Season Survey Post

Originally posted on June 10, 2011


I am so effing bored! The offseason absolutely sucks and checking for mercato news every ten minutes is not exactly calming me down or making me happy. I was looking for football on the TV listings and I actually paused to consider watching the USL, so help me God.

Since there is no new material, let's look back at Serie A 2010-11.


Today's topic is: THINGS THAT ARE AWESOME

There were many, of course, and these are only a few.

Best video evar of the year:






For me, it's the Norwegian fruit advert, first brought to our attention by Martha. Among other things, this introduced me to Morten Gamst Pederson, which means I was paying attention the day Joey Barton sucker punched him on the pitch for no reason.  Meaningless violence = awesome, as long as it's not IRL.

Old Lady Post: Milan Cheats

  Juventus 0:1 Milan




Well, what else would you call it?  With all the attacking threats Milan has, who would have thought that Juventus would have to protect the goal from Rino Gattuso?  I mean come on!  Rino almost never scores.  His last goal was October 23, 2008 against Heerenveen, whoever the fuck that is.  If Rino is going to score, Milan might as well have been playing with an invisible extra man, and maybe I can't find a rule against that in The Laws of the Game, but that doesn't make it right.  Sheesh.

Old Lady Post: Now with a Title!

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON AUGUST 23,  2010

Issue number 1:  My oh my but you bitchez have a most impressive collection of Claudio icons! 


Issue number 2:  Serie A finally finally finally starts this weekend, but the transfer window stays open until August 30.   Please correct me if I'm wrong about that. 





Arriving at Malpensa, "crazy with joy."

Old Lady Post: Hooray! We Are Screwed.

 So I stalled for a day, and then as I sat down to watch this one with my bottle of Prosecco, my well-developed sense of dread,  and Mr. D's Christmas sweater, I turned to Mr. D and said:

 "Milan 4-0 Juventus.  Two zebras will get sent off, Juve will finish with 9 men, and Alessa will suffer a horrible injury."

And that's before I realized that Gio got banged up during warm-ups and was not going to play.  Hell, I guess at least I'll get to ogle Zlatan (who returned to Italy and apologized to me for going to Spain, thereby redeeming himself and coming back from DeadtoMe status).  I love Zlatan, although he doesn't deserve me.

I'm happy to report that I was mostly wrong in the best possible way.  Juventus pulled ahead with a two-goal lead and DID NOT COMPLETELY BLOW IT in the last few minutes, pulling out a 2-1 lead over the Rossoneri at the San Siro.   \o/



world champions

Can you smell that?

If you ask Mr. D, he will almost invariably say "no."  His official position is that he can't smell anything.  So when you overhear him muttering this to the Yarn Bandit:

I can't stay mad at you, even though you reduce our environmental conditions to that of a hellhole.

...then you know you have a serious problem.  It's not like we don't clean up after the devilish urinator--we do--but he can be really sneaky, and it's hard to get it completely out.  Over time, and especially when it gets hot and humid, an above-and-beyond-the-call cleansing of the Hellhole is unavoidable.  And so, this morning, we rolled up the rugs, salvaged the salvageable rug pad and tossed the others, and took the rugs out to be professionally cleaned.  We will be back to the bare wood floors for three or four weeks.

News from around here (Calcio)

Like the MainStreamMedia, I use the term "news" loosely.  This news is from two weeks ago.


Number One

JuanManuel Vargas has recovered from his injury and has returned to the pitch for La Viola.  Even though he stole a PK from Jojo against the Donkeys on Sunday and then BLEW the PK, it is good to have him back.


Number Two

On April 18, Roma defeated Lazio in the Derby della Capitale, which was excellent news for a variety of reasons.  One reason is that we Hates Lazio.  Another is that this allowed Roma to take the lead over Il Diavolo's Personal Representative in Serie A Inter in the Scudetto race.  But there are other reasons.

Calcio Update

ISSUE NUMBER ONE




The Azzurri won their WCQ against Georgia yesterday by a score of 2-0. Dirtbunny is happy for the victory and for the three points in the Group Eight table, but there is no celebrating here. There is a problematic disconnect between the mids and strikers; the offense cannot seem to put the ball in the net, which is of course the object of the game. Gigi is playing like the rock star he is, for which we can all be grateful, but the team is not clicking.

Worse than that is the manner of this particular win. The Georgians scored two own goals. Actually, both own goals were scored by the same player.

Who happens to be the captain of the Georgian national team.

And the captain of the Georgian national team is .....

......Tiger.

