Inter-ness: askljreksdklajd;ada;ldasl;dk;’!!
(Amazing Ancient Argentines Anonymous.)
OK, winning that match was not actually better than winning the Tripletta (calm down, people!), but I’ll admit the last fifteen minutes were so tense they brought the Seven Minutes of Terror against Barcelona strongly to mind.
It’s hard to keep track of every record we broke on Saturday (Milito’s first Inter goal against Juve, end of Juve’s 49 league games without a loss, first team ever to win against Juve in their new stadium, ninth away win on the trot, first time we’ve scored multiple goals away against Juve since 2003) and it has been an equally fraught week in terms of dealing with English people (“What’s Calciopoli?”), so now I am just going to sit and bask in the celebration!pictures. Oh, and the goals weren’t bad, either.
Juventus 1-3 Inter (Highlights, Inter’s match report)
Scorers: Vidal 1', Milito 59' (pen) and 75', Palacio 90'
Juventus: 1 Buffon; 15 Barzagli, 19 Bonucci, 3 Chiellini; 26 Lichtsteiner (Caceres 38, Quagliarella 78), 23 Vidal, 21 Pirlo, 8 Marchisio, 22 Asamoah; 12 Giovinco, 9 Vucinic (Bendtner 46). Unused subs: 30 Storari, 2 Lucio, 6 Pogba, 11 De Ceglie, 20 Padoin, 24 Giaccherini, 27 Quagliarella, 32 Matri, 33 Isla, 39 Marrone. Coach: Antonio Conte.
Inter: 1 Handanovic; 23 Ranocchia, 25 Samuel, 40 Juan Jesus; 4 Zanetti, 21 Gargano, 19 Cambiasso, 55 Nagatomo; 8 Palacio, 99 Cassano (Guarin 69); 22 Milito (Mudingayi 80). Unused subs: 12 Castellazzi, 27 Belec, 6 Silvestre, 11 Alvarez, 31 Pereira, 33 Mbaye, 41 Duncan, 88 Livaja. Coach: Andrea Stramaccioni.
Stram turned up to the match with his fancy Greek key tie on.
Then he showed us what it would look like if he was trapped inside a giant football.
Phew, he escaped.
And was really dedicated to this “beating Juve” thing, because he started with THREE strikers. (Cheetos seems to find satanic!Milito amusing.)
Less than a minute later (the reports said 20 seconds, but that clock says 00:59, so whatever), Vidal scored, and the Inter fans rolled their eyes and said, “Oh, god, it’s going to be like this again, is it?”
Then we saw the replays and started experiencing quite a different emotion. (According to Gazzetta, incidentally, the linesman Preti has been barred from officiating for a month.)
(In the interval between failures, Handa made an amazing save on Marchisio, and this happened. That made me feel a bit better at the time, possibly because I couldn’t see that Marchisio was pulling that face. *Gives him the Scariest Eyes Ever Award*)
Next, Palacio scored with a header from a FK. Except he didn’t because he was marginally offside. (Still offside, but not by 2m á la Asamoah.)
It was at this point that I began laughing uncontrollably.
Our final failure before we get to the players involved, with sad inevitability, the BUM.
He was already on a yellow for this attempt to kill Cuchu (HE MADE HIM LOOK OLD! AND STUBBLY! HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?), and then four minutes later did the same to Palacio. This was a clear second yellow and sending-off.
Did the ref send him off? No, he did not. (Juve substituted him a few minutes later to avoid precisely this eventuality.) Cheetos shows how we all feel.
There followed an extraordinarily long groping session. O.o This is unusual for the BUM. I don’t think we should be watching this.
...OH MY GOD PALACIO’S GROPING HIM BACK *Dies*
Er. Ahem. Now that we’ve finally got past the useless refereeing (and the trauma of unexpected Juve/Inter pairings), let’s review the players. Handanovic was a tower of strength for 89.5 minutes of the match, doing a particularly remarkable job on Vidal’s double effort at the end of the first half.
Reports on Juan Shrek Jesus (who I’m going to call JSJ from now on, to save time) are mixed.
The Inter fans love him, but Tuttomercato voted him Flop Of The Match.
They seem to feel he was risking getting sent off. This photo, admittedly, does seem to make a strong case for that.
...Has this photo been manipped? Human arms should not be that long!
