Just Kidding About that Ban (Etc.)

By: Martha | October 30th, 2007

WOO HOO, NO BAN! 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.