Bad news for Tiger, and bad news for Tiger fans. He can't believe it. The Georgian press can't believe it. Some are saying that, with respect to the kidnapping and murder of Tiger's brother in 2001, well Tiger and Georgia are even now. Talk about a rough press. Poor guy.

I was probably going to call him up anyway, but now I definitely am. Welcome aboard. Poor guy.


Another unfortunate thing about Tiger is that he tends to take two kinds of photos. The unflattering candid sort, like this:

... and the embarrassing cheesecake sort, like these:

i guess we are meant to understand that one of Tiger's pasttimes is lurking in hotel hallways picking up johns. also, plz button your shirt.

what is it about cars?

He's a good-looking man, but these photos give Dirtbunny a skeevy feeling. Poor guy.

I am also doing something for Tiger that has never been done before. I am offering him asylum in the sovereign nation of Planet Bunny. He is a citizen now, and entitled to all the same privileges and protections that Planet Bunny's other citizen, that would be Dirtbunny, enjoys, for what it's worth. Planet Bunny is not recognized by anyone, anywhere (not the United Nations, not the Federation of Planets, not even TheManLand), but it's what I have to offer. Poor Guy.

So, Tiger. Ya want some time off, lay low and so forth? Or do you want to dive right back into training, get back on the horse, so to speak? Whatever you want, baby.

ISSUE NUMBER TWO

The summer transfer window is closed. Whew. Thank God for it. The Bianconeri benefited, on the whole, by signing some non-Dirtbunny Brazilians, and Capi and Fabi, although they lost Marco Marchionni to the Viola. One particular transfer has resulted in, well, he's DeadToMe (tm), so let's not mention it.

Most of the rest of the Dirtbunnies were stable this summer. Ole Man Panooch went from Roma to newly-promoted Parma. Sleepy was going to go to Chelsea, or not, depending on what day it was, but he stayed. Rino and Gian threatened to leave Milan, but didn't. ADP's evil agent/brother Stefano threatened to take ADP to China/Spain/MLS, but didn't. Capi, as I mentioned, went from Real Madrid to Juventus. Fabi, as I also mentioned, went from hell in France to Juventus. Olof left Juventus for Olympiacos, in Athens. Other threats were made, but in the end, everyone else stayed put.

The new season is beginning to shake out. Loooca is either injured or in disgrace, depending on who you ask, and is not playing. ADP is on the bench for reasons known only to Il Mister Ciro while lesser mortals like Vincenzo Iaquinta, That Wanker* and Amauri (grrr) get lots of playing time. League play is on an International Break for WCQs right now, but resumes this weekend.

38 Days 'til Serie A Season Opener

So the Azzurri went to Confederations Cup. At first, all was well and it looked like they were going to the final, mostly because of this guy:




That would be Giuseppe Rossi, Jersey Boy. Beppe/Joe may or may not be transferring to Juventus this summer. I wouldn't know, because I'm not following the transfer rumors any more. He really is a good player. He belongs in Serie A, not playing for some third or fourth best Spanish team. Joebeppe had a great game against the USA. And also, there was a red card for a hard foul on Rino that gave him a wicked wedgie that he didn't bother to clear. (That's what you do with wedgies, right? You clear them?)




There he is, number 8, showing off his hamstring and glutes. It was an excellent game, although Loooca didn't score, which brings his streak to, I don't know, something like two years without a goal in international play.


And then the Azzurri played Egypt, which is a far inferior team, although not a terrible team. There's a reason Egypt keeps winning the African Cup of Nations. Their goalie was awesome. He played with a bloody rag wrapped around a seeping head wound for most of the game. A real tough guy. Yes indeedy. But the Azzurri lost. Here you see idiot Il Mister Lippi looking pained and Rino exhorting his boys to excellence from the bench:



Rino does not look happy, does he? But he's always en fuego, which is why we love him, and why he was Dirtbunny's first call up.



And after that, the Azzurri had to play Brazil, which are currently number one in the FIFA world rankings. The Azzurri were probably going to lose, but geewhiz it was going to be a humdinger of a game! Only it wasn't. And then we started thinking, well, damn, all you need to advance to the quarter finals is score one measly goal, even if you end up losing the game. They can score one measly goal. Only they couldn't.

Gian and Sleepy both on their backs while Robinho (Roe-bean-yo, not Robbin-hoe) uses them both utterly. Yeah. That pretty much sums it up.

And so does this:

[Rino looking on in stunned, pained disbelief while the rest of the bench tries to look invisible. How could his boys suck so bad?]

.

.

.

