News round-up.

By: salvatore | April 9th, 2008

Well, after quite a bit of talk regarding the contract situation with Goran Pandev, there’s finally been some light shed on the actual numbers involved. Reportedly, it’s going to take a million euros a year to keep Goran in Biancoceleste, which despite being a big step up from his salary now, is a bargain. Hell, the guy makes “only” 350 thousand a year, which is borderline criminal when you consider that Baronio and Manfredini make half a million each. Ridiculous.

Anyway, there was a “positive” first meeting between the player’s agent and the team, with the rat bastard, sorry I mean player’s representative urging the team to get it done quickly. For once, I agree with the suit.

Goran

Meanwhile Claudio Lotito was asked to give a speech to about 250 economics students and professors in Viterbo. Depending on what source you refer to, it was either a love fest, or a contentious disaster. According to Ansa, he was protested by a group of fans and whistled at. According to the Corriere Dello Sport (which just wrote something of an open letter warning Lazio to end their press silence), he was warmly received.

Obviously, this says something about the way news gets filtered in Italy, either for regional or political means, but I suspect the truth lies somewhere between the two accounts.

Lotito

Lazio has also been linked to another Argentinian player, this time to young, tall River Plate defender Nasuti. Apparently, he’s been on our radar for a while now, and he has qualities similar to Stendardo and Rozehnal. Why don’t we just keep the Czech International, you ask? No idea, but clearly there’s something going on behind the scenes with him.

Anyway, Lotito has said he wants to model the team on Arsenal, but if some of these Argie rumors happen, Lazio will look a lot more like South American giants Inter Milan than any London-based club.

Thankfully, there are some other names being mentioned, with Parma’s talented midfield general Luca Cigarini first among them. Supposedly, Lazio almost managed to snatch him last June, but everything collapsed at the last minute. Who knows how true that is, but now the interest is seemingly real, with cash and a player exchange involved (Muslera, Kolarov, and loaners Belleri and Bonetto are all said to be liked by Parma).

I would absolutely kill to have Cigarini, but I’m not sure giving up Kolarov would be a great idea…I mean for the first time since Sinisa, we actually have a threat from set pieces. We’ll see what develops.

Here’s a Cigarini highlight package (with apologies for the awful song):