Da DATE a data italiana estesa

[albertobs88]

Ciao a tutti
sto cercando di convertire un campo DATE (AAAA-MM-GG) in una data "umana" (Giorno GG Mese AAAA)

Ho provato con questa funzione ma qualcosa non funziona.

function return_day_of_week($date)
    {
        $sy=substr($date, 0, 4);
        $sm=substr($date, 5, 2);
        $sd=substr($date, 8, 2);
        $date_utc=mktime(0,0,0,$sm, $sd, $sy);
        $today_utc=mktime(0,0,0,date("m"), date("d"), date("Y"));
        if($date_utc>$today_utc){
            $future_date=1;
            $temp=$date_utc;
            $date_utc=$today_utc;
            $today_utc=$temp;
        }
        $utc_difference=$today_utc-$date_utc;
        $weeks_count=($utc_difference)/604800;
        if($weeks_count<10)
            $weeks_count=substr($weeks_count, 0, 1);
        else if($weeks_count<100)
            $weeks_count=substr($weeks_count, 0, 2);
        else if($weeks_count<1000)
            $weeks_count=substr($weeks_count, 0, 3);
        $days_rest_count=substr(($utc_difference-$weeks_count*604800)/86400, 0, 1);
        $was_day_of_week=date("w")-$days_rest_count;
        if($was_day_of_week < 0){
            if($future_date==1)
                $was_day_of_week=0-$was_day_of_week;
            else
                $was_day_of_week+=7;
        }
        return $was_day_of_week;
    } 

Dove sbaglio? :S