After putting a young and talented center back in a car on Wednesday
to send him to AC Milan, and saying goodbye to Higuain from Atlanta while the
Argentinian striker was in Turin, Allegri’s Juventus struggled to pull off a
penalty win against an MLS All Star team. Maybe it was the loss of the two
players, who knows? Meanwhile, his old center back, who is known to have had
disagreements with the Mister, flew from Minneapolis to Turin to make a very
controversial return to the club. As if all of that wasn’t bad enough, on
Saturday, his nearly forgotten former club will be facing his favorite nemesis:
Barcelona. Too bad, so sad. Sorry, Allegri.
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| Sorry, Allegri |
Barcelona have been making waves in the transfer market by
being complete douchebags. Apparently, they are no longer able to make legal,
upstanding deals anymore at all. But that actually doesn’t impact us, since we
don’t have any common transfer targets and probably won’t for some time.
Apologies to Roma, though, even if they taught Barca a lesson on Tuesday to the
tune of a 4-2 win over the transfer hijackers. For that match, Valverde lined
up: Cillessen; Lenglet, Marlon, Cucurella, Semedo, Roberto, Rafinha, Arthur, El
Haddadi, Aleix Vidal, and the hijacked Malcom. He also has Cuenca, Puig, Miranda, Palencia,
Collado, Ruiz, Monchu, Brandariz, Perez, ter Stegen, Alcacer, D. Suarez, Gomes,
Ezkieta, Tabla, and Mingueza available.
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| I don't know what all the hype is about, 2 ex-Milan players scored, too |
Milan didn’t hijack anyone’s transfer. After Bonucci asked
to return to Juventus, it was a straight swap with him and Caldara. We are
paying Higuain’s loan, and then have a right of redemption at the end of the
year. But none of those people will be in Santa Clara on Saturday night.
Gattuso will have:
The Brothers Donnarumma, Reina, Abate, Antonelli, Bellodi,
Calabria, Musacchio, Rodriguez, Zapata, Brescianini, Calhanoglu, Halilovic,
Kessie, Locatelli, Mauri, Torrasi, Borini, Cutrone, Kalinic, André Silva, Suso,
and Tsadjout. It is unknown as of this writing whether or not Bertolacci and
Bonaventura will be available for this match after suffering minor injuries.
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| Hoping he is like the Little Engine that Could against his old side |
Having lost both of our ICC matches so far, I have no hopes
of a win this time, either. Especially after watching our defense play without
Bonucci. Maybe if Gattuso adds his World Cup returned players, they can make
some difference. Certainly it would be amazing to see Halilovic score and
impress against the side he never got a proper chance with. But most fans will
probably still be dreaming of the upcoming season with our new striker and young center back. And they probably won’t be alone, as Allegri will probably
be thinking of them, too. If not our opponents. But he will have had his hands
full of Juventus’ worst nightmare, Ronaldo’s ex-team, Real Madrid right before
our game anyway. Sorry, Allegri.
This post
inspired by the music of The All-American Rejects’ “Gives You Hell”
Milan vs. Barcelona
Saturday, August 4
• 5:05pm PDT (Sunday, August 5 • 2:05am CEST)
Levi’s Stadium,
Santa Clara, CA, USA
This match will be shown LIVE on ESPN Deportes in the USA