Football Season Guide

Orphans of coach Guidolin, who had opted for quitting after a rather anonymous campaign, in the past season Udinese tried making it back to the top 10 of the Serie A with Stramaccioni, whose previous experience at Inter had been quite disappointing. Despite an extremely positive start, Udinese never managed to get out of the limbo, in between a place in the sun and a place in hell. For such reason, the management decided to part ways from the coach and they hired Colantuono instead. The latter was fired from Atalanta just a few months earlier after an extremely positive stint. Usually, every summer, Udinese supporters have to wonder which of their heroes will end up being sold by the management and which new youngsters will become protagonists instead. If possible, this transfer campaign has not been a particularly remarkable this far. In fact, only one major player left so far. Allan, following his extraordinary past campaign, ended up being sold to Napoli. Moreover, wunderkind Scuffet, who had no chances of playing with Karnezis confirmed in goals, was loaned out to Como while Gabriel Silva left for Carpi, hoping to have a better season than the last one when he hardly ever saw the pitch. In terms of signing, Duvan Zapata made the way from Napoli to Stadium Friuli as part of the Allan’s deal. He could be a fundamental addition to an attack which is still relying on never-ending Di Natale, possibly at his last season. Other than that, Adnan could represent a happy surprise for the left flank while Edenilson earned himself a call back to Udinese following a positive season with Genoa. Coach Colantuono could opt for a 3-5-2 or a 4-4-1-1 formation, as his predecessors. Heurtaux, Danilo and Piris should be forming the back three with Wague and Domizzi as their replacements. Widmer and Edenilson, Adnan and Pasquale should be acting on the flanks of the midfield (or as full-backs in case of a back 4) while Pinzi, Guilherme, Kone, Badu, Bruno Fernandes and Iturra should all be rotating in the middle of the park. Di Natale, Zapata and Thereau should be the protagonists in the forward two with the captain likely to be given always more rest in between games as a starter. Udinese are still trying to complete the squad as they still seem to be lacking some depth especially in defence.