Champion Requiem

Yesterday Flora Viola, wife of Dino and following his death herself president for a brief time, passed away.

Here she receives the trophy for Roma's Coppa Italia win in 1991, marking the end of her family's time in Roma.

His Life is a Perfect 10

Posted for the sole purpose of Totti wearing some sort of monstrosity get-up that made me think of goalkeepers from the 1980's (shades of Cervone!), and that being quirky and adorable. You're welcome.

Pagelle

Julio Sergio Bertagnoli: 7 - I don't want to go out on a limb, or act all crazy like here, but doesn't Bertagnoli inspire the most confidence out of all the 17 goalkeepers Roma have tried this season? I'm not overly concerned with Doni; I think he's a good goalkeeper, if prone to sleepwalking now and again, and I am perfectly sympathetic to the time it takes to get back into the groove after being out for six months. But in the mean time, I'm more than fine with Bertagnoli filling in. Never put to much of a test tonight, but there's something to say for students who master the art of coasting too. Although there was one amazing save on a close range shot by Milito. So: there's something to say for students who can coast, but also ace a test at any given time.

Riise, Andreolli: 7; Mexès 7.5 - Andreolli and Mexès were very, very good tonight, playing just as well as we hoped Andreolli could, and knew Mexès could. Riise was good as well, and focused much more on tightening the defense than Motta did on the right wing. With Maicon the human express train waiting to come at you, there's little wonder. But he kept everyone at bay, and made some terrific interventions.

Motta: 7 - Tired fast as the game approached 80 minutes, but assisted the goal for Vucinic by a good cross, and was active throughout the game in establishing an offensive option down the right wing. He gave away more than a few balls needlessly though, which could have been, but weren't, costly.

Perrotta, Brighi: 6 - Silent, but hard working and effective in shutting down spaces and passing angles. Inter's midfield didn't run into an invisible wall, or magically fail to find passing options in Roma's half. Brighi's showing steady progress towards the Brighi of last year (I loved that guy).

DDR: no vote - played well for as long as he was there, which of course wasn't as long as he should have been. He was taken to the hospital right after the elbow to the head, and according to sources heard on tv, he has a fractured cheek bone. He'll be operated on first thing tomorrow morning in Rome. Daje Danielì daje...

Pizarro: 6,5 - Grew with the game, and during the final half hour or so he was vital for Roma in keeping and passing the ball. The oil to Roma's motor.

Faty: 5 - awkward silence...oh yeah, he almost scored at the end. If he hadn't...slipped...never mind.

Ménez: 8 - My man.

Vucinic: 7 - This includes him being stripped of half a point for eating that goal in the beginning, when all alone (or so he thought) with JC, as well as getting a full point added on for the sheer degree of difficulty in making that goal.

Okaka: 6,5 - Was isolated for stretches at the end, but his athleticism kept Inter occupied enough not to mount a full out assault. That move just as he'd come on, where he went past three interisti in the middle of the pitch on that counter is the stuff of nightmares for Julio Baptista.


Ranieri: 8 - Both for making a honorable point in the game, and for making one in the discourse after the game, where he didn't bow his head in reverence but was honest in assessing the game. Quotes in selection below:


-De Rossi needs surgery thanks to Vieira who always jumps into challenges with his elbows out. In England he'd be sent off.
-If our first counter attack had gone better, Mourinho would be somewhere crying right now.
-I'm surprised [really?] to see Mourinho complain about the referee - Inter committed twice as many fouls as Roma did!
-He [Mourinho] says I'm 70 years old, that I've only one won little cup. That's a part of the game, but: I have won four cups, not one. One of those I won when he was the assistant manager at Barcelona, and perhaps he's forgotten the time I scored 12 goals past them in three games with Valencia.

The Honorable Point

Roma continues to be predictably unpredictable. Taking home 4 points out of 15 possible the last couple of weeks, and then going to the home of the dominant team in the league and being closer to victory is vintage Roma. When you least expect a fuck up; expect it. When things are bleak and you least expect a heroic performance against superior opposition; expect something heroic to go down.

Tonight's 1-1 with Inter is the very definition of an honorable draw. The game was conditioned by the injury list (as always only just a few pages shorter than the phone book of Rome); by the constant fouling of Inter (which added to the aforementioned injury list); by the referee who allowed said constant fouling to take place (26 fouls committed by Inter; 11 by Roma). Yet Roma was closer to the win by the time it was over, and after falling back into hold habits right after the break and allowing Inter to pull level, they shut the place down. Not so much as a chance was created by Inter for the rest of the game, while Roma paradoxically became more comfortable as the game progressed, and was both more willing and effective than Inter in going for a second goal.

