Repeat After Me: Preseason Results Don’t Matter

That’s the mantra currently being chanted in the boardrooms of a lot of big clubs today after pretty much all of them — Juve excepted — suffered somewhat embarrassing results over the weekend.

The worst-hit were Roma and Inter, both of whom went down hard, albeit to good teams. In Roma’s case, their not-exactly-full-strength team actually had a 2-0 lead before crumbling and losing 5-2 to Claudio Ranieri’s Juventus. While Ranieri was understandably pleased with the result, Luciano Spaletti was surely wishing like hell that he’d labeled the match “a decisive test” beforehand. Ooops.

Inter, meanwhile, continued their grim (apart from the win over Manchester United) preseason run by going down 4-2 to Dutch side AZ Alkmaar. As usual, Roberto Mancini was sanguine about the whole thing, praising their opponents and emphasizing, as always, the “usefulness” of playing “hard matches” in the preseason. You know, as opposed to, say, beating the hell out of amateur sides, something that seems to be Udinese’s entire preseason agenda.

Also suffering over the week were Milan, who fell 1-0 to Real Betis. Though La Liga is ahead of Serie A in terms of preparation, Milan did sent out what was essentially a first-choice team and reportedly played fairly well, which would explain Carlo Ancelotti’s sudden loud proclamations of the insignificance of preseason results.

In good news, Torino, Siena and Reggina all played well and beat lower level teams which, well probably not worth bragging about, is a hell of a lot better than tying them, which is the fate that befell Livorno this weekend. 1-1 with an amateur side? Yeah, that’s not good.

Category: AC Milan, Inter Milan, Juventus, Reggina, Results, Roma, Serie A

Tags: AC Milan, friendlies, Inter Milan, Juventus, Livorno, preseason, Reggina, Results, Roma, Serie A, Siena, Torino, Udinese

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