It’s Coppa Time Again, Or: See Ya, Tiago
By: Martha | January 16th, 2008
In the only Coppa Italia match played yesterday, Juve managed to overcome both Empoli and the presence of Jean-Alain Boumsong (He lives!) and Tiago Mendes in their own team to win 5-3, a result that put them through to the quarters by the completely loony aggregate score of 6-5.
Despite going down to 10 men with 15 minutes left, Empoli gave Juve a fright and played their asses off, often looking incredibly good going forward. Part of that, surely, is down to their talent, and the transformative effect — in the sort-term, at least — that new coach Alberto Malesani has had on his team and their confidence. The other part, though, had to do with Juve, and them being crap at the back, particularly after Giorgio Chiellini went down with a knee injury.
Never one to let his team (who apparently only tried because they want to play Inter in the next round) get away with anything, Claudio Ranieri’s press conference after the match included pointed references to the rubbish defending and, frighteningly for a certain gloomy Portuguese, specific mention of one player’s suckitude. Said Ranieri, “I wasn’t happy with Tiago as I expected more from him. I took him off because he was playing badly. Often he chose to play backwards instead of going forward and he performed without personality.” God damn, is that harsh. Ranieri definitely doesn’t call out players unless they’re really asking for it, but in the particular case he might wish he’d considered his words more carefully. I mean, how are they going to get a good price for the guy if he’s goes around calling him shit in the press?
Today’s Coppa matches:
•Roma v Torino (Toro lead 3-1)
•Fiorentina v Ascoli (1-1 after the first leg)
•Palermo-Udinese (0-0 after the first leg)
•Catania-Milan (Catania lead 2-1)
•Sampdoria-Cagliari (Cagliari lead 1-0)
[Thanks to ParmaFrancesco for nicely pointing out I'd left out over half of today's matches.]
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Comments
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Martha there are 3 other Coppa matches today as well:
Palermo-Udinese (0-0 first leg)
Catania-Milan (2-1 first leg)
Sampdoria-Cagliari (0-1 first leg)Posted from
United States
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Crap, thanks Francesco — will go add those in!
Posted from
United States -
Nothing to do with the Coppa, but, very newsworthy and even more unfortunate.
Ivan Ruggieri, the president of Atalanta who came to prominence for his courageous campaign against the mindless element of his club’s support in the wake of the Sandri tragedy, suffered a stroke at their training ground this morning. He’s in critical condition, and one can only hope that he somehow pulls through.
Posted from
Italy -
Aw, man, that’s awful news, Ursus. Thanks for the heads up, I’ll definitely at least mention it later today.
Posted from
United States -
Udinese-Palermo is almost over (looks like it’s going to extra time), but you can catch streams of Fiorentina-Ascoli and Catania-Milan here:
http://www.myp2p.eu/competition.php?competitionid=&part=sports&discipline=football
Fiorentina-Ascoli starts at 12 PM EST, while Catania-Milan starts at 2:30 PM EST.
Posted from
United States -
Never mind, Udinese have just scored an injury time winner. Looks like they will go through unless Palermo pull off a miracle. From the crappy stream it looked like a long ball that was touched past Agliardi (who probably could’ve done better)
Posted from
United States -
Fiorentina-Ascol is torture. So boring so far. Maybe Bobo should teach Semioli how to finish.
Posted from
United States -
Does anyone know if this is straight aggregate score or do away goals matter?
Posted from
United States -
I was assuming away goals mattered, but I realize now that I’ve not actually read that anywhere, so it could be wrong. Anyone? Ursus?
(Francesco, I just read a quote from Liverani about Bobo always teaching the kids things in training. Maybe Semioli is too old to be in his class.)
Posted from
United States -
Away goals count, and just as I post this Pazzini scored a beautiful second goal. Why can’t he do that in Serie A?
Posted from
United States -
FT 2-0.
Two good goals from Pazzini, although the second was great.
Balzaretti was good, as was Kuzmanovic, and so was young defender Mazuch.
Semioli was just terrible.
Daniele Cacia made his debut.
Posted from
United States -
now I have to make the decision of either watching Catania vs. Milan Reserves or Cassano and the other guys vs. Cagliari.
Posted from
United States -
Thanks, Francesco — this is quite an afternoon you’ve scheduled yourself!
How was Cacia? I see he got about 25 minutes. And Kuzmanovic has so much ability, any time he gets no matter the competition is a good thing.
Posted from
United States -
Cacia was a little timid. Didn’t do anything special, just the the simple things he had to do like passes and such.
Posted from
United States -
tiago is shit! sell him for as much as you can get! i think ranieri is calling him out on it because he thinks it will make him want to play harder. for some sick reason i think he still has a bit of faith left in tiago (unfortunately). empoli were stupid, if they really wanted the win why did they leave giovinco on the bench the whole game??? they definately need to look into that.
Posted from
Canada -
Prognosis for Chiellini’s injury is 40 days of recovery. That’s lucky considering a ligament tear isn’t a big stretch from a twisted knee.
Now the big guess for Juve, given that they loaned out Domenico Criscito, is who to pick as the central defense partner of Nicola Legrottaglie. Odds point to Zdenek Grygera, who despite his very average performances so far, is still far better than Jean-Alain “Calamity” Boumsong. God, and to think that Didier Deschamps had almost made him into a Serie A player…
Posted from
United States
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