The end result of all of this is that the Azzurri got knocked out of the tournament in the group stage, and the USA advanced. And then there were some exciting games with USA versus Spain and USA versus Brazil, and they were good to see, but they weren't the Azzurri. And because the Americans were playing, ESPN dropped the knowledgeable and entertaining broadcast teams of Tommy Smyth/Derek Rae and Adrian Healy/Robbie Mustoe in favor of some blathering idiot American commentators, so we were all deprived of excellent commentary as well as Italian futbollers. It was too sad.

.

.

.

We are trying to fill the holes in our hearts with Le Tour de France brought to you in glorious high definition by Versus HD. There aren't any hot Italians, but there is a hot Swiss guy with an Italian name, and there's as much Lance Armstrong as any human being could reasonably be forced to bear. There are also some club friendlies coming up next week, to include our big trip to Baltimore to get impregnated by Sleepy--I mean--to see AC Milan sans Kaka kick some Blues of Satan buttocks. I might make it, if I knit more.

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Tangent: You may not think I proofread this, but I do, although not very carefully. Up there in the bit about the Egypt game, I started out with "There goalie." Does that make your head hurt? Mine too. I fixed it right away, to "They're goalie" and went on my merry way. Are you screaming inside with the dissonance? It's horrible, isn't it? Imagine if your job entailed spending all day reading crap from idiots who can't get their "it's" and "its" together! Anyway, because of the glories of proofreading, I caught my mistake in time. You're welcome. I don't know where it came from. I don't normally have trouble with this.

Everything is Normal

La la la. Happy happy happy. No problems here. No obsessing is being done. Just thinkin about stuff that makes me happy. La la la.



Panooch credibly wearing a tie:



Man-love, Czech-style, starring Petr Cech and Zdenek Grygera:

Naughty, naughty boy:

Happy smurfs in training (left to right: Loooca, Davide Santon [18 years old, getting his first caps], Sleepy and Gian, Simone Pepe [I'm still waiting to be persuaded that he is Azzurri material], Fabi [avec sideburns of shame], and Nicki [out of focus]):

Sleepy and Gigi, all wet, and super-cool, as usual:

Smurfs, smurfs, smurfs (Sleepy [smiling instead of brooding], Nicki [hairs blowing in the wind] Gian [yes, I can tell even though all you can see are ear plus sideburn], Santon again [being very serious, trying to prove himself to the big boys], and Capi [with dimples and eye twinkling]):

Gigi, flirting with photographers (and Dirtbunny) at the airport, now with extra man-purse [Why? I repeat: Why?]:

Bath boy getting ready to shake:

Mr. June, wearing his massage pants and rowing the sand:

Don't believe me? Take a closer look:

That boat is on the beach. Silly Loooca.

Sun-loving friend Sammy, warming his pink spotted belly:

Milanistas Daniele Bonera and Giuseppe Favalli, pretending to be Dolce & Gabbana models:

[Handsome, but silly at the same time. I guess I just don't get fashion.]






And Rino, en fuego, as usual:

rrrrrrrr. May he kick some American butt today, and I'm sorry if that makes me a bad American, but the heart wants what it wants.

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.

[ewww, channeling Woody Allen rationalizations. Plz send help]

Dirtbunny's Architect

I'm sorry, Sleepy. I know that it's insulting to have to wait so long for your call-up while watching lesser mortals achieve the glory of FC Dirtbunny sooner.














Don't be mad. I can't do without you. Won't you please come play for FC Dirtbunny? You will? Awesome.








Are we cool?











Good. How is it that you out-cool Gigi, the coolest of them all? It's magic, I guess.











Here he is, Azzurri/A.C. Milan midfielder Andrea Pirlo:

















That guy over on the right, if you noticed him at all, which I didn't, is Beckham. Sleepy overshadows Beckham, for crying out loud.











He's the invisible hand of the Azzurri. I'm only starting to be able to see what it is he does. Simply put, he sets the plays and directs the offense. He is indispensable. He can put the ball wherever he wants.

















Rino and Sleepy together are the Odd Couple of the midfield. Fire and ice, hot and cold, passion and calculation, spicy salsa and ice cold margarita.

*sigh*

Also, he is good at hugs.

*sigh*

He never forgets to kiss his wedding ring after he scores a goal, unlike some people.

*sigh*

And we've already shown that he knows how to shed a tear. *sigh*

Thanks, Sleepy, for anchoring Bunny's midfield.

Working through it

1. I still don't want to talk about the Bianconeri. There was no Bianconerijoy this week. And no Zlatanjoy. And no Merenguejoy. There is still the slim possibility for some Fabijoy. We'll see tonight when The Man gets home.

