Palermo Spam
(All of us, Super!Frenchie included, out to be used to this by now.)
Out-played, out-cared, out-bearded: Check, check, check. Captain sent off for a straight red? Yeppers! Still in the relegation zone on points? Of course! Is it good news that they're even on points with Roma? Not so sure about that -- both teams are probably mortified by the proximity right now. And, as an added bonus, Gila's so banged up he had to withdraw from the Azzurri, thus leaving them without a single Viola representative. Can everyone spend the whole international break just, I dunno, napping? Surely it can't make them worse.
FIORENTINA 1-2 PALERMO [highlights|ratings table|pagelle: Gazzetta, Corriere Fiorentino]
Marcatori: 20' Ilicic (P), 37' Pastore (P), 13' st Gilardino (F)
Espulsi: 28' st Montolivo (F), per fallo da ultimo uomo
Fiorentina: Frey; De Silvestri (42' Comotto), Gamberini, Kroldrup, Pasqual; Donadel, Montolivo; Cerci (31' st Bolatti), Ljajic, Marchionni (11' st Santana); Gilardino.
Palermo: Sirigu; Cassan, Muñoz, Bovo, Balzaretti; Migliaccio, Bacinovic, Nocerino; Pastore (45' st Maccarone), Ilicic (38' st, Kasami); Pinilla (21' st Hernandez).
Well before kickoff, the suits already looked pretty grim.
And, even after he got up in the tribuna, ADV wasn't inspiring confidence in anyone.
Sini: *also looks concerned*
And, ok, he was concerned about whether his pants would make it through the 90 minutes intact, but that clearly wasn't his only worry.
Far, far from it.
Tifosi: "NOT TO WORRY! YAY!"
Seb: *warms up manfully*
LDS: *is apparently already hurt, even before warmups are over*
Tifosi: "... Oh. Really? We should go home now, shouldn't we?"
Seb's hair: "Probably, yes."
Adem: *asks his maker for help*
Maker: *mocks*
When the general crapness threatens to envelope even Seb, you know things are bad.
And Sunday was no exception.
He wasn't bad at all -- got beat on two good goals -- but on his best days, he maybe saves one of them to keep La Viola in the match.
Not that the failures were in any way down to Seb alone.
This was another one of those lovely matches when almost no one is any good. Including, sadly, LDS, who was useless on both ends of the pitch.
Especially on Palermo's second goal, when he looked as befuddled defensively as the kids I coach.
Though he and his tongue both tried hard, neither of them could hack it and he went off injured before halftime.
This was a sad event that allowed Comotto to make his season debut. Woo hoo!
He was magnificently tan. Sadly, that's the only good thing that can be said about his appearance, cos he was useless, too.
Like everyone else on the damn team, Gambit took a step back from last weekend's goodness.
And, to make matters worse, there was something weird going on with his crotch. What has this team got, if it's not got its crotch issues??
Well, alright -- it's got comedy. I suppose that's something.
(Thanks for helping out, Pastore.)
As usual, Krol was marginally the least shitty of the defenders.
He and Gambit were dealing with some very good attackers and often looked mostly at their mercy, but Krol was ... less useless defensively than his friends. Yay.
Oi, pinky! Wanna buy him dinner before you do that?
Whey are there always so many pictures of Pasqual?
Is it because photo guys at both ends of the pitch get to see him, cos he makes runs forward?
Do they find him pretty? Or at least agile? Is a mystery.
ANYWAY. He wasn't awful, but wasn't very useful, either. I think his pass led to the PK, though, so that's something.
So, let's just get the (concrete) fail out of the way, shall we?
There aren't any pictures of the first goal, cos it was so ridiculous and so out of nowhere that none of the photo guys were ready.
Based on Seb's face and the postures of his teammates, though, you can get a pretty good idea of how sick the goal was.
And it was really, really sick.
Sinisa: *sigh*
The second, on the other hand, everyone could see developing, so there are many pictures of it and its aftermath.
Palermo just cut Fiorentina apart on the counter, thanks both to Pastore's run and Noce's perfect through ball to put him in on goal.
(Pasqual looks mildly displeased at having run all that way just to watch the ball go in. Cry us a river, Manuel.)
While Krol is just embarrassed.
And Sinisa tried to shout Pastore into submission.
And Monty, briefly, seems to have considered giving up his captaincy. That's never a good sign.
(Since no one else would take the armband, he had to suck it up and put it back on.)
And then have a zillion pictures taken of him.
Doing, well, nothing, really.
Though he was, as ever, in charge, even if it was in name only.
But, look, he's not skeletal! Has he actually been putting on some weight? Should we worry?
It came out on the press last week that's he's been playing with a painful ankle injury -- maybe he ought to take a few weeks off and take care of it, rather than fight on so frustrat(ing/ed)ly?
Hey, maybe needing a break is a good silver lining to his red card!
Since he's not in the Italy squad, he'll have at least two weeks off before he's got to play again -- maybe time for a little R&R?
The red, btw, was totally obvious -- he didn't complain at all and just took off as soon as he got it.
(Hopefully he was in a hurry to let the game restart, rather than to escape. Hmm.)
Sinisa: "..."
