Just Kidding About that Ban (Etc.)
By: Martha | October 30th, 2007
This just in: An emergency appeal by Napoli has seen Marcelo Zalayeta’s two-match ban thrown out, and he’ll be available to face Fiorentina tomorrow. Apparently he wasn’t diving, but just really, really dramatically trying to save Gigi Buffon’s life rather than kicking him. Jesus Christ. Well, glad we had law and order there for about 24 hours — it was fun while it lasted.
In other lawbreaker news, video evidence has been used to ban Parma’s Fernando Couto for three games for spitting on Erjon Bogdani on Sunday. Oddly enough, no one seems to be interested in overturning that suspension — Parma, Shmarma, right? Additionally, David Di Michele could make his debut for Torino tomorrow, having finally finished serving his suspension for gambling. It just so happens that, coincidentally, Toro are facing Udinese, so Di Michele will probably make his first Grenata appearance against his old club.
Outside of all the whining, there are a couple of great games going on tomorrow, primary among them the first Roma derby of the season. Roma are without Aquilani and Totti (among others), and Lazio are without everyone and should get crushed, but they should have been crushed last year, and ended up blowing Roma out, so God only knows what’s going to happen. (Chris’s wildly detailed, video-filled preview is up as usual.) There also should be a fantastic match in Florence, where the Viola welcome high-flying/oft-diving Napoli to the Stadio Artemio Franchi. Even if, as is being suggested on the fan sites, Adrian Mutu finally gets a rest tomorrow, the game should be blazing, end-to-end stuff with insane amounts of skill on display. Hopefully Sebastian Frey will be usual perfect self and hold it down, while Bobo works his slow-moving magic at the other end and get the Viola a point or three.
Edit: NapoliJoe’s preview of the Viola match is up.
Category: Lazio, Bobo Vieri, Udinese, Torino, Totti, Rumors & News, Fiorentina, Roma, Mutu, Napoli, Serie A
Tags: Serie A, Fiorentina, Roma, Mutu, Napoli, Rumors - News, Totti, Lazio, Bobo Vieri, Udinese, Torino, Tag IndexSubscribe
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Comments
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This is just something for the people who think Italian football is corrupt and therefore unwatchable to fall back on.
I think there obviously needs to be a policy in place so Colina can use that to make his determinations. If an aggrieved team can appeal to a potentially biased court and go outside the Lega Calcio then it undermines all authority that Colina has. Why bother having the man in the position if he cannot even enforce his own decisions?
Oh well. I’ll keep dreaming about a standard policy being in place starting with a 2 game suspension and big fine for divers. Then you can increase the length of the suspension and the amount of the fine for subsequent offenses.
Also, for the record, I’m not simply salty because this means Zalayeta will play tomorrow against my Viola. Fiorentina should win the game whether or not his diving ass is on the field.
Posted from
United States
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Sources are now saying Torino has decided to let Di Michele sit out tomorrow as well. The expiry date of the suspension is unknown, some say today, others say tomorrow, so to avoid further punishments and problems an stay on the safe side Torino are keeping him on the sidelines until Saturday.
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United States -
tmc, I don’t know where you are, but you need to come to NYC so we can watch Fiorentina together, and I can rant about how great Mutu and Bobo are while you go on and on about the need for a defensive mid. (And I’m vote #2 for your diving policy. We’re nearly there.)
Thanks for that, Francesco. It pains me that Torino will have to go yet another match without a creative attacking player (esp if Recoba is still not 100%), but I suppose that’s better than risking having the result thrown out. (Only in Italy would no one know when the suspension ends.)
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United States -
Whats a good place to watch Fiorentina in New York? It would be a good thing to know for next time I’m down visiting family.
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Canada -
I agree with the diving sentence. Ought to just be automatic and we can spend time actually talking about the football versus all this other crap.
I think the viola are going to have a hard time cracking the Napoli defense. Ought to be a hell of a match.
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United States -
My favorite place is my couch or, if they’re not on tv, at my desk watching seriea.tv. If they’re the main game I suppose they could be on at Nevada Smiths (at 14th and, like, 3rd) or the Italian bar on Houston, but as far as I know there’s not a Viola-centric bar on anything. Of course, I’d love to be proved wrong — anyone?
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United States -
Martha I live in DC, but I used to be in NY quite regularly. However, my girlfriend just got a job down here so I don’t make it up to NY nearly as often. I’m sure I’ll be in town sometime soon, so hopefully we can workout a viewing party. It can be a little lonesome being a Fiorentina fan in the soccer bars down here in DC - if people actually follow Serie A (usually they just bitch that it is “boring”), mostly they seem to support AC Milan or Juve.
I think on his blog Nicky mentioned that there is a Viola fan club in NYC, but even that has only about 35 members or something to that effect, and that would be the whole tri-state area.
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United States -
I cannot believe that Zalayeta’s ban has been completely lifted… you’d think they’d reduce it to 1 match only!
This is ridiculous! So what about the ref? Can he appeal and maybe reward some penalties against Inter? (I just want to see Roma on top of the table…lol)Posted from
United States
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