Inter-ness + Viola: Coppa, Take 1
(Inside his head, Seb in lounging on a beach.)
Why can I not think of anything to say about this match? It was typical Coppa Italia, really: Played in a mostly empty ground with only periodic intensity. Even though Gambit insists Fiorentina deserved a draw, it really seemed like Inter were the better team for about 83 of the 90 minutes (and would have had more were in not for miracle!Frenchie in goal), and while Fiorentina certainly got into position to cause Toldo problem a few times, their total refusal to put a damn shot on goal probably weakens whatever Gambit's argument is.
Inter 1-0 Fiorentina [highlights|pagelle: Inter + Fiorentina|Viola ratings table]
Scorer: Milito 34.
Inter: 1 Toldo; 13 Maicon, 6 Lucio, 23 Materazzi, 39 Santon; 4 Zanetti, 19 Cambiasso, 11 Muntari (27 Pandev 46); 10 Sneijder (17 Mariga 90+2); 22 Milito, 45 Balotelli (8 Thiago Motta 68).
Fiorentina: 1 Frey; 25 Comotto, 5 Gamberini, 14 Natali, 23 Pasqual (22 Ljajic 83); 24 Santana (32 Marchionni 75), 18 Montolivo, 28 Bolatti, 19 Gobbi (8 Jovetic 58); 6 Vargas; 11 Gilardino.
The photo guys were absolutely delighted to have Cesare in the house.
Cesare: "OHAI."
(Thank goodness he's gone back to his usual, mostly monochrome style. All that color he's been working was alarming.)
Uh oh. That looks like the face of a man whose patience is slipping.
Photo guys: "OVER HERE, CESARE! JUST ONE MORE, SMILE FOR THE PEOPLE!"
Cesare: *SIGH* "Such, I suppose, is the price of amazingness."
Jose isn't used to having to hang all alone with his water bottles while the photomob follows someone else.
Jose: *is lonely*
Jose: "Are you mocking me now, photo guy? I am so not amused."
Jose: *laments the immense difficulty of being him*
To make up for neglecting him earlier, the photo guys then decided to shoot some of the Extremely Special Closeups they love so well.
AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! TOO CLOSE. TOO CLOSE!
Whew. That's a relief. This is MacDonald (Or McDonald. Or even MocDonald -- FIFA's not sure how to spell his name) Mariga. He's new.
This guy, we all know. OHAI SAMMY!
Oh, look -- it's all the fans in the entire ground, gathered into one section for a picture.
Ok, yeah. That's a little more realistic. (What does "pazzix" mean? Is it a Matrix-influenced play on "pazzo," or something?)
Inter starters. Not much turnover, though Goran got to rest.
As did JC, cos the Coppa is Toldone's domain.
For better or for worse.
Apart from claiming a bunch of crosses, he mercifully really didn't have much to do.
DAW! He's such an old man back there, but he still loves his job.
At the other end of the pitch, Super Frenchie was much busier than his counterpart.
He played great -- made a couple massive saves, and was Fiorentina's MOTM in pretty much every paper.
His central defenders were serious clusterfucks on several occasions. Seb found it tiresome.
(Tiresome and tiring. Diego is such a giver.)
You know what? Maicon was not crap. \o/
He wasn't great, but he had some nice attacking exchanges with Mario, and would have scored were it not for Seb going all flying dog on him.
(Now if we can just get him to stop dribbling at people in the midfield and flicking the ball into them. What is that? Why is that?!)
Vargas hung out with Maicon a lot, especially in the first half.
He did not have a good day, which concerned Lucio much more than it did the referee.
The hotness was there, but then it always is. The footballing sharpness? Not so much.
He actually looked more threatening than he has in a few weeks, and had several chances, including a 1 v 1 that Gila created for him.
... I think we can all guess how that went.
When he wasn't expressing concern about Vargas' state of mind, Lucio was helping protect Toldone.
He was rarely seriously challenged, but he was solid, and also got forward scarily a few times.
I think we all know who the new king of the Inter defense is, though.
What up, Man of the Match?
Dude is freaking on fire, ok? He made Gila into a non-factor, and his distribution, again, was good.
Or, to put it another way: Matrix's back.
Gila was really, really not amused by the emergence of this old-style Matrix.
Poor Gila. He finally got a haircut, so how he not only can't score, but also looks like he's 12.
Cesare ostensibly played a 4-3-3, but it was more like a 4-5-1, with Gila very isolated up top.
Apart from going offside a bunch of times and setting Vargas up once, his influence on the match was minimal.
Back to Inter, Santon's pretty much reestablished on the left now.
And he was good again.
Not flashy, but defensively sound, and encouragingly opportunistic in attack.
Nnnnnngh. Santana had a horrible day, and Santon was a big part of that.
Plus, he missed almost as good a chance as Vargas did, the poor creature. He was miserable.
Well hello there, Javi's hair!
Tuttosport (!) were totally in awe of him and how intensely and seriously he played, despite the fact that it's the Coppa and doesn't really matter.
He was on the right side of the midfield, which means he spend a lot of time at right back when Maicon wandered off, I mean got forward.
In the last 10 minutes he won about five free kicks deep in Inter's end, just by refusing to give the ball up. &hearts
Cuchu was Cuchu.
Quietly winning balls in the midfield and, when the opportunity presented itself, dancing with an Argie.
And, also, being bossy as shit.
Jojo tried to distract him be flashing his flowing locks around, but Cuchu's made of stronger stuff than that.
Hmm. Actually, he seems drawn to the people with the most impressive hair.
Speaking of impressive, peep that left thigh. Not Javi-impressive, but impressive nevertheless.
Oh, Muntari.