With his midfield partner Monty nearly immobilized by pain or depression or whatever is troubling him, Donadel had to run even more than usual.
And you know Donadel is always up for some running, so that wasn't a problem.
Honestly, he was one of about two people in purple whose work rate and commitment stood out.
Admittedly that was in part because everyone else was so flat and disappointing, but still -- credit to Donadel for refusing to get sucked into the team-wide ennui.
Sinisa: *points half-heartedly, and wishes he had Donadel's belief*
With Vargas hurt -- again -- Mighty Marco started out of position on the left. AGAIN.
The poor dude is having a terrible time under Sinisa -- Gazzetta called him "unrecognizable", while Corriere Fiorentino thinks he should leave and have success elsewhere, with a different coach.
Even driving with his fingers isn't helping, which is a bad sign indeed.
At least he and Pasqual take cool pictures together, though I sort of doubt that's making Marco feel much better. *pat pat*
In happier news, Santana replaced him with about 35 minutes to go in the match and was -- get this -- AWESOME!
Despite playing less than a half, he was MOTM in all the papers I checked, and raised Fiorentina's level the moment he came on with his energy and trickeration.
He'd been on for all of two minutes when he escaped down the left and played in a perfect cross for Gila's goal. Woo hoo!
His return is definitely a small bright spot in the recent fail -- fingers and toes crossed he can stay fit, for once.
Cerci, looking more like a hedgehog than usual, started in his usual place on the right.
Rocking a wide array of expressions, he was his usual self -- skillful, periodically eye-catching, but fundamentally useless.
I dunno if he's trying to do too much, or what, but there are times when he looks more than a little selfish, and the already angry fans aren't overly impressed.
That said, he does run ALOT, which in a match last Sunday's, is a depressingly welcome commodity.
Oh, and he and Noce briefly tried to get into it. (You can tell just how hard they both are by the fact that a disgusted old man shoved them apart like they were made of paper.)
After Monty was sent off, Bolatti replaced Cerci in an effort to shore up the midfield.
He ran around looking thin.
Because it was Sunday in Florence, Gila was up top, all by hisself.
(A moment for you weird fangirls.)
It's really hard to blame him for La Viola's struggles in matches like this one -- if he never gets the ball, how the hell is he supposed to score?
I mean, he always does what he can and always works, even when his teammates are arguing with opponents rather than, you know, playing with him.
Anyway, think of what he has to deal with! Bovo smells.
And balds keep smacking him in the face. What do you want from him, people??
He had one chance, and he finished it beautifully.
(Thank you, Mario Alberto.)
As soon as he scored, he went and got the ball so they could get back to work, and get another goal.
Much to Gila's disgust, Adem wanted to squee and prance.
(He was ignored and, eventually, shaken off. Go, Gila.)
Sinisa was either excited or he had to pee. Possibly both.
No, I think he's excited, that looks to be a very small dance.
Speaking of Adem and his desire to squee and prance.
He, as ever, tried really hard.
And, until Santana showed up, was really the only Viola player able to offer something unexpected going forward.
See? Planning something tricky as we speak.
(... Why does he look so weird in this picture. What's happened to the perspective?)
Since he's a man of 19 now, though, we're no longer allowed to be amazed by his combination of ability and youth.
We can, however, continued to be impressed by both his hair and his consumption of large amounts of chocolate.
When they discussed the chocolate thing during the match on ESPN, the very wise Shaka Hislop said "Let's be honest, you can't eat too much chocolate." I knew there were good, non-NUFC reasons to like him.
So, with all that hair on his head and chocolate in his belly, Adem was brimming with confidence and, when Balzaretti randomly handled the ball in the box, Adem claimed the PK.
Even though you could tell Gila was itching to take it. (Presumably, Sini told him and Vargas they'd be killed if they stole another one, so he foolishly left it alone.)
So optimistic, was Adem.
Tragically, he put the ball way too close to the middle of the goal, and Sirigu guessed the right way.
Denied.
Adem didn't take it very well.
Not well at all.
(Neither did his coach.)
At first, it actually looked like Adem was going to melt down, ala Mutu in the Euros when Gigi saved his PK and he just quit.
Cos, when he wasn't showing the fangirls his chocolate-carry hips, he was literally just standing at the top of the box while the game went on around him.
To his credit, though, he did get it together and got himself back in the game. (It probably wasn't the Santana!pat that did it, but you never know.)
A few minutes later, he almost tied it from open playing, forcing a great save out of Sirigu.
Of course, neither Adem nor anyone else tied it, and Fiorentina dropped three more points at home.
Buck up, Sini, you've got a vote of confidence! (Oh dear, oh dear.)
Adem, meanwhile, was working through the loss in his own way.
And when I say "working through," I mean "wallowing in."
Gazzetta said he might have been born in 1991, but he's got the balls of a man. (Presumably referring to attitude, not crotch issues.) Can you even say that in the newspaper?
Gambit had no clue how to deal with his grief. He couldn't even look.
Krol: "BUCK UP, CHILD! If you've got the balls to take a PK, you've got the balls to deal with missing one."
Adem: *sniffle*
So, now everyone goes home and feels sorry for themselves for a while, after which they go to Genoa to play Samp, without Monty who will be suspended for at least a week.