Old Lady Post: Paolino Lives

 A fair number of photos from the Napoli match were posted late, and we have some mercato news to catch up with (nothing you don't already know, of course), so let's dig right in.




Hooray for Loooca! A meter ninety six of green-eyed gorilla love. *swoon*

Old Lady Post: Fail. FAIL FAIL FAIL

Juventus whatever:  Everyone else  Forty Billion


So.  Three matches, two points, Zebes can't keep a lead, Delneri is canned, mercato rumors blah blah blah.  Is there really any point to a big rehash?  No.  No there isn't.  It might have been different.....




...but it wasn't.

Old Lady Post: How I love those stripey morons!

 Lazio 0:1 Juventus



Lichtsteiner can't believe it and neither can I.


Just when you think you can get some distance from the fail and maybe even go on with your life, they do something wonderful and before you know it, you're forgiving them and letting them move back in with their ugly sofa, even though you know in two days two hours they'll have their asses parked on that sofa, watching WWE Smackdown,  spilling beer and getting Cheetos dust all over the place.   You know you'd be better off with some other squadra, one that at least puts some respectable effort into their fail, but you just can't live without them.  Bastards.

Zebras:  What?  *BELCH!*
DB :  *sigh*

So here they are with their low-hanging pants and backwards baseball caps and they flex their biceps and do some idiot new skateboard trick* and say "Aw, come on baby.  You know you're my girl."  And here I am tripping over their stinky gym shoes, doing their laundry, and fetching stuff from the fridge, loving every minute of it and hating myself for loving it.


*Was "cool" once, but may no longer be cool.  I'm old.  Please substitute updated imagery if necessary.

Old Ladzzzzzzzz

 Fiorentina 0:0  Juventus


It's kind of difficult to complain much.  Maybe the zebes aren't actual shit, but they play football like they're shit.


Sooooooo boring.  The whole match was a Festival Of Feh in which the most exciting thing that happened was that Leo yelled at Sorensen for getting a stupid yellow card.  Roma lost, so the boys had the chance to move into sixth, and they didn't do it.   Actually, they didn't do much of anything.  Fortunately, neither did Viola.

Old Lady Post: \o/

 Roma 0:2 Juventus




You tell me.  The game is about to start and you discover that Gigi, Gio, and ADP are all hurt.  Then you see the Line-Up of Low Expectations and discover, to your horror and disbelief, that Not Ciro is starting the two worst fullbacks in Serie A at the same time.   You consider their shitty current form and then you see Mirko hit a screamer that Marcostorari saves (just barely) and then you see Mirko take a selfish, crappy shot when Matri was wide open.  As the first half continues, Roma's attack looks more and more dangerous, Marcostorari is forced to make miracle saves that no one should ever have to make, and Krasic continues to act like a selfish twat.  Did you actually think the match could possibly turn out the way it did?  I sure as hell didn't.  In fact, I kept a sickening sensation of impending doom in my stomach until the final whistle blew.

Coverciano spam

Originally published on March 31 2011


By now the Azzurri have returned to their clubs and resumed training for the three (!) very big matches this weekend.  For a while, though, they were all best buddies.  Here's a collection of training and presser photos from the last week or so, "organized" by subject and not by date.





Unfortunately, one smurf was missing.




Come back Quags.

Old Lady Post: Brescia Spam

Originally published on March 28, 2011

Juventus 2:1 Brescia


Looks like someone's been watching Quags highlight reels.

That's better!  The good news is that the zebes can beat a relegation-bound squad when the relegation-bound squad's best players are all suspended or sucking like woah.  The bad news is that the zebes are not yet mathematically safe from relegation themselves.  Also, late post means I can't remember much, but the photos are better cos Daylife posted photos late themselves.  Captiano scored a goal in the run of play, Gigi was not forced to commit any professional fouls to save the match, and Krasic woke up.  Vincenzo hurt himself during a training session and is out for the season, which is too bad, but it wasn't like he wasn't always injured anyway and this might give him time to rest and actually recover.

Old Lady Post: The Juventus Defense----60% of the time, it works every time

 Cesena 2:2 Juventus



What a big improvement!  Instead of the Zebes uniformly playing shit, they only played partly shit.  It was an exciting match.  Juventus went up 2-0, then gave up a penalty that could have been a whole lot fucking worse than it was, and then the second half was thirty five minutes of nail-biting to see if the boys could hold.  Alas, they could not.  Also, I'm pretty sure that Lady Luck hates seahorses.

Old Lady Post: It wasn't just a dream

  Juventus  1:0  Inter




Are you serious?   Raise your hand if you thought that beating Inter was even possible.  *looks around*  That's what I thought.  I suppose we Juventini have gotten so used to playing without real forwards and a real left back for so long that we lost sight of what our boys can do.

