month.

Some interesting transfer news and notes today. Marco Borriello will wear the Rossonero jersey once again, as Milan sealed the deal with Genoa yesterday. The Rossoblu received 7 million euro plus the co-ownership of promising young fantasista Davide Di Gennaro. Milan have decided to take a gamble on the target man, who was ever so close to becoming the Serie A top scorer this season.

Today the Serie A 2008-2009 schedule was released. The season will begin on August 31st and end on May 31st. There will be three midweek rounds slated for September 24, October 29, and January 28. The winter break will be from December 21-January 11. Serie A will also come to a halt three times for the National Team, who will be undergoing World Cup 2010 qualifying.

Today, the Italian Olympic team advanced to the Toulon International Tournament Final, defeating Japan 5-4 on penalty kicks in the semi-final. The Japanese frustrated the Azzurrini for 90 minutes, and Casiraghi's side dominated, but couldn't finish chances. Italy looked dangerous when the ball fell to the feet of Sebastian Giovinco (who should be voted best player of the tournament), but he squandered chances and chances he created were squandered by other players.