Serie A's Deadline Day Mercato Madness: A Round-Up
One of the busiest summer transfer windows in Italy in recent times came to a halt last night, and with the Mercato madness behind us, it is time to summarize some of the deals that were negotiated by some of the leading Italian clubs in the dying hours of the transfer window. Who came in? Who went out? Its time to look back at some of the deals from yesterday.
AC Milan
Most of Milan’s transfer activity had been concluded before the final day of the window but the wily old man Adriano Galliani struck a fine cord as he moved just in time to engineer Italian international midfielder Antonio Nocerino‘s move from Palermo to the San Siro, after seeing Frenchman Mathieu Flamini suffer a long term injury in pre-season. And despite much speculation about his future, Antonio Cassano has stayed at Milan, atleast for the time being, still giving competition to Ibrahimovic, Robinho, El Shaarawy and Pato for the forward positions. Experienced fullback Massimo Oddo was also sent on loan to Lecce.
Juventus
The deadline day was anything but spectacular for the Turin giants as they failed in their bid to bring in a top quality centre half to play alongside Giorgio Chiellini. Last ditch attempts to bring in Bruno Alves from Zenit St. Petersburg proved futile in the end and they would step in for the start of the new season with the same centre halves as last season. The deadline day saw the departures of supremely talented and highly rated duo of Christian Pasquato and Manuel Giandonato on loan to Lecce. Experienced defender Zdenek Grygera was also allowed to move on to Fulham on a free transfer by the ‘Old Lady’.
AS Roma- The best deadline day business in Europe?
AS Roma
Roma were the busiest of the Italian clubs on the last day of the ‘Mercato’ and arguably did the best piece of work on the last day of the window that saw three major signings- Simon Kjaer, Fernando Gago and Miralem Pjanic arriving in the Italian capital to join Roma. Kjaer, previously a success in the Calcio with Palermo, joined Roma from Wolfsburg after a rather streched negotitations. Talented Bosnian midfielder Miralem Pjanic arrived in an €11 million deal from French power house Lyon while Fernando Gago joined on loan from Real Madrid. Also on deadline day, long serving Matteo Brighi moved away from Roma to Atalanta.
Inter Milan
While Galliani was busy engineering Nocerino’s move to Milan, it was an active day in the other half of Milan too as the Nerazzurri wrapped up the signings of forwards Diego Forlan from Atletico Madrid and Mauro Zarate on a loan deal from Lazio. Also moving to Inter was 16 year old ‘wonderkid’ Lorenzo Tassi from Brescia. In terms of departures, Inter’s once proclaimed prodigal son Davide Santon moved onto Newcastle in a £5mn move while Nelson Rivas’ contract was rescinded by mutual consent.
Napoli
The day was rather bland in Naples with no inward movement at the club, with Napoli having already done all their transfer activity well before the deadline. There were a couple of departures though as Spanish defender Victor Ruiz moved to Valencia CF and midfielder Luca Cigarini moving to Atalanta.
Palermo
It was another day of sheer madness by Palermo from the outset but normal by chairman Maurizio Zamparini’s standards. Palermo scooped for Paraguayan International Edgar Baretto from Atalanta and that was swiftly followed by double capture of Honduran winger Edgar Alvarez and midfielder Francesco Della Rocca. Just a few hours later though head coach Stefano Pioli was sacked!
In other transfer activity, Udinese clinched the signing of Roberto Pereyra from River Plate while Lazio moved Pasqualo Foggia onto recently relegated Sampdoria.