A tale of cigarettes, grappa, time travel and hopefully goals

Season 9 – 2005/06

The Barca squad is pretty stacked, so no major purchases are made at the beginning of the 2005/06 season.  Some of the young guns are moved around between the Senior squad and the B side.  Cherif Rott is a young French lad with skills to burn, however he can’t run for longer than five minutes and a stiff breeze will knock him over, he has load of potential though.

The first game is the now traditional, Super Copa Espanola, the last two seasons this has been against Real Madrid, but this year it is against newly promoted Merida, they beat Atletico 7-1 in the final last year, in part, due to Atletico selling both of their keepers in the January transfer window and having to play with Greys in goal.  Merida are no Madrid and Barca manage to win the only trophy that has eluded Dazza since he joined, he even gets a goal in the second leg.

A tale of cigarettes, grappa, time travel and hopefully goals

Season 8 – 2004/05

Last season’s campaigne ended with Barcelona and Dario achieving the treble, League, Domestic Cup and Champions League.  It was Dazza’s second treble in two years having achieved the same feat with Juve in his final season at the club.  With a potential “Triple Treble” on the cards it’s all to play for in 2004/05 season.

Barcelona make some squad bolstering signings, adding depth with hopefully high potential talent.  The 17 year old Zanchetta being the pick of the bunch, he is related to Paulo Maldini.

Season eight begins the same way as season seven.  A two legged Super Copa Espanola against Real Madrid.  The matches go marginally better that last year (2-3 defeat), it’s a 3-3 draw after two legs, however away goals means the trophy returns to Madrid for another season.

Season 7 – 2003/04

Young Dario decided that Delli P’s advice about a melting candle could mean only one thing, the Sagrada Familia, so he joins Barcelona.  Papa Bison is staying in Italy, he has work to do with Juventus, and he needs to find a way to exert his influence over the struggling national side currently managed by Louis van Gaal.

With a big money move and a new contract comes improved bonuses:

• 8 cigarettes and 5 shots for a team win
• 2 cigarettes and 2 shots per goal
• 5 cigarettes and 3 shots for scoring multiple goals in a match
• 40 cigarettes (2 pack) and 2 bottles of grappa per hat-trick

A tale of cigarettes, grappa, time travel and hopefully goals

Season 5 – 2001/02

Last season ended trophy-less for Juve and Dario, despite a strong individual display by the little Bisonte, scoring 31 goals.  After four seasons he is five goals away from becoming a centurion.

Clearly, Dario was busy during the summer months as he still has some grappa and cigarettes left by mid-August.  With this in mind, he decides to take another month off, to work through the back log.

A tale of cigarettes, grappa, time travel and hopefully goals

Season 4 – 2000/01

The new season begins a little bit backwards, as we cover Mini Dazza’s involvement in the Euros.  He is called up to the squad a gets his first cap in a 2-0 friendly victory over Denmark.  A few days later he makes another friendly appearance, bagging a brace against Saudi Arabia.  Big Dazza tells little Dazza the Saudis won’t always be push over, there is some big money investment coming their way in the future.

A tale of cigarettes, grappa, time travel and hopefully goals

Season 3 – 1998/99

Dario Jnr and Dario Snr have agreed that, based on the fact no other clubs made an approach for the little Bisonte’s services, he will stay at Venezia for the time being.  Unfortunately, Venezia’s managerial team have run the club into the ground and therefore can only afford to recruit from the free transfer market.  Gio Stroppa has a few Italian caps to his name, but the rest are all young lads, with hopefully a bit of potential.

Venezia draw Swiss side FC Sion in the UEFA Cup first round and the season gets off to a fine start for Dario and chums.