He's probably not 100% fit, and was really ineffective.
He did get to hang with Comotto during his 45 minutes on the pitch, though, which is ... something.
I don't know if it's lack of fitness or being out of sorts or what, but man did he look unusually disproportionate yesterday. Whoa.
Hey, look -- it's Monty and New Guy!
Monty did a lot of dirty work yesterday, winning balls deep in the midfield and sort of trying to create a base from which to attack.
Bolatti, meanwhile, was out there entirely for dirty work.
For at least the first hour, his whole job was to sit in front of the defense and shadow Wesley.
And he did a nice job -- he didn't take Wes out of the game or anything, but he made him work hard to get and keep the ball, and tried to limit his space.
Basically, he played really simple, and executed exactly what Cesare had asked him to do.
Javi was impressed, anyway.
(This is one of the boots that Bolatti was chasing around.)
As per usual, Wes was tiny and fierce.
(Cuchu was impressed.)
He wasn't the dominant presence he sometimes is, but even w/Bolatti and Monty working hard to take away his space, he still made some great passes.
Taking away his space or, sometimes, taking him down with two-footed tackles and then expressing disbelief a the whistle. Nice try, Sir Bitchalot.
He also very nearly scored when everyone stopped and he went in alone. Natali just got a touch on it to put the shot wide.
Mariga replaced Wes in injury time.
He managed to get a bunch of touches and look extremely large.
Or tall, at least. He looks oddly thin here.
He's not actually smaller than Jojo, though he does have less hair.
Significantly less hair.
Jojo and his hair came on with about 30 mins, and his arrival meant a system change, and a much more threatening Viola.
His buddy Adem got another 10ish minutes, and was even better this week -- he played more centrally, and looked awesome in attack.
Macedone also came off the bench, though he arrived at the start of the second half.
He missed a wonderful chance to make it 2-0, and also forced a good save out of Seb.
Hey there, Mario.
He had a pretty damn good game.
No matter who he ran at in the Viola defense, they really struggled to contain him, and he was a constant threat.
To me, he looked relaxed and interested, like he was really having fun playing.
And when Mario looks like that? It's bad news for the other team.
... And, sometimes, for his team as well. Look out there, Sulley.
Mario made Inter's goal, had a shot saved off the line by Pasqual, and set Maicon up for a wonderful chance. All in a day's work, y'all.
Poor Natali had such a good game for about 30 minutes, before he ran into Mario!trouble. Look how great his hair looks, though!
Not coincidentally, imo, the being lively and having fun came with much less whining and falling over than usual from Mario.
And the one time he stayed down it was because Gobbi stepped on his head.
Wes: "You doing alright there, Grande Mario?"
Mario: "Yeah yeah, Little Man. I'll do."
He'll do until he gets into it with Jose, that is.
With about 20 minutes left, he didn't get back in to defend, cos he thought he lost a contact, or something.
The conversation between Mario and Jose at that point might have gone something like this:
Jose: "MARIO. WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?"
Mario: "MY EYE HURTS. SHUT UP."
Jose: "WHAT DID YOU SAY TO ME?!"
Mario: "QUIT PICKING ON ME, YOU MEANIE."
Jose yelled at him to get back in, Mario talked back to him, and the next thing he knew, he was being subbed out.
In response to the news, Mario very maturely threw his gloves on the ground.
(Maicon came over to watch, just in case there was going to be some sort of show in the dugout.)
Mario: *stalks and mutters*
Jose: *ignores*
Mario: *STALKS AND MUTTERS IN ALL CAPS*
Everyone: *ignores*
LOL @ all the responses in that picture.
Sammy: *is oddly reassured that nothing changed while he was gone*
Jose: "Yeah, I didn't want you on the bench anyway, you pain in the ass kid!"
Jose: *realizes the game has gotten even more boring since the removal of Mario and the addition of Sex Machine*
Jose: *does a little dance to entertain himself, then throws it to Cesare*
Cesare: "Wait, what? Ah, shit -- did I miss my cue? Let's start again."
Too late, Diego waits for no man.
Diego was Diego: One chance, one goal.
(With some added getting caught in the net, for those of you who are into that sort of thing.)
As usual, it's hard to think of anything to say about him that's not "awesome", or "professional", or "&hearts".
Wait, I've got one: "RAWRRRRRRR!"
Diego: "What's that, Mister?"
Jose: "You're awesome. We just wanted to say that. Back to work with you."
Cos, really -- he wins the ball in the air, he holds it up, he defends, he creates space for other people. The dude is a shaggy footballing god.
So Natali punched him in the face. Respect for that directness, Cesare.
His goal came from Mario.
Natali stopped dead, claiming Mario had pushed him. No one including the referee actually saw that happen, though, so he let play continue.
Maro had Seb 1 v 1, but chose to play it back in front for Diego instead.
And you know Diego's not gonna miss from there.
He didn't do a full prance, but there was nevertheless some patented Diego rawring.
Mario briefly thought he was in trouble, or something.
"Please, French man with awful hair -- protect me from the Argie!"
Mario: "So you're not mad at me about something?"
Deigo: *eyeroll*
Diego: "C'mere, you giant pain in the ass."
Seb: *feels awkward for a lot of reasons*
Cuchu's still sort of in shock that Mario didn't take that himself.
DAW!
After the match, Cesare thanked the fans ...
... While Special was smug toward the officials.
Just a normal day, then.
This post is brought to by Gila, Gambit, and Gila's old hair:
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Because Inter's match at Parma got snowed out and reschedule for the middle of next week, the return leg now won't be played for months. Yeah, that makes sense. More immediately, Inter host Cagliari on Sunday, while Fiorentina welcome their good buddies Roma to the Franchi.