"Our boys."  SNORT!  Of the eleven starters yesterday, only four of them were regular starters last season.  Maybe if you either sell or bench everyone who sucks and go out and get all new players who are better, the team will achieve better results.  Who knew?

pagelle

Old Lady Post: Sardine Spam

I know this is super tardy.  I know there was another match today.  I've seen it, but I'm not sure I can trust my eyes.  There's the delicious grape, see, which may be clouding my judgment.  I'm really not convinced by the score I seem to have seen, because I'm not that lucky.  This feeling that my senses can't be trusted is intensified by the sight of Leo running around the Stadio Olimpico in his underpants.  I must be in some state of altered consciousness, because God doesn't make them that special.  Boy puts DDR to shame.

Tomorrow, when I'm sober, I shall look to see what really happened.  Until now then (see?  The brain she is not functioning properly), I bring you last weekend's match.  I can't remember much about it anyway, so it's not like my commentary would be improved by mental lucidity.  That's not a nice thing to say.  Fine.  Relative mental lucidity.  Is that better?

Cagliari 1:3 Juventus

pagelle

Old Lady Post: Effin' Pinks

 Palermo 2:1  Juventus

Oh.  My.  GOD!  Let's just save everyone the inconvenience of travel and the risk of injury and fucking forfeit the Palermo matches, hmm?  Yes, there

were a lot of bad calls, including two missed penalties, but CRIPES! what about all the blown chances?

I dunno man.  Is it me?  Am I cursing the squad by

wearing my Juve scarf whenever they play?  Has my bad attitude and general aura of gloom and pessimism transferred to the boys?  Does my overarching self-absorption

exhaust them to the point where they have no energy for football?  Whaiiiiiiiiiiiii?  WHY?  WHYWHYWHYWHY?  *pulls out hair*

pagelle

Old Lady Post: Why We Love Quags--and Udinese Spam---But Mostly Quags

Juventus 1:2 Udinese


Let's all pretend that the match ended here, mkay?


That blew.  I'm not even sure what the problem was.  Gigi had an awesome save or two.  Claudio scored a miraculous Quags-style goal.  Pretty much everyone else failed to deliver.  It's too painful to do an actual spam with my usual uninformed commentary, so I'm just going to post some photos.

pagelle


After that, we have an important birthday to celebrate.

Old Lady Post: Um....Ouch. Plus, Breaking Gio News

Sampdoria 0:0 Juventus





Any questions?


Oh boy.  This was a match in which only the brutes and Pepe stood out.  There was kicking and screaming, pushing and shoving, eye-poking and hair-pulling, shootings and stabbings, military coups and counter-revolutions, and one poor excuse for Zorro in a tricked-out mask saving the day.  OK, not really, but this was a crazy physical match that probably has every single player for both sides in the whirlpool as we speak.  Poor babies.  And the bit about the Zorro is true.

pagelle

Old Lady Post: Due Principini

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON JANUARY 19, 2011

*crosses fingers, cuts-and-pastes from notepad, and strikes off to edit html codings that I don't really understand*


Juventus 2:1 Bari



So that brings us to Sunday, which was the day that the Reds did not lose the Merseyside Derby, and the first day of the Ritorno for Juventus. Juve met Bari. Bari is at the bottom of the table, and the match was at the Stadio Olimpico, and Bari has already beat Juventus this year, and the only Juve striker who is not broken is Niccolo Giannetti. Four reasons for Juventus to choke hard. Did they?



I'm told this is a celebration.  Romans.  *shakes head*


No they did not.

Pagelle

Old Lady Post: Coppa Spam

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON JANUARY 18, 2011




Juventus 1:0 Catania

It was a busy week.  Juventus advanced in the Coppa Italia and beat Bari at home to scrape up three much-needed points.  There were some injuries and some recoveries and some transfers that ended up not happening, but by far the most important thing that happened was this:
Gigi is back.



That face!

His back is squared away.  His hair is squared away.  His form is squared away.  His attitude is squared away:

It’s a beautiful emotion that for someone who has won a World Cup, played in a Champions League final, and played in so many important stadiums like me, that this night meant so much to me even if it was “just” a Coppa match. I must thank the fans who often said “Why the hell are you staying here when you could leave and win in other places?” I don’t think I could find this kind of affection anywhere else, and maybe it’s true that I could leave and win elsewhere, but the love they give me is worth more than any kind of victory, it’s amazing. I thank them from the bottom of my heart.  source

He loves us back!

Catania pagelle

Old Lady Post: Life After Quags

Originally posted on January 10, 2011.