Ménez continues to confirm himself as a player of great talent; every week he seems to add more things, or maybe it's merely him becoming more integrated within the system and looking even more dangerous in the process. His shot is still a bit hit and miss (at any given time, it feels like 50/50 if he'll get off a high powerful shot, or a shot bouncing harmlessly towards the goalkeeper), but his dribbling keeps many a defender occupied. He's become more consistent in hitting the through ball in those occasions, and don't dribble 9 times out of 10 any longer, making him harder to read and a terror to defenders from Bergamo to Catania, and everywhere in between. Pulling him at the end for Tonetto wasn't necessarily a brave choice by Ranieri, but the result and point proves him right. (Ménez was also completely spent at that point, the only grief to be had is over the choice of Tonetto) Also, it's impossible to talk about the game and ignore the pink elephant with scrappy beard: on the one hand, Vucinic missed a must-be goal. On the other hand, he scored a very good goal when you couldn't even really expect him to touch the ball. Maybe that evens itself out, and makes it a push. He was more or less invisible for the rest of the game however, so the reasonable thing to do is not to go over board in praise, but still take solace in him scoring again. Repeat, repeat, repeat; hopefully it sticks soon.

During the summer I had a on-and-even-more-on running problem with Andreolli. His agent was running to the media every other day, saying Andreolli wanted out in order to play. My irritation stemmed from what I thought was a weak mentality. Being a back-up on paper in Roma means so little with all these injuries that he'd end up getting significant playing time in the end anyway. This game, tonight, was what I had in mind. He hardly took a step wrong in 90 minutes, and together with Mexès he dominated the play in front of Roma's goal, especially that of the air borne variety. As Andreolli showed tonight, he has the talent; all he needs to truly make good on the promise is the mentality to match it. If he uses this as a stepping stone he'll have earned a place in Roma's line up, or at least in heavy contention for one, by the end of the year. And that demands far more respect than taking the easier road by being a confirmed starter for a provincial team fighting off relegation (Lazio?).

This game is a bit like the same fixture last year. Then, too, Roma was of course knee deep in trouble but still came out of the night closer to the win than their richer, more famous, better assisted opponents. The aftermath of that game inspired the mad genius of Mourinho, who in a press conference went on a confusing, possibly medieval, tirade and professed his distaste for "intellectual prostitution". Fast forward some seven months to the day we call today, and witness Mourinho in his post game comments complaining about Inter being treated unfairly by the referee. I repeat: 26 fouls for Inter; 11 for Roma. Three yellow cards for Inter; two for Roma. I may indeed have lost count, but I recall vividly at least four bookable offenses each for Muntari, Motta, Stankovic, and two or three for Vieira; yet 11 Inter players were on the pitch at the 94th minute.

I'm probably intellectually prostituted for failing to see the obvious, which Mourinho sees.

Lo stile CAN

THEY CHEATED!

As La Repubblica writes, the metal balls (or spheres to use the refereeing lingo, which isn't as fun as saying metal balls) used in the draw to assign referees to games in serie A were tainted, tampered with, allowing referees to be hand picked for certain games (read: for certain teams, ahem ahem).

HOW DID THEY PULL OF THIS GRAND SCHEME?

Er...I guess by not replacing the balls for years and years, leading to dents and discolorations in the balls, which made them recognizable.

SOUNDS MUNDANE

It kind of is. Years after Calciopoli, the level of sensational events have dropped considerably. We used to have referees locked in and kidnapped.

SORT OF, ANYWAY

And now we have discolored and dented metal balls? Snooze fest.

BECAUSE

To garner attention or interest in the goings on pertaining to one particular season (2004/05), meaning not even all of what happened - it's like arresting Provenzano for stealing the paper he wrote his notes on as opposed to the actual crimes he committed - you need something spectacular. The question is:

DIDN'T WE ALREADY KNOW THIS?

Everyone but the most ardent and stubborn juventini have accepted that things weren't handled squeaky-clean in the league, and that any questions surrounding the collection of evidence is more than balanced out by the incriminating actual evidence. So we knew - more or less - that they cheated, we know why. We knew that even before Calciopoli, on some level.

SO

The only thing I could think of as I read the confession of Manfredi Martino, the secretary of CAN (National Commission of the Referees), was along the lines of

OH, SO THAT'S HOW THEY DID IT.


MEH.

Lo stile Juve

A few weeks ago Juventus president Cobolli-Gigli's three year era in charge of the club ended. He was hired immediately after the dastardly trio was slightly inconvenienced by Calciopoli. While he's not the president as of the past two weeks or so, he's still tightly linked to the very image of Juventus and whether he or they like it or not; he still represents them. But, uh-oh:

Ibrahimovic, the likable gypsy. He who quit. He's shown to be a gypsy following that as well, but I underline the 'likable'.