The amphibious one was having some serious problems against the Ant. (Frogs, ants... I feel as if I’m in one of Aesop’s fables here.)
He made a bad mistake to let Asamoah in on goal, too. (Like most of the team, he improved in the second half.)
Here is our first Amazing Ancient Argentine.
His method of dealing with the Elfling was, predictably, to kick him for no reason and get booked, but he was still solid enough to make himself the bane of Bendtner’s life and to stare in horrified disapproval at JSJ.
As for the second AAA, I really don’t need to point out how sensational he was.
Snuffed out Asamoah, stamped on the Ant. (Got booked, too, for pulling on Asamoah’s shirt, and cackled about it. Cackled, I say!)
Then, in about the 92nd minute, he decided to go on one of his “I am a thousand years old, but can still show you whippersnappers how to play football” runs. I couldn’t even count how many players Juve needed to stop him; looked like five, six at least. Grande capitano!
Words frankly cannot describe the contribution of the third AAA, though I like nattering so I’m going to try anyway.
During the first half, when things were going to shit, he apparently decided to win the match entirely on his own. Didn’t do too badly, either.
Karate moves, shots just over the bar, harrying the Juventini, sacrificing his noggin to the BUM...
Oh, and telling Juve what to do, obviously. The Juventini were whistling him like a steam train. Of course they were; he was scaring them shitless.
So, on to the people who aren’t Argentine.
Yuto, as so often, had a fairly mixed game.
In particular, there seems to have been a crap bit with Juan where each of them thought the other was going to deal with Vidal, but at least he didn’t score that time.
He spent the rest of the time getting shots on goal thanks to his BFF Cassano, putting in crosses that were barely stopped by Caceres or the BUM...
...and generally harrying Juve’s flanks like a perky, annoying, ceaselessly hyperactive terrier.
(Nice thighs, too.)
Uh-oh; they’ve noticed! Run, Yuto, before Nutjob Marchisio bends over your back while making crazy eyes.
(His assist for Palacio’s goal was particularly mesmerising. I remember Martha’s saying it must be nice to be so fast that you can mess something up and have time to go back and do it again. He messed it up, fell over, messed it up again and carried on trying until it worked. Tuttomercato praised his “stubbornness”, but I think he’s like a machine. A virus or something. He carries on doing it until it’s done.)
What I want to know is, why aren’t Deki and Gargano called Shrek, eh? Their ears must stick out more than JSJ’s!
He was like a less effective Yuto. His failed backpass gave us a scare, but it was intercepted by Bendtner so everything was OK. When not making mistakes, he dedicated his match to annoying, bothering and interfering with everything the Juventini tried to do.
Somewhat astonishingly, I’ve only got one picture of Guarin, who changed the match completely when he came on for Cheetos and possibly handed us the victory: he came, he ran, he assisted. (Some people think Stram should have started him, but we won so I’m not too bothered.)
There is, however, no shortage whatsoever of pics of the problem child.
Not that he was a problem, really, it’s just that he’s been so good lately that when he’s average, we’re disappointed.
At least, I can’t think of any other reason why the fans at inter.it have given him one of the lowest ratings; it’s not as if he was that bad, is it?
His FK went miles wide, but he had a shot with Buffon beaten that went juuust outside the post. Agonising.
(Tuttomercato think the problem was that instead of shooting, he unselfishly passed to teammates who did sod all with the opportunities he gave them.)
It may also have been that he tried to hit Tagliavento with an invisible ladle, and Tagliavento bit his head off.
Pirlo sympathises.
So does Stram.
Speaking of Stram...
“They always go on about winning ‘on the pitch’ and today we won on the pitch.”
“I said yesterday that we wanted to win it but nobody believed me.”
Moratti: “Stramaccioni is just good.”
Stram was an angry man, and we love him for it.
(He supposedly punched the bench in anger and broke his finger, but it wasn’t reported at inter.it. I looked at the training pictures to see if he was wearing a bandage, but could not find one that showed both his hands. Curses!)
Anyway, he is now officially a superstar, a prodigy, a wunderkind etc, and if he’s sarcastically congratulating the referee in this picture, then so much the better.
So, things got weird in the second half.
First the match had to be stopped briefly because Orsato, who was being the goal-line official, got hit in the neck with a miniature football. Apologies for the unflattering angle in this pic, but just look at the amount of crap on the pitch.