2. I finished everything on my to-do list so I came home early, liberated The Boys to the yard, where they both peed and pooped (Kirby is not a frequent pooper, so that was a surprise), and then they both had an unusually long sniff at the folding chairs on the 1.8 billion dollar deck. Seldom do they care about those chairs. I wondered. I pondered. And then--Eureka!--those chairs must still smell like the Old Folks' butts, which spent a few hours in them this weekend.

3. Now that you have been updated on the dogpoop situation, I have some other fabulous news for you. Because the weather was so nice last weekend (they're calling for snow tonight and tomorrow), I was out on the deck a lot and I got my first sunburn of 2009! Not a big one, but a sunburn just the same. The Calabrian forebears did not pass their olive complexions on to me (but thanks for all the extra hair--not). I am already recovered and am now duly reminded about the hat and the sun umbrella that I need even when it's overcast. Jeez.

4. Speaking of Calabrians, here's a bonus for ya.

Hasn't broken Bunny's heart.

Yet.

Maybe because he's broken.

I have a grey fringed scarf just like that!

Drink your way to efficiency

There's a round of Champions League this week. Today is the big day for the Bianconeri. ADP has been training "hard" in front of the press for the big game.




Bunny has to wait for The Man to come home from work so she can watch it. Fortunately, ESPN thinks that Chelsea is a big enough opponent to actually broadcast the game. I'll be busy tonight. Don't call me. Bunny HATES Chelsea. I'm all excited and upset. There will be imbibing tonight fer sher.


There was also imbibing last night as Bunny and The Man watched yesterday's Champions League matches. Did you know that, despite its alcohol content, eventually Bailey's Irish Cream goes bad, as in all clumpy and gross? You can drink it that way if you want, but I choose not to. In this phase of the Economy Plan, Dirtbunny is working through the liquor cabinet. Warm weather is coming, and that's when we stock up and make sure that we have enough gin, diet tonic water, tequila, and triple sec to make it through summer time. (I crack myself up. Last summer, we drank exactly zero G&T and zero margaritas. We have two big bottles of gin, two big bottles of tequila, four liters of diet tonic, and three opened bottled of triple sec.) Also, the holidays are another big drinking season for cognac and liqueurs, and it occurred to Dirtbunny recently that there's a lot of stuff in the liquor cabinet that has been around for a while.

"Liquor cabinet." Snerk. Actually, it's two plastic milk crates with bottles in them sitting on the floor of the coat closet.


Anyhoo, what's in there? Do we like any of it? We like the cognac. The good stuff is gone, so we need to replace that, but we won't until after we drink the second-best cognac. We need the Calvados and Amaretto because we bake with it. We like the Frangelico and the Cointreau and the Kahlua. The vodka stays. The rum stays. The peppermint schnapps? We drank that and probably won't get any more. Ditto on the Chambord, the Grand Marnier, and the Jagermeister. The Kirchwasser and the peach schnapps were repulsive. Why did I ever buy that in the first place? It went down the sink, along with the clumpy, curdled Bailey's. The only dubious bottle left in there now is the creme de cassis. I used to make a decent number of Kir cocktails, but I haven't done that in a long time. I'd rather just drink the wine instead. But it's there, all dusty and sticky, and I'll have to taste it because I can't just dump it without finding out if it's any good or not. And once that question is resolved, my liquor cabinet will be fully economized.


But tonight there will be no fucking around with questionable alcohol. Tonight is Chelsea v Juventus, and tonight I will be drinking something I like. I have discovered recently that, yesterday's trashing of Milan by drunken Manchester United fans notwithstanding, English soccer hooligans may be on to something. I am finding the ups and downs of the beautiful game much more bearable when I'm just a leetle toasted (although I must say my knitting suffers for it). Especially when Juve is playing. I'm sorry. We're all au courant with the lingo now, and all the broadcasters are from the UK, so the "correct" construction would be "when Juve are playing." Also, one does not guard or defend one's opponent, one "marks" him while wearing one's kit on the pitch playing for one's side during the fixture, etc. And speaking of UK broadcasters, they use vocabulary words that we don't get much here in the US of A once we are finished studying for the SATs. Yesterday's word was "discomfit." I KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS! It was awesome. In the US of A, we use words like "gutty" and "homely," neither of which mean what the broadcasters think they mean.



Where was I? Before the tangents on drinking and language snobbery, I was trying to make a point about something. OH YEAH! I REMEMBER!

