Football Season Guide

After 3 extraordinary seasons, during which they established themselves as one of the main Italian clubs, in the past campaign Udinese faced some troubles, having to content themselves with a mere safety. Such a disappointing result led to some major changes. First of all, coach Guidolin decided to quit, getting himself a supervision job: he was replaced at the helm of the team by young Stramaccioni, whose experience with Inter was amazingly bad. Then, the management re-started their selling policy, which had been partially interrupted just in the past summer transfer campaign, and let go two regulars such as Basta, who was coming off his worst season with the club, and Pereyra to Lazio and Juventus respectively. Moreover, Lazzari and Maicosuel also left, having failed to gain themselves a re-confirmation. As usual, a whole group of new players arrived. Not just the usual unknown and promising youths, though. In fact, this time around Udinese invested also in some experience, acquiring players like Thereau from Chievo Verona for the attack, Kone from Bologna for the midfield and Belmonte for the defence. Stramaccioni could opt for a 4-3-1-2 formation rather than the 3-5-1-1 system of play that was Guidolin’s trademark for a good part of the past years. Despite the offers received from abroad, wunderkind Scuffet will still be defending the goal with Widmer and Gabriel Silva as the full-backs and Heurtaux, Danilo and Domizzi contending for a place as centre-backs, with Belmonte as an alternative. In the midfield, Pinzi, Allan and Badu will also be joined by Guilherme from Corinthians. During the preseason a lack of creativity and of a play-maker was evident. For such reason, Kone was added but he might not be exactly what needed. In the attack, Udinese are still waiting for Muriel’s definitive explosion, hoping at the very same time that ever-lasting Di Natale will keep on scoring with the usual ease despite his 37 years. Former Chievo Verona Thereau should provide a valid alternative but he might not be enough in case the regular scoring duo were not in form.