Coppa, Coppa, Coppa!

By: Martha | January 24th, 2008

Who ever could have imagined? Both Roma and Inter went down to 10 men early in yesterday’s Coppa Italia matches, with Roma losing Philippe Mexes to his second yellow in the 19th minute and Inter losing the utterly useless Nico Burdisso to a straight red in the eighth. Both teams, however, survived with draws, and will head into their away second legs with way more optimism than they must have had immediately after the sendings off.

RomaChris has all the info on the Roma-Samp match, including a liveblog and an optimistic post-match wrap, which is understandable, given how well Roma played a man down, and with a horribly cobbled-together backline. Inter, for their, were less reassuring, at least in the first half — even before they went down a man, they were disinterested, and Juve were clearly the better team. They weren’t killing Francesco Toldo in goal or anything, but the visitors were eager and sharp, whereas Inter were mostly just taking up space. (According to the wise Ray Hudson, the problem was that the Nerazzurri where without Cristian Chivu who, apparently, has been a “revelation” in the “engine of the Inter midfield.” Me, I think it had more to do with the fact that the midfield was made up of Santiago Solari, Maniche, Pele and Cesar, but what do I know?)

After Burdisso was sent off — the tackle wasn’t that ugly, but it was from behind and so totally desperate he didn’t even bother to complain — Inter sort of settled in to wait for the game to be over. It was incredibly listless football, and only Juve’s lack of finishing and the surprisingly solid play of Marco Materazzi and Nelson Rivas in the middle of the Inter defense kept the match scoreless. The second half, however, was totally different — Inter woke up and bothered to attack, while Juve, in Claudio Ranieri’s own estimation, went to sleep, allowing Inter to take control of the midfield for long stretches, resulting in a second-half brace for the razor-sharp Julio Cruz.

Up 2-0 with 20 minutes to go, Inter decided to rest on their laurels, and all hell broke lose — with Materazzi off nursing a sore head, Alex Del Piero jumped on a loose ball in the box to draw Juve within one and then, with just five minutes left, Professional Waste of Space Jean-Alain Boumsong skied (!) over Cruz (!) to head in a corner and level the score. (The Lyon-bound Boumsong described the goal as his “farewell gift” to Juve supporters. You know, for all that loving mocking they’ve been doing of him since the day he turned up.) From the perspective a team down a man for over 80 minutes, a draw is a good results, but when that team was up 2-0 with 20 minutes left and found a way to give up two away goals, it sort of takes the shine off the accomplishment, especially with a tough trip to Turin looming ahead.

In the day’s overlooked (by me) early match, meanwhile, Udinese secured an exciting 3-2 home win, after coming from behind to beat Catania. I didn’t see any of the match and therefore can’t be too informative about it, but both teams seem to have given some young players a chance to shine, and Udine’s little-used, ex-Italy youth international Damiano Ferronetti was the one who opened the scoring when he was first to a loose ball inside the first 10 minutes. Catania got the next two, though, through Mariano Izco and Jorge Martinez, and were ahead going into the half. Based on reports, it sounds like the second half was all Udinese: They went close several times before drawing level with a Simone Pepe PK, and went ahead for good through Dias Felipe with 15 minutes to go. The home side had several more chances to put the game away but in the end the three goals were enough, and they’ll head to Siciliy for the return leg full of confidence.

[Today's match is Fiorentina at Lazio.]