Old Lady Post: A Point! Woohoo!

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON SEPTEMBER 13, 2010



Everyone says that was a rip-roarin', hootin'-tootin' fabulously excitin' match for the ages.  Perhaps it was.  All I know is this:  I was watching the match with Mr. D and our good friend Jose Cuervo and I was feeling pretty good about things and then I looked up to see how much time was left and saw we were only at minute 59.

And a great shadow of "Oh, shit" fell across the Dirtbunny household.



Pros:

• Zebra goal drought is over
• No one sustained a major injury
• Pepe showed that he is not completely useless, not all the time.
   

Cons:

• There are problems in the fullback area that go beyond Marcolino keeping his arms covered. 
• It is a good idea to have a center striker even if you have awesome second strikers
• So far, Albertino is still Albertino 

Shall we, then?

the hairz were there

As usual, Marcostorari started in goal.  Certain things were inevitable that were not his fault.

It is pretty much universally acknowledged that Fantantonio is all that.  I believe it.  I'll happily admit it.  But really, when I'm watching Juventus play Sampdoria, I do not want to hear your Odes to the Glory of Cheetos, mkay?  During the match, my official position is that Cassano is an agent of evil sent to do us harm.  He can go back to being marvelous after the match (and an appropriate recovery period), mkay, Mr. Dirtbunny?


Anyway, I miss Manninger! a little,  but Marcostorari is a beast.

He can stay.    nnngh!  Hey!  Is that Samp guy wearing a necklace on the pitch?  That's forbidden, isn't it?  Ooooh, the fourth official fucked up bad and I demand a forfeit!

Let's pause to await a ruling from the FIGC.



*waits*







*waits*









*waits*






it's not working     *pouts*



Back to business, then.  Your defenders.

Leo and Cassano and his oddly pocked thighs.

Giorgio.

smaller Giorgio

Dark and kinda scary Giorgio

Well-lit but definitely scary Giorgio. 

Gio was Gio.  He spent a lot of time north of the center line, especially in the second half.  

Marcolino and Cassano.

Perhaps my love for Marcolino has clouded my judgment.  He's much better going forward than he is in defense.  He put in some decent crosses, but he needs to work on his defending.  Ditto for PDC.  Anyway, Marco went off in the 76th and Grygera came in.  He played for 14 minutes plus extra time without making any catastrophic mistakes.  Yay, Gryga!

PDC and Cassano.

This was some defending that worked.  Cheetos had the ball in the box and was movin' and shakin' and Gio and PDC were double-teaming him and it looked like maybe Cassano would escape, and be open for a goal, but then PDC put his right foot between the wickets, and liberated the ball.   There simply had to be some intimate contact between PDC's newly-manly thighs, and Cassano's junk, not much, but some.  That, of course, was an outrage.  As the play went to the other end of the field, Cassano stood in the box with his hands up and a look of disbelief on his face.  "Hey, ref.  He touched my junk!  That's gotta be a penalty."  Sadly, this injustice went unremedied, and PDC probably had to do some extra scrubbing in the showers.  Maybe he got some help with that from his roomie and bestest friend.

Like Marcolino, PDC was better in the attack.  I think maybe I'll put Samp's first goal on their collective fail:

So Cassano came charging up the right in the 36th and Marcolino gave him waaaaay too much room.  Cassano made a lovely motherfucking cross to Pozzi.  The whole line had shifted to the right, so PDC was covering left-center where Gio usually is, and Gio was playing right-center where Leo usually is, and PDC just kind of lost Pozzi who put it in goal and then sickened us all with an icky rock-the-baby-kiss-the-baby celebration.  Bleck.

Great. Just great. It was happening again.  Woe and despair!  But then something happened that I didn't expect:  the zebras didn't give up.  And that takes us to the midfield.

Krasic fighting Ziegler.

Krasic started on the right and did very well.  I remember in particular one sneaky, twisty, windy run up the left that had Samp in knots, and one glorious cross right across the mouth of goal that would have been perfect if Quags had been awake.  :(   Strangely, Krasic switched over to the left at about minute 30, and then switched back after the half.  Weirder still, Not Ciro took him out at minute 78 and replaced him with.....wait for it....... Iaquinta?  Yeah, sure, the zebes were hurting for attackers around then, but Krasic is an attacking player.    Maybe there are fitness issues that we don't know about.  Oh well.  Krasic is looking like a good purchase so far.

Vincenzo. I like that name.  Vincenzo....

Look who's back from the dead y'all!  And he's been training with the rest of the squadra for almost a week!   I mock because I love.  Vince was hurt a lot last year and in my opinion, he came back too soon because he was trying to impress Lippi.  So he gets his call-up to the clusterfuck in S.A. (which did no one any good and took a slot that Lippi probably would have given to Cassano Rossi), is still hurt, and comes back still hurt.  As desperate as the Bianconeri are for a center striker, it's no good trying to field one who ought to be in a full body cast.  I don't want to see him until someone can promise me that he's healthy.


