I can claim no special insight into the mysterious world of Italian refereeing, and my comments should probably be taken with the entire contents of the salt pans of Cervia, but for what it is worth, it seems to me that the group behind Messrs Orsato, Massa and Guida (that is Di Bello, Mariani, Maresca, Pairetto and others) are essentially treading water, and it wouldn't surprise me if one or more of them followed the example of Massimiliano Irrati and Michael Fabbri and reinvented themselves as full-tine VMOs. Incidentally, I thought that Marco Guida was heading in that direction, but his career seems to have taken on a new lease of life.
I suspect that one of the reasons for the decision to revert to a single list for Serie A and B was that the split make it more or less impossible for referees to reach the FIFA list at an age that would allow them to make the elite category (H.M. Webb please note). It may be no coincidence that I would expect the next high flyers to the two who most recently joined the FIFA list, namely Simone Sozza and Andrea Colombo. As for who might make the FIFA list in the near future, that is total guesswork, but to judge by this season's appointments, likely candidates might be Matteo Marcenaro, Matteo Marchetti and Ermanno Feliciani, while it looks as if Maria Sole Ferrieri Caputi is intended to follow in the footsteps of St้phanie Frappert. But I read somewhere that there is a tense political atmosphere within the AIA (the refereeing section of the Italian F.A.), and the situation may change totally after elections later this year..