CHAMPIONS LEAGUE

Our cable sports package is decent enough that I get to see pretty much all of my Azzurri boyfriends no matter which team they play on. Except one. Because he plays in France, poor bastard. But he plays for the best team in France (8 consecutive French championships), and they are in the Champions League this year, and they played Barca yesterday, which ESPN has deemed interesting enough to broadcast to American fans, so I got to see Fabi, and I adore him, so today he gets a call-up to FC Dirtbunny.


Here he is: Fabio Grosso, the world's best left back, indispensable Azzurri starter, and current star of Olympique Lyonnais:

Did Lionel Messi score a goal yesterday? No he did not. Why not? Because Fabi was defending him, that's why. How good is Fabi? Good enough to keep Lionel Messi from scoring, that's how good he is. And no futbol player on earth really needs to be better than "good enough to keep Lionel Messi from scoring." That's all the reason I need to put him on the team---oops, I mean side.

.

His hair is shorter now, but he used to wear it longer. Here he is from last summer, defending--oops, I mean marking---Rino during an Azzurri training session. Check out the trailing spiral curls.

OK, so there's a little mutual fouling going on there. This is futbol, not golf. You have to be tough. Fabi is tough. And tall.

And he rocks the stubble and the hair product, too. Pleeeeez come back to Serie A, Fabi, so we can actually get to see you play.

Answered Prayers (sort of)

You may have heard by now. The Bianconeri need a working midfield. Just when it seemed all was lost, our favorite Argie-Italiano came off the injured list. He's only got 50 minutes in him at a time, and when he leaves the field, Amauri has to be three midfielders and two strikers at once all while being double-teamed (thanks for the gratuitous petty red card Iaquinta, you wanker) and suffering through a confidence-killing slump and getting yinyanged about between gli Azzurri and Brazil. Poor Amauri.

But this isn't about him. He'll be better soon, because Mauro is almost all better and up to 50 minutes a pop. The Bianconeri are a better team with Mauro, and so are gli Azzurri (although still not good enough. Guys, there's no I in TEAM). FC Dirtbunny is better with him too:

Mauro Camoranesi, Juventus midfielder extraordinaire, and the only one of the Azzurri to help Pirlo in the midfield this week in the world cup friendly against Brazil, not that it made much difference.

He works hard. Really hard.

He works as hard as Rino, but with more offense and fewer yellow cards.

He's da man.

We aren't wild about the hair (it's a lot like Dirtbunny's hair on a humid day in summertime, but more so, and dark instead of light). And we are not wild about the chin pubes either. But he's taken to a Japanese-style topknot on the pitch this season. We here at FC Dirtbunny take that to mean that the hair is for off the pitch; on the pitch, he wants it up and out of the way. Dirtbunny can respect that.

Hey! How did ADP get in here? They're golf buddies, which is a goddamn shame, but no one is perfect.

Camo has a lovely smile, but he's less likely to get all lovey with his teammates than some of the other Azzurri.

See? Usually, ADP is the flirtee. Here, Camo is the flirtee and ADP is the flirter. I can't even find a photo of Mauro and Gigi locked in a manly embrace, and that should tell you something.

We love the name.

Camoranesi. camoranesi camoranesi camoranesi [sigh]

camoranesi [one for the road]

Alessa and Rino want you to Mangia your Arancias

So cancer is bad, mmmkay? Do what you can to prevent cancer by eating a healthy diet rich in vitamin C which you just happen to be able to get from delicious Italian oranges.


[looks like a dork in sweater vest]

[does not look like a dork, except for the stickers. what happened to the hair?]

[The Man, by the way, looks collegiate and handsome in a sweater vest.]

[American oranges also have vitamin C]

Enough of that. In non-Serie A, non-Azzurri futbol action, little makes Dirtbunny happier than watching Chelsea go down. Dirtbunny hates Chelsea (except for Deco, who apparently also hates Chelsea. And except for Petr Cech. But what's he gonna do? Play in the Czech Republic?). This weekend, Chelsea went down. At the hands of Liverpool. Courtesy of one El Nino, who got two at the very very end of the game. Because he was the only thing bringing Dirtbunny any futbol joy, he gets the next call up to FC Dirtbunny.

Ladies and Gentlemen (Hi Daddy!), I bring you Liverpool striker and Spanish international Fernando Torres. Here is his first goal, a lovely header right past poor Petr Cech, who never had a chance, bless his helmeted head:

And here is his second goal.

And here he is being very very happy.

He's a pretty, pretty boy.

And I do mean boy. Here he is next to a man, in case you were wondering if I know the difference.

Gigi is always with the giving of the love to opposing strikers. In American sports, the most you ever see is a butt-slap or a fist bump. The fist bump of non-gay American manliness. In Europe, there are hugs, kisses, and caresses, oh my! [fans self]