Just A Small Town Girl

God, I miss being in Europe. Do you know how difficult it is to be up for kickoff at 9AM? It's unreal.

All apologies to Fiorentina, but I was pretty confident throughout the game that we were going to get the win. We don't lose big games at the San Paolo, even if half the San Paolo isn't there.

Anyway, I knew Blasi couldn't possibly go two regular season games in a row without a yellow, and he didn't disappoint. I'm wondering what he was actually booked for, though. The card was so slow in coming that I'm wondering if he wasn't actually booked for dissent instead of one of his trademark stupid tackles. Edit A couple of the match reports say his booking was for dissent. *headdesk*

Was mostly pleased with the defense, although I think they and the midfield could work on awareness of who's where. I get that Lavezzi rocks all our socks, but it's fairly silly to play long balls to him when you have two teammates to your right wide open with tons of space in front of them... (To be fair, that's not just the backline. The midfield are equally guilty.)

And it looks like I'm going to start with the same old song from last year-it would be good if more of our team could play one touch football. We squandered at least two chances that I saw because of that. Lavezzi can do one touch, but can anyone else?

One last thing. I rarely say this, but I think I like this ref. (I looked it up- Tagliavento.) He didn't stop play for a lot of the stupid antics, wasn't a quick draw on the cards, and while I was annoyed by a call or two, I'm sure the Fiorentina fans were too. We need more like him.

To the guys- WHY DID YOU HAVE TO LOSE TO THOSE TOSSERS? But good season, all told. More than anyone except the Napoli faithful expected from you. 8th place is perfectly respectable. Next season, we're challenging for Europe
*hugs*


To the sporting director and owner: Lots of love. LOTS of love. You've taken us from C1 back to A and done it in style. And we know you intend to take us even higher. Let's see some clever buys in the silly season and a new coach please. (NOT Delio Rossi, thank you. Mazzari would, however, be acceptable.)

To the old men of the Viminal: A hearty fuck off to all of you bastards. You made two teams play to a (nearly?) empty stadium* on the last day of the season. I'm not sure what Lazio did to merit their ban, but apparently our ban wasn't even our fault. Banning us cause of the romanisti? For fucking real? Get stuffed.

*There is some confusion on this point. C4 reports an empty stadium, but the Osservatorio's official ruling says Lazio season ticket holders were to be allowed. Or aren't there any of those?

Ok, I take back my previous statement. Sort of. Flickr will let me upload if I do one picture at a time. Who doesn't have patience for this? If you guessed me, you're absolutely right. I slept poorly last night, thanks to my paranoia that I'd oversleep my alarm, miss my train back from Napoli, and thus my ride to work-I woke up every hour on the hour as my subconscious did its level best to make sure that didn't happen. Given that my alarm was actually set for 5:40, I didn't go to bed until after midnight, and all the waking...yeah, I'm beat. So I promise to find some way to upload more tomorrow morning from work, by email if necessary. I'll have plenty of time, seeing as my ride has to be there at the ungodly hour of 7:45am. On the bright side, I'll still get to sleep later than I did this morning.

First, yes, I am biased. I make no bones about it. I am further surrounded by a whole horde of biased people, seeing as I am within sight of Vesuvio. Some of those biased people were at the game Saturday night. I have only seen highlights. I am willing to concede it was not good refereeing. I even have said that I am puzzled mightily by the card for Buffon and the penalty kick awarded.

However.

Any other team in Italy whining about how bad the mean ol' referee was to them would NOT get this kind of reaction. The ref is suspended. The player involved in the above-mentioned incident with Buffon is suspended. And Juve whine on. Claudio Ranieri? I adore you, despite you now coaching Juve, but please, have a steaming hot cup of STFU. "Treated like the others?" Anyone else would have had to deal with the crap decisions and move on. Further, you are NOT just a "newly promoted side". Bullshit. If you're just a newly promoted side, why did you get seeded in the schedule draw? And I notice your schedule worked out a lot nicer than Napoli or Genoa's.

edit Just wanted to add this video. Obviously the person who posted it is a Juve fan. It is illuminating, but not in the way he thought, and just confirms my thought on seeing the incident for the first time-Zalayeta jumped to avoid a collision, but there was no grounds for a penalty. If I were the ref*, I wouldn't have done anything. Play on.



*Where by "if I were the ref" I mean if I were the ref and had a good view of the incident. Looking at the replay again, I think the ref was probably at just about the worst angle possible to judge what happened.

Shorter Luciano Moggi: It's all Inter's fault, the dirty cheats. They would never have gotten Ibra and Viera if we hadn't been demoted. Also, they didn't get caught because they own the phone company.

Hey, Luce? Here's an idea. You might not want to be dragging all this into the press the week of the draw a large number of people are grumbling came off awfully well for Juve. And before any Juventini start slagging me off, it's true. Look at the schedule broken down by team. I have. (I can even give you an Excel file if you want.) There's only a couple teams that came up with a draw as nice as Juve's. Inter is not one of them.

WHY is Caracciolo starting? The useless whining beanpole
*headdesk*
This does not fill me with confidence.

( The first half. )

2-0 at halftime!!

Other halftime scores:
Fiorentina 1-0 against Messina , Empoli spanking Reggina 3-0. Atalanta are up 1-0 at halftime, but they're playing Inter, so I'm optimistic that scoreline will change by the end of the game.

( Second half here when it starts. )

Final score: 2-1, Palermo!!
Other finals: Empoli-Reggina 3-3, Fiorentina-Messina 2-2, Atalanta-Inter 1-1!

We've all heard the old saw about how if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. Inter won the Scudetto today. I was going for the don't say anything option, until I heard what a certain Swede with an over-inflated ego had to say. I like Figo, and I like Materazzi, I think Zanetti is totally adorable, and were it not for said Swede, I would probably not mind Inter winning at all.
But he HAD to open his mouth, and now I have to say, can we all smack Ibra?

Roma 4 - Sampdoria 0.
And like others in the section I was sitting in, I really thought up until the final whistle that it could yet be 5-0.
Awesome.
Awesome.
Awesome.

(Only exception to the awesome: the toilets, which are grotty beyond belief. Squat toilets, no tp, and a trough with faucets for washing your hands.)

Wierdness: You aren't allowed to take bottlecaps into the stadium. Plastic bottles are a-ok, as long as you throw the cap away at the entrance.

I'll probably write more about my day later, but I am going to take a shower now and assess the sunburn before I head off to dinner. (Got a hat, but no sunblock. My face feels ok, but my arms/chest above my tank top are definitely pink. Hopefully not bad enough to bother me tomorrow.)

Before anyone asks, yes I took pictures.

the game has not even started yet and i'm already concerned and annoyed. WHY is caracciolo starting??
( 1st half )
( 2nd half )
GAME. FINAL SCORE: 0-0

*sigh*

zaccardo has been sent off.

BUT OMG!!! AS I WROTE TAHT, CAVANI SCORED!!!!!!!!!!!