Pepe started on the left, then switched over to the right at about minute 30, then switched back at half time.   If anyone can explain that, I'd dearly like to hear it. So he did what he does, race up and down the touch line, making risky passes, and as often as not passing the ball to an invisible teammate standing in the technical area or elsewhere out of bounds.   *sigh*  We'll get back to him later.  But first,

WTF with those socks?  I'm a knitter and I knit a LOT of socks and I take personal offense at the shocking mistreatment of socks.   Is he trying to convince us that his calf muscles are so awesome huge and powerful that they burst through his socks like Bruce Banner goes through a shirt?  Not.  not not not not.  I think I'm going to cry.

Anyhow, my notes say he got a yellow card, but he didn't apparently.  He was subbed out in the 78th for Albertino.

How did Albertino do, you ask?  I had forgotten that he was in the match at all.  That's how well he did.  If he is so great and so healthy, THEN WHY ISN'T HE STARTING?!!1!!


Also in the middle, we had God's Favorite Brazilian:

I like what I've seen from him so far.  He seems much better in his central mid role.  He's been getting around and helping in attack and making passes and committing fouls, but not senseless fouls.  Yeah, so he got a yellow.   And there was that time when he fell on his ass in minute 21 in the center circle, bounced the ball off Dogfish's shins, lost possession, and Samp brought it up and almost scored.  But they didn't.  And he slipped.  You can see it clearly in the slo-mo.  It could happen to anyone.  And Palombo didn't make a brilliant pass to find an open man.  The ball bounced off his shin.  He knew nothing about it.  It was a fluke.  Ahem.  And one yellow card for Felipe in the 87th, but they were desperate to score, so I forgive him.

Listen to me defending FM when no one's even attacking him.  This is concerning.


And of course there was this other dude in midfield, but we'll see him later.  Let's check out the Awesome Juventus Strike Force!

Alessa had some chances.  He hit a couple of free kicks that were this close.

Early in the match, he had a chance in the box, but he dribbled a little too long and the opportunity evaporated.

His best moment for me was after a defender fouled him marked him too closely.  The ref blew the whistle and stopped play, but Mad Man Ale put out his two tiny hands and gave the defender a big ole shove.   Not very sporting.   RAWR!   Also, he was working his tongue a lot while waiting for free kicks.  And his hair is growing out and getting nice and curly at the nape of his neck.

mineminemine

And here's the other guy.

I hate him.  His acquisition adds an important element to the attack.  He's crafty and creative, he can run with the ball, and he's good with his head and his feet.

Hate hate hate.  Also, he tries hard.

And he's kinda cute when he's not making with the cheesy "hey ladies" creepy smile he has. How can this have happened?  I loathed him until three months ago!  And now I kind of like him!  It's not right!  Damn you Quagliarella!  *shakes fist*

He even made a simple, non-fancy goal just by being in position to get the rebound when Pepe's shot hit the post.  Simple, smart, following through and watching the fundamentals.

And he celebrated by picking up the ball and calmly walking it to the center circle.  Without any of the "me me me me me!"  one usually sees in goal celebrations.   (Um, Hiya, Curci.  *bats eyelashes*)  Where was I?    Oh yeah.  You're a bastard, Quagliarella.  I'm going to get attached and then you're going to do something asinine and I'll feel like an idiot.


Speaking of idiots, that was goal three,but this is goal two:

Krasic made a fabulous cross but Curci cleared it, only not  completely.  The ball rattled around for a while and Pepe pushed it in.  

Quags was there too and he might have gotten it if Pepe hadn't.  Still, Pepe was where he was supposed to be, he had a chance, and he didn't waste it this time.   It was a good goal following a good effort by Krasic.  And as you can see, Pepe immediately went into Me Mode, shaking off Quag's attempts to have some mutual rejoicing so he could run around by himself and receive the love of the curva.

How you liking me now?

The squadra caught him.  It always does.

unf.  I'm not going to explain.  Just unf.

ADP, performing his captainly obligations.  Pepe, not nearly appreciative enough of the captain's attentions.

What you can't see in the next photo is how Krasic ran up to the bunch, clearly yearning for an ADP hug himself.  He didn't go for the Roman.  All he wanted was Il Capitano's hands on him.  Il Capitano obliged.  So did Team Ho.  Krasic deserved it. His cross made the goal happen.

Yay!  Another Leo sighting!

And because I'm all backwards here, we finish up with goal number one.

Alessa made a lovely cross across the box the Krasic, Krasic did a little flick-on header to Claude, and Claudio shot a laser BAM right on in there.

I AM THE NEXT BIG THING!  I WILL BE KICKING ASS FOR YEARS TO COME!

MY CONTRACT SUCKS AND I WANT MORE MONEY!     I NEED IT!     I DESERVE IT!  GIVE IT TO ME!

ALSO, I'M HUNGRY!  I COULD REALLY USE A PLATE OF PASTA!  MAYBE WITH PROSCIUTTO AND PEAS IN A NICE CREAM SAUCE!  OR EVEN A SANDWICH WOULD BE NICE!

There's Marcolino trying his special mount/choke maneuver.   Don't kill him!

unf

One more, which would make an awesome addition to someone's collection of Giorgio icons, even with the stripes.

&hearts&hearts&hearts

And for a while it looked like Juventus was going to win but that creepy Pozzi scored again and so the match ended in a 3-3 draw, which gives Juve a point and starts their crawl up out of the relegation zone.



Next match is Lech Posnan on Thursday at the Stadio Olimpico, followed by a trip to the Friuli on Sunday.

*crosses fingers and hits "post"*