Ajax Spam
(Fiorentina's silver lining: At least the fail is pretty.)
Ok, that's three crap matches in a row. At some point, fellas, you may want to start playing again, particularly if you want another shot at the CL next season.
Playing a 4-3-3 that was more like a 4-2-3-1 for some odd reason, Fiorentina dominated possession (in part because Ajax were happy to let them do so) and had many more chances than Ajax. The problem was they didn't manage to do anything with those chances, and the misses just got worse and worse -- first Mutu scored from an offside position, then Monty squandered a chance 1 v 1 with the keeper, then Gila tripped over the ball when he had the whole goal open in front of him, and Kuzi skied on from a great position shortly before the final whistle blew. Oh, and the defense were in Keystone Kops mode again for Ajax's goal. Arg. ARG!
To their credit, they did at least seem to be trying yesterday -- that's definitely progress.
Fiorentina 0 - 1 Ajax; full "highlights" here
Bakircioglu 60 (A)
Fiorentina: Frey; Zauri, Gamberini, Dainelli, Pasqual; Montolivo, Melo, Gobbi (Kuzmanovic 58), Semioli (Jovetic 57); Gilardino, Mutu
Ajax: Stekelenburg; Van Der Wiel, Oleguer, Vermaelen, Schilder (Sno 77); Anita, Lindgren, Emanuelson; Bakircioglu, Suarez, Sulejmani (Leonardo 58)
Before the match, Cesare walked the ground and gave a personal thumbs up to each Viola supporter.
Ok, so that's not strictly true.
But the ground was half-empty -- I read that there were about 19,000 people there, which is a far cry from the usual turnout.
I think tickets were cheap, too, so people must have been feeling seriously uninterested to stay away. Nice to see the Why Be Normal guy is back, though -- maybe it takes a discount ticket to get him to the ground.
Cesare, meanwhile, was going all Mr Burns on us, seemingly unconcerned about the lack of support.
Whoa. Photo people, please don't crawl around under Cesare in the future. Thank you. (Is there glitter on his gloves?)
Seb suddenly remembers that he meant to shave and comb his hair. Ahahhaa no, just kidding. He spent hours making his hair look that way.
Starters. Notice Zauri for Comotto, who is out for 10 days with a bad ankle, and Pasqual and Gobbi for Vargas and Kuzi, neither of whom has been any good lately.
On the strength of a pretty solid first half, Pasqual was Fiorentina's only field player to get an average rating (we're talking about across seven newspapers here) over six, and he just barely made it: He got 6.07.
Just so we're clear, that's the BEST ON THE TEAM (apart from Seb, who was his usual helpful self) -- they were nearly all useless.
*ahem* Sorry. That wasn't Pasqual's fault, though. He was pretty conservative, which kept him from screwing up, and he played in a couple crosses, which is more of a contribution than most of his friends made.
We'll see what Cesare does with him on Sunday -- he may have done enough to get another start, if only just.
Over in the middle of the back, Dainelli was looking tall, and remarkably resistant to the cold.
Those, sadly, were his primary contributions to the match -- neither he nor Gambit was much good at all, though they both clearly enjoy wrestling with pretty Suarez.
Actually, based on the pictures, that's how Gambit spent about 96% of his time.
I'm not gonna lie -- this was easily the best part of the match for me.
You'll never guess why, I'm sure.
Not in a million years.
Oh, Gambit -- that is smooth!
Getting a grope in before going off and acting like you're paying attention to someone else. Impressive indeed.
He did periodically defend other people, but they were all boring compared to Suarez.
Despite all the fun Gambit and Dainelli were having touching him, they didn't actually stop Suarez (thank god for Seb), and him getting free in the box is what led to Ajax's goal. (You can see the buildup in the full highlights.)
The finish was great, but the defending that came before definitely was not.
(Monty, at least, had the grace to be ashamed.)
*exasperated flap*
"That's it, I quit."
Poor, embarrassed Monty wasn't very good.
He was pushed over a bit more centrally than usual, with Gobbi hanging around on the left, and had a lot of space to push forward, but it just was not happening for him at all.
(RAWR.)
(How annoyed must he be that when he displayed his milky white butt for hours, everyone ignored it, but the one time he tripped and was undignified, the photogs were all over it?)