(Incidentally, I may as well mention the penalties here: Juve were fined €50,000 for bombarding Orsato and showing offensive signs. Inter were fined €35,000 for attacking Juve fans with a toilet door [?!] and for also showing offensive signs. Right.)
But, much weirder than that, Tagliavento started giving out cards to Juve. In fact, in the 58th minute, he awarded a penalty against Juve.
The BUM and his friend here COULD NOT CONCEAL THEIR ASTONISHMENT! (Jesus. I take back what I said about Marchisio’s winning the Scariest Eyes Award.)
So that other bloke in the picture with the BUM - y’know, the old, slow one, people like to complain that he’s rubbish?
He got a shift on.
Actually, he’d had his shift on for the whole match, struggling to create space for the other strikers and getting fouled a lot by Chiellini and the BUM. (They also groped him; they seem to have taken over the role Mexes plays for Milan.)
Eventually, however, Marchisio pulled him down by his shirt in the box, and there was a penalty.
There are twenty-five billion pictures of the penalty, which should give you an idea of how big a deal it was. (Among other things, Milito had never scored against Juve while playing for Inter.)
At the moment it was awarded I felt a great disturbance in the Twitter, as if millions of Inter fans were blinking and saying, “Wait. What? The ref is supposed to be against us!”
Then, of course, since it was Buffon, there was always the possibility that it would be saved...
It wasn’t.
While our brains boggled at this development, my first thought was that Moratti must have cornered Tagliaveno at half-time and made him a much better offer than Agnelli’s.
Later, however, I saw this picture, and realised the aliens had been exercising their mind control techniques. Thanks, Casta. We owe you one.
To get back on track... Milito and his electrocuted hair had some screaming to do.
(And Cuchu had a face to bite off. He means it in a friendly way.)
Milito escaped the demented drag queen for the comparative sanity of Cheetos.
(Then he stopped for a little rest. He’s not a spring chicken any more, you know.)
He did put his rawr!face back on for Palacio and Yuto when they turned up.
(Then he did a tiny, not-at-all-intimidating fist-pump.)
L.O.L.
In the 69th minute, Stram made the crucial change of Guarin for Cheetos.
Five minutes later, Fredy was zooming at the goal and taking a shot that Buffon managed to save.
Milito, however, got onto the deflection.
He slammed it into the centre of the net while Buffon made a despairing attempt to get up and down again.
Since Bonucci was lying on the ground in front of Milito, the first thing he did after scoring was fall over.
He got up, though, and set off shrieking with apparently incredulous joy.
I would like to take this opportunity to make a personal announcement.
When Milito arrived at Inter, I couldn’t stand him.
(I have no idea why; he must remind me very strongly of someone I once knew and didn’t like.)
Of course, at that point he was universally adored, so didn’t need me to stand up for him.
Fast forward a couple of years, though, and he was being vilified, given Bidone d’Oro, and still working hard in his own good-natured gormless little way. Also, somewhat crucially, he is still here, and has not run off to Anzhi or PSG in exchange for more money than he’ll ever be able to spend.
So: thank you, Diego Milito. You are a great player. Love, Cheryl.
(Your celebrations still scare the shit out of me, however.)
Evidently not Palacio or Yuto, though, which is just as well.
(Juve fans are less enthusiastic.)
Three? What? We hadn’t got three at that point. *Scratches head* Ah, is he counting Palacio’s disallowed goal? Then it would make sense.
Then he did some more comprehensible fist-pumps and went to see his old mate Stram, who took him off for Mudingayi.
That left us with a slightly less ancient but still amazing Argentine, Rodrigo Palacio.
He had quite a match.
Scored an offside goal, got savaged by the BUM and, somewhat surprisingly, by Pirlo.
Outran Chiellini, banged in crosses, went over the bar, hit the side netting...
He was not a lazy boy, in other words.
(Have any defenders ever tried to drag him back by his rat-tail?)
Even in the 90th minute, there seemed a faint possibility that Juve would sneakily overtake Inter.
Enter Palacio and Yuto; possibility eliminated. (Buffon did manage to get a solitary, despairing hand to it, but that’s all.)
Oh, that’s just cruel, taunting your fallen foes like that!
Oh, he was pointing at Cuchu. Phew.
Cuchu, who is acting as if he has a terrible jigsaw mania and is desperate to fit these last two pieces together.
Yuto: “Oh god, it’s him again.”
