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All James Horncastle posts on WhoScored.com Articles RSS

Team Focus: Mazzarri's Plan Coming Together at Inter

by James Horncastle at Wednesday, Sep 11 2013 12:17
Team Focus: Mazzarri's Plan Coming Together at Inter Contemptuous of journalists at the best of times and never one to suffer fools gladly, Esteban Cambiasso shook his head on reading that Inter’s players were apparently telling each other they hadn’t worked this hard in pre-season since the days of Héctor Cúper.“Only [...
Categories: Team Focus

Team Focus: Encouraging Start to Benítez Era at Napoli

by James Horncastle at Thursday, Sep 5 2013 12:34
Team Focus: Encouraging Start to Benítez Era at Napoli Resisting the temptations on offer in Naples’ restaurants is, by Rafa Benitez’s own admission, “torture.” “I have already received 100s of invitations to try the pasta and pizza [here], but I don’t know how [I’ll be able to accept them all],” he told L...
Categories: Team Focus

Player Focus: Juan Cuadrado - The €50m Man?

by James Horncastle at Thursday, Aug 29 2013 15:27
Player Focus: Juan Cuadrado - The €50m Man? When driving in Italy, you spend more time looking in your wing and rear-view mirrors than in most other countries. Mopeds zip in and out between cars stuck in traffic jams and it was presumably while sitting in one on his way to training last season that the then Fiorentina striker Luca Toni was re...
Categories: Player Focus

Player Focus: Kevin Strootman is the Right Man for Roma

by James Horncastle at Tuesday, Aug 13 2013 11:56
Player Focus: Kevin Strootman is the Right Man for Roma As Kevin Strootman came through arrivals at Fiumicino airport, he found 300 Roma supporters waiting for him. “In Holland, we’re not used to welcomes like that,” he told Il Corriere dello Sport. “I’ve never seen so many people for one player.”At the time, Strootman...
Categories: Player Focus

Player Focus: Quintero - Serie A's Loss is Porto's Gain

by James Horncastle at Tuesday, Aug 6 2013 11:27
Player Focus: Quintero - Serie A's Loss is Porto's Gain When Porto sold James Rodriguez to Monaco for €45m in May, fans of the Dragões needn’t have worried. Knowing the club’s general manager, Antero Henrique, they were presumably confident that his network of some 250 scouts around the world would have identified a replacement.Af...
Categories: Player Focus

Team Focus: How Napoli Are Replacing Edinson Cavani

by James Horncastle at Thursday, Jul 25 2013 15:30
Team Focus: How Napoli Are Replacing Edinson Cavani No club wants to lose its best player. And yet there were times during this summer when Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis gave the impression that he was enjoying the prospect of losing Edinson Cavani.Why? Because, whatever happened, he felt confident he’d be a winner. If Cavani stayed at...
Categories: Team Focus

Player Focus: The Free-Kick Masters in Europe's Top 5 Leagues

by James Horncastle at Friday, Jul 12 2013 12:50
Player Focus: The Free-Kick Masters in Europe's Top 5 Leagues Nearly a fortnight after the Confederations Cup, memories of the competition remain fresh. One relates to the official match ball, the Cafusa, Top Replique. Conspicuous by their absence were complaints about it. Ironically for a tournament with the Copacabana and Ipanema as its backdrops, no one moa...
Categories: Player Focus

Player Focus: Can Belfodil Emulate his Former Inter Icons?

by James Horncastle at Thursday, Jul 11 2013 11:46
Player Focus: Can Belfodil Emulate his Former Inter Icons? When Ishak Belfodil moved to Italy 18 months ago, fans joked about his surname. “Belfodil?” they asked. “Who or what is that? It sounds like an antibiotic.” Signed by Inter last week, you could say that after finishing ninth in Serie A last season and not qualifying for any E...
Categories: Player Focus

Player Focus: De Rossi Back to his Best in the Confederations Cup

by James Horncastle at Friday, Jun 28 2013 15:45
Player Focus: De Rossi Back to his Best in the Confederations Cup Thursday night in Fortaleza was bittersweet for Daniele De Rossi. By firing a spot-kick beyond Iker Casillas in a shootout, he achieved a measure of closure. Remember he was one of the players who missed when Italy’s Euro 2008 quarter-final against Spain went to penalties. Never one to hide, D...
Categories: Player Focus

Team Focus: Italy's Leaky Defence

by James Horncastle at Tuesday, Jun 25 2013 12:04
Team Focus: Italy's Leaky Defence Cesare Prandelli knew that days like this would come, days when there’d be nostalgia for the past, for what Italy were and not what they’ve become. Reading the country’s papers after Sunday’s 4-2 defeat to Brazil at the Arena Fonte Nova in Salvador, a wistfulness was discerni...
Categories: Team Focus