Just not cool. Cobolli-Gigli is perfectly in order to have a bone to pick with Ibrahimovic, over his leaving Juventus for Inter in the midst of the chaotic summer of 2006. That's fine - that taps into the rivalry normal fans feel so hard, indeed even cherish it. But saying stuff like this is not acceptable. Firstly, he's not a gypsy, and using the word to describe him is clearly done because Cobolli-Gigli thinks of it as an insult. Secondly, by stooping to the lowest levels of fandom, by appealing to that lowest common denominator that is racism, he can no more be considered an authority on the issue of fans and ultras, nor even a person whose opinion is worth anything. Kettle, pot, black: taken to the next level.

Finally, Cobolli-Gigli can not be allowed to moralize over Ibrahimovic's career choices, scorning him for leaving Juventus in what was admittedly a period of hardship for the club. Why? Because as president this summer he personally signed off on bringing back Fabio Cannavaro, another player who "fled" the club in 2006. You either paint everyone who chose to leave with the brush, or you don't do it at all and shut up. The latter approach would have been preferable.

Time Heals All Wounds: a Story Told in Pictures

Looks like Pizarro's getting over the loss of Spalletti.

 

 

 

So What Do We Call This? (Roma 2-1 Bologna)

The good stuff:
Roma beat Bologna 2-1. Not having won in precisely four weeks (against Napoli on October 4th), three points are as welcome as they are needed. Vucinic had a good first half, and was now at the very least back to being the shadow of his former self; a clear improvement over the last weeks' showings.

Also: Ménez.

The bad stuff: 

Roma beat Bologna 2-1. The guests are by far and away the worst team I've seen so far in serie A this season, so to win by the narrowest of margins is super unimpressive. Don't get me wrong: Bologna never did much of anything in the game, and Roma were clearly the best least bad team in the game. But after Perrotta scored the goal for 2-1, Roma took a pedestrian approach to the game and it soon became wholly uninteresting. Besides the aesthetics, that worried me because all that's needed for another disaster is one misjudged clearance; one unlucky bounce of the ball; one substitution of Adrian Pit; etcetera.

Well Considered Measures on the Role of the Fan in Supporting a Team in Need

Or, you know, the complete opposite: Roma's bus, upon arrival at Stadio Olimpico, pelted by stones thrown by what we can assume are irate and terribly, terribly confused fans and professional stronzi.

Kick off against Bologna in 20, Roma has a line-up that could look a lot worse than it does, considering the absentees. 4-4-2: Doni; Motta, Mexès, Juan, Riise; Guberti, Brighi, Pizarro, Perrotta; Menez, Vucinic

Birthdays, Bombs and a Final Bow

It's tempting to think of Giorgio Rossi as an institution within Roma, someone who's been around for as long as the club has. He's the gentleman who's always just there, and has been for as long as all but a few of us can remember: he was hired by the club in 1961, and has remained ever since. Today he celebrates his 79th birthday, hopefully with a win tomorrow, which the players would dedicate to him, as is the tradition every game around October 31st, year after year.

Here he is by Totti's side, a few years ago:

He's seen them all come and go; he's been an integral part of all of their lives in AS Roma. From Santarini to Agostino; from Bruno Conti to Ancelotti; from DDR to Aquilani; from Falcao to Toninho Cerezo; from Voller to Montella; from Balbo to Batistuta; from Cesar Gomez to Adrian Pit; from Aldair to Mexès; from Liedholm to Capello; from Zeman to Spalletti; from Giannini to Totti.

And, of course, Damiano Tommasi. He plays his final match as a footballer today, and though it is in China and far from Rome, it's hard not to be with him in spirit on this day. Tommasi is perhaps the most beautiful of footballers: he defines altruism, and showed that even in the day of modern football,  being a footballer doesn't necessitate a primary concern for more money, more recognition, more of the good life. It's also possible to - not necessarily for the love of the game - waive virtually all wages and play for the minimum wage allowed for a year. It's possible to concern oneself primarily with charity projects, and a genuine compassion for the next man. Tommasi may have had limited feet, but he is the most beautiful footballer all the same.

In what could be construed as an attempt to incite prison riots inside temporary jail training ground Trigoria where the players are locked in, someone launched a bomba carta outside the gates, which is a homemade device. Even if you don't know what it is, you've almost certainly heard them: they're the things that go off during games, that can make it sound like the apocalypse is near. Or it could just be more protests against the team, of course, although it's not easy to locate the rationale behind such idiocy which serves no one.

No one was harmed, and La Gazzetta dello Sport reports that hardly any players even bothered to go out of their rooms to check what the ruckus was about. While I admire their tranquility, it's difficult to resist reflecting on the fact that players in Rome have grown immune to events like this. It's a very special climate.