Fuck me, look at all those faces. Palacio is a pervert, Yuto is resigned, Orsato is shocked and Cuchu appears to be crying.
*Squish*
And when Yuto escaped the evil queen’s clutches, Palacio strangled him instead. (IRC! IRC!... Why is he reaching for his fly?)
Oh, god, don’t tell me Stram’s crying now. I reckon his face is just red cos it’s a crap picture.
Once they got away from the enforced cuddling, they were happier.
Then Rodrigo gurned at God and sang him a song.
Probably a good thing I’m an atheist.
Three minutes later (with half the Juve fans gone, of course), the whistle blew and Cheetos flung himself on Stram. (Stram seemed less into it than he did last time.)
He wanted to be pointy!
1. Lol. 2. AWWWW. 3. We have a good-looking bench.
Also, look at Beppe’s old trainers,
and compare them with IRC’s incredibly shiny shoes! Who’d have thought it would be that way round?
AHAHAHA LITTLE AND LARGE.
Ahem. So the players were being much weirder than Stram. Martha (from whom I got the photo) thinks this is an odd way of showing affection. I say it’s a pretty logical way of dealing with Cheetos (plus the inevitable result of hanging out with him).
Everyone quickly seems to have figured out where the short, Uruguayan party was. I like Fredy’s look of intense trepidation as he approaches the radgies.
Yuto: *Runs in shrieking at a million miles an hour*
Is Wu kissing Gargano? Er... wow.
Juan is definitely kissing Gayi, who seems to be trying to escape. (The fool!)
So they all had a big huddle. Aaaaahhhhh.
Wu: “HEY, THERE ARE SOME TIFOSI OVER THERE. LET’S GO AND WAVE AT THEM.”
Javi: *Wonders if he can give Handanovic a blow job without anyone’s noticing*
Gargano: *Notices what Javi’s doing and tickles him to death*
These are two of the finest Inter!pictures ever taken. Wu is firing the crowd up, Cuchu looks mental, Yuto is doing some kind of dance, Javi is preparing to take his shirt off and Cheetos is jumping on people.
Also, Frog is gangly, and Handanovic looks annoyed that Wol is pushing him in the back.
I am finding it particularly difficult to look away from Cuchu here.
Forget what I said about Marchisio and the BUM having the scariest eyes. Cuchu knocks them into a cocked hat.
(Fortunately, Wu’s too busy belly dancing to notice.)
Pupi can’t be doing with any more of this group shot nonsense: he wants to kiss the badge and he wants it now!
Aaaahhhh, his beautiful, soft-looking hair. <3
*Even bigger sigh of satisfaction* (Hey, the Argentine Piece Of Red String has gone purple! I can’t keep up with these Inter trends!)
While we’re on the individual shots, let’s have Yuto.
It won’t surprise you to hear that the Japanese photogs went nuts.
Yuto: *Is smug*
Oh, dear. Bonkers!Cuchu is back.
(HAI VID.)
Yes, that’s right. He is a KILLER drag queen who EATS PEOPLE.
Once again, Fredy looks concerned. He is a very sensible man.
Then Milito went and danced in front of the tifosi while Palacio got off with Yuto in the background.
He was a very proud man.
(Is that The Chief Doctor Who Looks Like A Pirate?)
Not convinced by Millipede’s fierce rawring, I must say. *Ruffles his hair*
Ah, look: he’s managed to attract a fellow AAA.
And another one! Where’s Wu? (Busy kissing Gargano, presumably)
Then Yuto scuttled past in the background and noticed that Javi was unattached.
Hurrah! (Cuchu looks so delighted that Diego’s finally got his stage routine down pat.)
In fact, he was so delighted, he grabbed Milito’s ears. Cuchus have odd ways of expressing love.
Oh, no, wait, they just hug people. Cheetos finds it hysterical either way.
(And the Lizard has started keeping his gloves in his crotch. Excellent.)
Pereira is so cute. <3
Uh-oh. Never mind Milito’s supposed fierceness; I think Cuchu’s going to find Cheetos and kill him for laughing at him.
Oh. Phew. (Look at the Palacio/Yuto!)
Take a bow, you pair of genii. However wrong it feels that Cuchurella is not curtseying.
Our next match is on Thursday evening, against Partizan. One can only hope the play will be as good as in this performance, and that the refereeing will be much, much better.