Messina v Palermo: Just in Case You Needed Another Reason to Hate Caracciolo

By: Martha | March 4th, 2007

A happy Messina gent. Wow. HUGE win for Messina, and another example of the towering selfish idiocy of one Andrea Caracciolo. There’s got to be a point at which you dump a guy, no matter how productive (And Caracciolo? Not so productive.), if his attitude is so bad all it does is hurt the team. Case in point, today’s game: He came on as a sub early in the second half, was denied a penalty, and proceeded to protest so vociferously (Read: He shoved the ref.) that he got himself sent off. Total elapsed time from arrival to departure? Less than 120 seconds, give or take.

I mean, honestly. No matter how bad the call was — and none of the replays that I saw clearly showed what the hell happened — the man has GOT to know that going after the referee can’t possibly do any good. Even if you don’t get sent off, there’s no way that sort of behavior makes officials look kindly upon a player. Clearly Corini needs to take Caracciolo out and smack him around a little bit. Either that, or he needs to have his ass in the stand for the next several weeks, because he is doing no one any good on the pitch, especially when he’s going to act like that. Jesus.

Ahem. Ranting aside, the game was sort of a weird one. Until the sending off, Palermo always looked the better team — they possessed the ball fairly well and hit the post twice. Di Michele, for once, was keeping his feet through tackles and his mouth shut, and put in an impressive performance during the first hour. He created a lot for his teammates, and hit the bottom of the post with a lovely curling shot early in the second half. Too bad about that whole Caracciolo thing.

On the other side, Christian Rigano’ — starting for the first time this year — benefited from great (albeit offside at least once) service from Alvarez and scored two wonderful goals with his head. The team worked their asses off and, in the end, probably deserved at least a point from the match. (Those extra two points we can chalk up to, well, you know who.) Needless to say, there was much rejoicing among the few Messina fans who decided to show up.

Also, important tidbits from La Grande Giostra Dei Gol (aka The William Tell Overture Show):

•The hot-but-classy female host had amazing hair today. It was pulled back into a ponytail, and the hair itself was all rolled in upon itself, like a giant snail was sliming its way up the back of her head. Truly awesome stuff.

•Roma’s Luciano Spalletti was the halftime and post-game guest of the show. I love that, in Italy, coaches are called “Mister.” Like, in English. (Apparently this stems from the British introduction of football to the country way back in the day.) It’s oddly touching.