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Our weekly Italian Players Around the World segment is back!!
Inspired by Gazzetta dello Sport, here are the performances of all Italian soccer players operating in foreign European leagues (top divisions only). There are currently 31 Italians playing in first divisions abroad, and 18 of them stepped on the field this week-end.
The table below includes the team of the player, their opponents for this week, the time in minutes they played, their match contribution in goal(s) or assist(s), and the final score of the game.
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Heroes of the week
The first “Heroes of the Week” segment last week took us to Germany and Spain. There’s no doubt that Toni & friends will be a regular destination for us this year, however this week we are going to cross the Channel to little old UK.
Indeed, it didn’t take very long for David Di Michele to make his name heard at Upton Park. West Ham were hosting Newcastle for this one, in Gianfranco Zola’s first appearance on the Hammers’ bench, and not only did “Magic Box” get his first win as new manager of the club, but he really hit jackpot by inserting Di Michele in the starting eleven. The on-loan Torino player was the main man of the night, scoring two beautiful goals (the second one a great example of ice-cold nerves) and providing an assist for Etherington’s third.
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In other news, this was one week-end to quickly forget for Luca Toni and Massimo Oddo. Bayern Munich were hosting Werder Bremen on Saturday, and coach Jürgen Klinsmann suffered the first big defeat in charge of the German giants. By the time our two Italian ex-pats got in an assist for Tim Borowski, Bayern were already down… 0-5. Ouch! Kinda reminds me of the 0-4 UEFA Cup disaster vs. FC Zenit last season.
Finally, the big Italian colony of Bellinzona got plenty of playing time vs. Oerlikon in the Swiss Cup, with Davide Bellotti even getting on the scoreboard in the large 5-1 victory.