His main talking point, though, was not tripping. It was this miss.
He was in all alone, but took the ball too wide, and failed to even put it on goal.
He's sorry.
(Regret was a continuing theme.)
Fierce Melo was back and well-rested after sitting out the Genoa match through suspension.
He had a great first 10 minutes, during which he was absolutely owning the midfield.
Unfortunately, things went downhill after that.
He wasn't total shit, but he also wasn't anything like his usual self.
LOL.
LOLOLOLOLOL.
He, too, got a little time with Suarez, and looked a whole lot more like he might actually devour him than Gambit did.
Gobbit got a midfield start, ostensibly on the left but really he sort of sat in with Melo, trying not to screw anything up.
And I guess it sorta worked -- he was in the Not Total Shit camp with Melo, which is better than it could have been.
(Kuzi went on for him, and was much worse. His main contribution was a bad miss late in the game. *pat pat*)
Because Cesare decided to try a (semi) 4-3-3, Pubes was back in his spot from last year, to the right of the front line.
In reality, he was more of a midfielder than striker, so he did a whole lot of running up and down the right.
He had much less freedom than he does when he comes on late in matches when Fiorentina needs goals and just gets to run around, but he'll probably take more rules in exchange for more time any day, huh?
(Oops.)
He actually ended up the second-highest rated field player, just because he tried to create things when he had opportunities. (They rarely came off, but just making an effort at creativity gets him some points.)
He also gets points for being amused by cards.
Jojo went on for him with more than 30 minutes left when Cesare changed the system up.
Apart from looking what Ruby would call "gormless," he didn't do a damn thing.
Speaking of not doing a damn thing.
Hello, froggy Gila.
Whether it was the 4-3-3 or the 4-3-1-2, he was pretty much uniformly ineffective.
He worked like he does, but seem even more awkward (not to mention in desperate need of a haircut) than usual.
Seriously, I almost can't look at anything but his awful, mad scientist hair.
Oh, don't give me that, Gila! LOOK AT YOURSELF.
(Gila + hair = offside. Doh!)
I really can't stop, but you understand, right? It's enormously (in more ways than one) distracting.
Right. Focus.
He got tantalizing close to some long balls, but was never able to put any of them on goal.
Close and closer, but no cigars for Gila.
This one was late and particularly tantalizing, but in the end the keeper beat him to the ball pretty easily, and Gila landed right on the guy's back.
Awwwww.
And he must be very happy indeed that there aren't any pictures of him somehow getting the ball stuck under his feet when there was NO ONE BETWEEN HIM AND THE GOAL.
(There is, however, a picture of him blowing his nose. Thank goodness for that.)
Seriously, Gila. WTF was that tripping thing? How did that happen?!)
And last we have Mutu, of whom there are a zillion pictures, for some reason.
There's no way he was happy with the return to the 4-3-3, because that means a lot more running for him and less freedom of movement, but to his credit he actually got stuck in and worked.
See? Defending! Totally defending.
Ok, there was some of this, as well as periodic glares at Monty (which Monty totally ignored, much to the amusement of, well, me) and Gila, but his behavior was a million times better than it had been on Sunday.
He was definitely better than Gila, but that's about the only praise we can give him.
Well, apart from that he remains just excruciatingly pretty.
(Sadly, Ajax were unwilling to deflect any free kicks into the goal -- if only they'd been as accommodating as Genoa, things might have been different.)
There were times when it looked like he was going to change the game -- he made a handful of great, opening passes (particularly the one that Gila stepped on), but nothing ever came from them.
(Preeeeetty.)
As a special bonus, he scored in the first 10 minutes (from Gila!), but was unfortunately very offside.
*melts into a puddle of goo*
All the pretty in the world couldn't help Fiorentina finish, though.
Reassuringly, no one was real happy.
Cesare made the rounds of his boys, saying all kinds of optimistic things, and giving them the postgame talking points.
It's a good sign that they know they were bad, right?
Poor Kuzi, that late miss must have just killed him.
(Seb cleverly found someone to walk with who makes his hair look amazing by comparison.)
I think it's safe to say they HATE this handshaking thing after European losses -- even more than after normal losses. And by "they," I mean "Monty," who seems to have skipped this one entirely.
Home to Cheivo on Sunday.