The New Season Begins

By: cathal | July 1st, 2009

Technically, the new season is now upon us so it makes sense to wipe the slates and start afresh. I know I haven’t been posting regularly of late. That’s not because I have disappeared or have left or anything like that. Plain and simply, nothing pre-July interests me. It’s mainly rubbish, rubbish and more rubbish, so here’s to posting everyday from now. I’ll start by taking a look ahead to the coming months and what lies in store for us.

There will be a meeting in Formello this weekend as training resumes. Next week, the squad will depart for Auronzo di Cadore to partake in a training camp and play a few friendlies. Unlike last year, Ballardini wants to take everybody with him. This transaltes into 35 rooms being booked and possibly many more. With that in mind, I expect Lotito to go on a selling spree this week but if past form is anything to go by, that will result in one player, or maybe even half a player being sold. The most likely departure? Makinwa to Malaga. Fingers crossed.

We will play our Europa League qualification ties on the 20th and 27th August. We are seeds in the draw; hopefully that means we will have a safe path into the group stages but you just never know. That draw takes place on the 8th August and a fixture on Irish soil would be much appreciated. However, I don’t give our local sides much hope of getting that far in the draw. That’s unfortunate, as Lazio would have no problem in dispatching one of our sides.

On the transfer front, things have gone relatively quiet. My personal feeling is that Guarente is top of our hitlist with Simplicio as a realistic back-up. However, that appears unlikely to happen before Ledesma leaves. LDS looks set to go too which will upset quite a few people but we have many waiting in reserve to take his spot on the bench. Faraoni is already being mentioned at the young age of 17 and there are many others besides. Lyon’s interest in Pandev will be tested considering they’ve just received bucketloads for Benzema. Fingers crossed on that one too.

In the meantime, how many people use the RSS and would anybody be interested in a Facebook mailing list? In other words, if you think it is a wise idea for me to send you a quick mail on Facebook whenever I’ve a new post up, let me know via the comments box or the group. Forza Lazio!