 Napoli 3:0 Juventus




On the one hand, that blew, obviously.  On the other hand, it was an honorable loss to a good team on a day when their creepy striker was insanely good.  I dunno about you, but I for one am more satisfied with this match than I was with the Chievo draw.

Lanzafame is officially gone to Brescia to be near Zebina, which is the worst punishment that the suits could come up with.  Another blow for us Attitude Problems, poor misunderstood problem children that we are.  Speaking of attitude problems, I really really really really want to believe that this Mutu rumor is bullshit, but I'm getting ready to panic just in case, and no Martha, the photo..... 

... is not helping me see any positive possibilities.  This Fernando Torres rumor is almost certainly crap and please dear God let this Ryan Babel rumor be wrong, which it probably is, since it comes from Goal.com.  I live in a Liverpool-Juventus household and those teams trading their problems back and forth does neither of us any good.  Oh, and Dzeko has gone to Man City, so that's over at least until the summer window.

Old Lady Post: Thiiiiiiis close

Chievo Verona 1:1 Juventus 

Geez Vince!  For crying out loud.....





This year, Dirtbunny asked Santa to send Juventus a striker who can finish.  I don't care much how he does it as long as it doesn't involve illegal potions that show up on drug tests.  If he fixes the ones we already have, that's great.  If he brings us new ones who know what they're doing, that's fine too.  But OMG if I see Vincenzo miss a sitter one more time I am going to have to cut a bitch.  Santa doesn't actually have to produce for me until January 6, so that should give him and his elves a little extra time to craft something extra-special, or even a little special.

As far as this match is concerned, I have to keep reminding myself that technically it was not a loss.  Sure, Milan lost so Juventus had a wonderful opportunity to pick up points, and I suppose they did, officially, but goddamn it I thought maybe they were past this whole-give-up-the-equaliser-in-extra-time bullshit that they started the year with.

Old Lady Post: I....I.....can't believe it

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON DECEMBER 13, 2010


JUVENTUS 2:1 LAZIO

JUVENTUS 2:1 LAZIO



at last Of Blacks has found someone willing to hug him.

Juventini have seen this sort of thing before, plenty of times, even a few times this season:  the match looks sewn up, the result certain, and then something shitty happens in the dying seconds that changes everything.  Boo.  Well, it happened again, only this time, Juventus saved itself from an unsatisfying draw with a last-gasp goal to take the win over second-place Lazio.  \o/  Let me tell you, it may be crappy when it costs your team a win, but it's magical when it gives your team the win.  Juve now sits second in the table courtesy of a massive goal differential.  SECOND!  I know, I know.  Don't count on anything.  It'll probably all go to hell against Chievo, but let's enjoy the moment, shall we?

Old Lady Post: Unbeaten Streak Continues

Catania 1: 3 Juventus

Heroes.  Who'd a thunk it?

Last season, it was the home loss to Catania, then at the bottom of the table, that sent the Bianconeri on their downward spiral, at least that's how I remember it, so I approached this match with some skepticism.  We all know that the zebras are going to collapse.  It's just a question of when.  Could it be Catania would again be the spoiler of zebra dreams?

Well, no.  Maxi Lopez is kind of sucking right now, and the remaining Argies of the Elefanti were non-magical.  On the other end, Quags was wide awake, Marco Motta sat on the bench where he was unable to fuck up too badly, Of Blacks decided to actually defend the right-hand side, and our boys bounced back from a bullshit call rather than collapsing in despair.  This is oddly encouraging and that scares me.  I suspect we are being lulled into a sense that it is possible to compete well with Lazio this weekend, so that we can be disappointed all the more when it doesn't happen.  Plus, I hate Lichsteiner.  On the other hand, maybe everyone is really going on strike this time.

Old Lady Post: Football is Suffering

 Lech Posnan 1:1 Juventus



I'm pretty sure that zebra is Vincenzo.  When you put them all in hats, gloves, and tights, cover them with snow, and freeze them solid, they tend to look alike.


Ugh.  What can be said?  Does anyone really give a shit about a 14-game unbeaten streak when it means Juventus can't even advance out of the group stage of the At Least We're in the Europa League?  Sure, they aren't losing, but not losing is not the same thing as winning, exactly.  Is there a silver lining here at all?  Perhaps.  This means Of Blacks can play babies against Man City and let his A-squad give it their all against Lazio and Chievo, and it means no more twice-a-week schedules except for Coppa weeks (Ale's knees and I are grateful for that), and it means no more matches in the snow unless it's friendly Italian snow.  Those are all very good things
AND YET THEY ARE NOT EVEN THE SMALLEST CONSOLATION FOR THE EPIC DISASTER IN POLAND.   AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHy4r1bciodffoijw2e31908e43%#@%$%*^