Foggia Playing it Cool

By: Jeremy | June 13th, 2008

Give Cagliari stud Pasquale Foggia credit. He spent last year in Sardinia dealing with as many ups and downs as a player can face as he started the year with a new club where expectations were immediate after his great start. With a call up to the Azzurri and his slowly realizing that everyone saw him as the teams best player, combined with multiple coaching changes and a bad first half, topped off with insults from his own home fans, you would think he could not wait to get out of here and back to Lazio or anywhere else for that matter.

Instead Foggia is talking like he would be fine with another year in Sardinia. Dont read too much into it as he clearly wants his freedom from Cagliari. Instead of talking tough, demanding a transfer, or just making things difficult, he is going to let things play out. He recently mentioned that he would be happy to return to Lazio or stay in Cagliari and would do his best for either club. The two teams co own him and he is in a similar situation to Acquafresca sp his future is uncertain. These are Cagliaris two best players and fortunately we lucked into them and although they were still developing at this time last year so we were happy to take on a co ownership deal with other clubs not totally sure how much they would contribute in 07-08. The end result was these guys were two of our better players and contributed at different points to our survival and now we stand to lose both of them.

Where we might not be able to outbid Inter for Acquafresca, we might lay down the cash and try and own Foggia outright. Foggia knows this and wants to facillitate a deal where he becomes free of Cagliari. Because small clubs are typically year to year operations from players up to the gaffer, Cagliari is very likely to make a deal to give up ownership of him completely for one more year of rental if we can get it. Expect Lazio to buy him outright and loan him back to Cagliari for another year as part of the deal. Lazio gets another year to organize and will be ready to move up in 09-10 when Foggia stepss up as a fully owned player. Cagliari gets a great player for one more year of what will hopefully be survival. While Foggia would prefer Napoli, hed rather end up long term in Lazio then risk Cagliari owning him.

Foggia had an up and down year in Sardinia but he sees some talent and will wait it out one more year. He knows he will get first team football and if he plays well again, might get a chance to shine for the national team. Any Cagliari fan knows he has a bigger club on his mind or wants to get back to Napoli, but first he must get away from Cagliari so he needs to be prepared to make a deal. He is handling things correctly and this will be to his benefit in the long run for his career goals. As a fan of a small club, if we can make a deal to get him if just for another year, then I will be happy because say what you want, he is a difference maker and will someday be a huge midfield asset for a big club.

One year at a time for us but glad to see Foggia handling things the right way, even if his motives are clear.