Where is Diego Maradona jr.?

Actually, it is very hard tracking him these days.
He was probably injured in the last few months, for sure he did not play the final match Gragnano-Internapoli which gave to the winner the opportunity to play in Serie D.
It is even harder to find something on the Internet or on the press (I am not reading though the newspapers from Naples, so maybe I am missing something).
Anyway, where are you Diego jr?

I am looking forward to try Picasa for Linux

As suggested here, Picasa for Linux is available for downloading. It is a long downloading (20 MB).
I haven't tried yet, but I will do it soon (at 3pm EST time, the link was broken).

Moggi, you should have tried Skype!

When I was child, my grand-father took me for the first time to the San Siro Stadium. It was 1979 and I had the chance to watch one of the last Soccer games during a season when Inter won the Scudetto. The opponents were Inter and Pescara and my favorite team won 2 by 0. Inter's coach was Eugenio Bersellini, who became during his career the Football coach of the Libian national team.
I was in the second grade Elementary School.

At that time, the main argument for discussion with my classmates was about Juventus and its "cheating" style. As background for non Italian reader, the Agnelli family owned not only Fiat, the Italian automaker, but also Juventus (by the way, now Juventus is listed in the Italian stock exchange, but it is still partly owned by Fiat). Once upon the time, there was rumors, many rumors, that referees got cars in exchange for favourable "treatments" during soccer games. Rumors, only rumors.

Wikipedia defines cheating as the act "employed to create an unfair advantage, usually in one's own interest, and often at the expense of others." I was too young to define the meaning of "cheating", Internet was not commonly available. In the last few days, after 25 years, I got an impressive example of what cheating signifies. Juventus, or some Juventus managers have adopted very "unconventional" behaviour to favor their team during the last year season.
A great comment about this story is on the Economist website, where the Magazine talks about (a new) Italian Scandal, now called "The Dirty feet".

The main character of this scandal is by far the General Manager of Juventus Soccer team, Mr. Moggi. Moggi has always been considered one of the most controversial soccer manager of the last twenty years, earning the nickname of "Lucky Luciano". In the past, he was also called Mr. Bat («Paletta») since he has been a stationmaster for 19 years, before moving to the Soccer world.

There are so many people talking about him in the last few days, that it is hard for me to say something different and creative. However, the true key (and funny) question of this story has been suggested during one of the last soccer games: why Mr. Moggi had not tried Skype, see below (Source Antijuve website).
My answer is crystal clear: had Mr. Moggi worked for some technology or Telecom companies in Italy, he would have used Skype, avoided wire-tapping and Juventus supporter would have been happy with their 29th title («Scudetto»).

The last 11 years in Europe...

My soccer team, Inter lost last Thusday in the Champion's league in the quarterfinals with Villareal. I was so disappointed about this result, but my anger changes quickly to bitterness after watching the Inter's European failure video, that a friend of mine puts on the web. It is a small video (1 min. 45 sec., unfortunately spoken in Italian) that has been taken from the Italian Sky news tv. The journalist talks about the 4 soccer players who had the chance to help their teams eliminating the "great Inter" in the last 11 years.

Google Finance and the Italian Market

As indicated by the official Google blog, Google launched this week Google Finance.
I am pretty impressed by the fact that Google was able to use information about companies listed at the Milan Stock Exchange, with plenty of data about them.
This is not so strange since few weeks ago, Google became the official search engine inside Fineco, which is the leading online banking service in Italy.

However, the US version is much more complete with several financial data and graphs, we do not find on the Italian counterpart. Moreover, it is not possible to use the "add portfolio" functionality, since they are not supporting at the moment international stocks.
Hopefully, they will complete the International version soon, even though it is reasonable that we need to wait for 2-3 months.

New Interview for Maradona jr.

I have just heard about a new interview that Diego Armando Maradona jr. has released to the Italian press. As he always said, Diego jr. wants to play for Naples. "My dream is still to wear the Napoli's jersey. However, I don't want to get the number 10, because I am a different person compared to my father. I want to say something about the Maradona 'character'. In football field, he has been great, but outside the pitch he has always been influenced by other guys. By the way, this is something that happens to all drug addicts."

Unfortunately Diego Maradona jr. (see picture taken from the Napoli.com website) haven't play recently, as far as I can see in the Internapoli calcio website. Hopefully, he will come back to the pitch soon.

Joel Retornaz and curling (Forza Joel!)

In the last few days, I have read a great article on the Washington Post about Curling.
Funny enough, my country, Italy, discovered a new discipline with the Winter Olympics. During the competition, Raidue, the Italian TV, usually shows the Italian curling team once a day.
Three weeks ago, nobody could have forecasted this!

Thanks to the Italian most famous curler, Joel Retornaz (by the way, he was indeed born in Switzerland), who has been defined by the WP "a celebrity built in less than a week", almost 5 million people watched the winning game with Canada.
Before the event, there was less than 500 people playing curling in Italy....
By the way, Italy had never before qualified for an Olympic curling tournament; we were at Torino only because Italy was the host country.

Maradona jr is playing for Internapoli

I did not update my blog for a while.

But now, I have great news.
Diego Armando Maradona jr has finally decided: he will play for the Internapoli. Internapoli plays in the 6th Italian division (so called Excellence division). In a recent interview (Kiss Kiss radio Naples), Diego junior said that he wants to demonstrate to perform well in his city. He also mentioned that he loves Naples and Naples soccer team. In the near future he hopes of being able to play in the blue jersey (i.e. for Napoli calcio). He has started training with Internapoli since the beginning of 2006, and he believes he has made the right choice for his soccer career.

Indeed, as mentioned by Carlo Nesti, a famous italian journalist, he has turned down several offers from better teams (for instance, Acireale, in C1 Serie, third division, Lecco, in C2 Serie, fourth division, Angri, in D serie, fifth division.

For a complete background story of Maradona jr, I would recommend you to take a look at Wikipedia.

Totti and the Soccer World Cup

Everybody here in Italy is really upset about the serious injury that could block Francesco Totti, the Italian Soccer star, playing for Italy at the 2006 Soccer World Cup.
The Roma playmaker got a tackle from behind by Richard Vanigli and twisted his ankle during a game with Empoli.

Initial assessments said the player would not see action again for two or three months.
I am positive that our capitan will recover from that injury and he will be ready for the game, but I am really questioning why Italian referees do not punish with harsh punishements (i.e. red cards) these kind of behaviours.