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With two losses, one draw and two wins in their pre-season, Parma are looking ready for their Serie B debut under the new club name Parma Calcio 1913. Cannavaro scheduled some big games against Monaco, Marseille and Nice and even though those 3 games were their worst results all pre-season, they still impressed with their performances and did really well against the likes of Sampdoria and Chievo Verona as a result. With 2 wins in the TIM Cup qualifying rounds as well, Parma now find themselves in the last qualifying round before getting into the proper stages of the competition, which should be good news for Parma fans too. Parma's new signings also performed pretty well during the pre-season as Cannavaro broke the club's transfer record TWICE during the transfer window;
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Those two signings were the only signings that actually cost Parma money and with 185 000 euros spent despite the debt that Parma already have, Viotti and De Cenco look like the kind of players who could really help Parma firstly sell some shirts but also get a lot of points which could be crucial in a season that will definitely be a very tough one for Parma.
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Predicted to finish 21st and therefore getting relegated back to the 3rd tier of Italian football, Cannavaro is going to need to do REALLY well if he wants to get his side in promotion spots and try to get back in the Serie A at the end of this season. However, although we trust the media in terms of prediction, Leicester won the Premier League two years ago with similar odds so we don't see why Parma can't upset everyone and maybe win the Serie B! Slight problem though, injuries:
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Canini was one of the best players for Parma last season and he's already gotten injured which isn't good news for Cannavaro and his side, who will have to just cope with his absence for at least the first league match of the season. Manuel Marras is a new player with the team and got injured early on in the pre-season and managed to come back for their last pre-season match and score the goal that would get Parma a draw against Nice. He's now back with the team obviously but some fans are a bit worried that he could be quite injury prone; considering the club got him on a free though, I don't think it's such a problem if he doesn't do so well in his first season. Speaking of players who signed on free transfers:
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All three of these players came in mostly as backups but also to make up for the couple of players who left on free transfers following their contract expiries. Alessandro Bruno is one of the better midfielders at Parma purely due to his experience but Parma fans should be quite excited about his role at the club this season and see how well he does. Marras and Marchi are a bit younger but once again are coming in as backups for the likes of Jallow and Scavone in case of injuries, which have been very common at the club since the start of last season.
With Parma's opening league game against former Serie A side Empoli in about a week, Cannavaro has been talking about the training regime at the club and how he thinks they'll do against such a big side:
We had a great pre-season overall considering we faced up against some Ligue 1 sides who do well in their division usually so it's been quite positive in the dressing room so far and we've done well in the TIM Cup too so we're going into this game feeling quite confident but not to the point where we think we'll definitely win the game. Empoli are a strong side and we're definitely going to have to work hard on the pitch on the day to get the 3 points, which would be massive for our first game in the Serie B. In training we've already been working really hard and making sure that we work on areas we didn't really do so well in last season but also just on general aspects of the game, because for all we know we had a best defence last year but this year we're going to have one of the best defences in the league. We just can't know any of that yet without having played a game so we're just focusing on the basics and making sure we get those right before practicing more specific things.
Cannavaro does seem quite confident and it looks like he and his lads are definitely ready for this upcoming season and the big test that will be this Empoli game so until then we'd like to thank you for reading and we'll see you again when Parma have faced Empoli on the 26th of August 2017!