Opportunity Knocks-Cellino Ignores it and other Transfer News

By: Jeremy | June 26th, 2008

Cagliari had a full ownership purchase option from Lazio on Pasquale Foggia for 3.5 to 4.5 million after he spent last year on loan from Lazio. The Lazio owner couldnt decide if he wanted him back and Cellino was trying to make him happy. After coming out a couple of days ago saying Foggia would play for Cagliari this year, guaranteed, he is now headed back to Lazio as Cagliari declined their option to purchase him.

Lies from Cellino aside, he had an opportunity to purchase an up and coming young player for a bargain price in my opinion. If you purchase him and Cagliari is a much improved team next year, his price goes up and you can make your money back. If not hang onto him as he still has time to get better, but most importantly he is an asset for the club. I know Cagliari wasnt Foggias favorite place to play and he wants to move on, but letting him go will not only hurt us next year, but it will prove to be a bad decision not to purchase this guy. Like his fragility or not, he is an up and coming young player we should have kept.

Speaking of up and coming, we will definitely see Robert Acquafresca in a Cagliari uniform next year. That is good news as he is one of the up and coming talents in world football. With him still needing another year to establish stardom, other big clubs that had an interest were only lukewarm in their overtures but most importantly Inter wanted to own him in full and they made the right decision to buy him and loan him to Cagliari. Inter buys Cagliaris half for 5 million, eliminates the risk of an open bid on him where they would have likely had to pay more to assure they would outbid Cagliari to get him. If a deal is not made and he goes to open auction, crazy man Cellino might bid a ton and end up with full ownership. While unlikely, Inter would not risk it. Instead Cagliari lets him go, gets some cash that can be used on other players(hey Foggia was available), and we get to have him play for us for one more year and he will no doubt and contribute next year. No one knows the future, but in the game that is finances and purchasing players we were never going to own Acquafresca, and getting another year of him and some cash is the best a small club like Cagliari can hope for. The fact his 50% ownership was a key part of the Suazo deal shows someone was doing their homework for Cagliari. I think it was Giampaolo but he is now in Siena.

Another tidbit is Cagliari favorite Mauro Espositio. We sold half his rights to Roma last year for 2 million and he didnt get to play much. With him having no desire to return to Cagliari and Cellino not going to force him back with a high bid, we let him go for basically half ownership in young defender Magliochetti. I am sure there was some money involved as well but very little I would gues. The end result is Cagliari is now done with Espositio, who performed admirably for years, and gets another year to see a young player develop in Maggliochetti were his performance will determine how much we make off him next year at this time if he is worthy of a big club.

Lastly, what I feel is the most important part of the team seems to be taking a back seat to our actions in other areas. Officially Marco Storari has returned to Milan now that his loan deal is over. He is not a Cagliari player. I think Milan is still deciding whether they want to give this guy such a high profile job, but they would be smart to do so. They can spend their money elsewhere. Unless they are blind, they should know what kind of keeper they have and what he did to save Cagliari from relegation. Simply put, his return to Cagliari or his replacement being of similar talent is the most important decision in terms of where Cagliari will finish next year. Even if Milan decides he isnt ready for their number one, there are bigger clubs they can sell him or loan him to that would pay more then Cagliari. If Cellino wont buy Foggia for a bargain price, he wont make the investment in Storari. Bad move Massimo.

If you have any doubt that Storari wont return to us next year, the signing of AlbinoLeffe goalie Federico Marchetti should eliminate it. We now own him and it is expected he will replace Storari. He lead the Serie B club to a fourth place finish in Serie B, which is nothing to sneeze at, says all the right things, and at 25, may well be an up and coming goalie. We own him outright now so maybe he can help, but next year he is not as good as Storari would have been so it is a downgrade. He will need to establish respect from his teammates quickly or games that we won last year will be losses. A stud goalie is the most important position on the field for a young club with few star type players. Im not sure what was done to keep Storari, but it may be that it was out of our hands.

I am sure there will be more transfers in and there is a lot of young talent on this team. Letting a 25 yr old Foggia leave for the small price he commanded was foolish but getting another year of Acquafresca is a bonus and makes the Foggia loss all the more not understandable. Cagliari clearly is a place where young players are given a chance to develop before they become stars or Serie B cast offs, but at some point money has to be spent because you cannot keep dodging relegation and the fans deserve a mid table club.

At this point in the transfer season we are looking at mixed results. Lets see who else arrives and where this money Cellino is sitting on gets spent. Until then, I cant help but have a bittersweet taste in my mouth about the last few days developments thinking about what could have been.