Monday’s Mostly Ill-Tempered News Roundup

By: Martha | December 18th, 2006

Livorno-Lazio •More whinging about the referees: This time, it’s Messina chief Pietro Franza who is playing the corruption card, blaming his team’s loss to Inter on the fact that the nerazzurri are being “protected” by the powers that be. According to Franza, who must have had to take a shower after all of the dripping sarcasm, it’s not a secret to anyone that Inter are receiving help: “We have all understood that Inter must win this year, but it is not nice for us to be defeated like this.” Now, I’m as big a cynic as anyone about Italian referees and, frankly, it would stun me if there wasn’t corruption. But I’ve seen almost every Inter game this year and can’t think of a single one in which they were struggling until a series of friendly decisions smoothed the way to points. But I may be missing something obvious here — can you think of any?

•Totally not surprisingly, yet another Calciopoli suspension has been drastically shortened when no one was looking: AC Milan president Adriano Galliani is now cleared to return to the team (Has anyone noticed him being away?) on Saturday rather than on April 14, 2007.

•Oddly, people are pissed off that Livorno’s Cristiano Lucarelli saw fit to run across the pitch and hit (though not, apparently, with his fist) Lazio striker Goran Pandev when the latter had the nerve to celebrate a goal. The two teams have fan groups with very different political views, so the game was always going to be tense both in the stand and on the pitch; the fact that Lucarelli, who is fiercely devoted to his club and whose number (99) was selected in honor of a group of Livorno ultras, was involved in controversy isn’t exactly a surprise. To make matters worse for Lazio, Lacarelli received only a yellow card for the offense and went on to score the goal that tied the game and earned his team a point. If anyone wants to complain about referee corruption today, I’d say Lazio — who, in addition to seeing Lucarelli remain on the pitch also had a man sent off — have more of a leg to stand on than anyone at Messina.

•Speaking of Messina, Mark Zoro — who was probably their best player against Inter — is again lamenting the mindlessness of certain sections of Inter supporters. Duplicating their disgusting behavior of last season when they actually drove Zoro from the pitch, the fans again targeted him with racist chants. To Zoro’s endless credit, he kept his mouth shut and worked his ass off on the field, more than holding his own against a fantastic team. In the aftermath, he displayed immense self control in describing the offending Inter ultras simply as people who “don’t know how to live in this world.” Though there’s a chance Inter could be punished for the fan behavior by being forced to play at a neutral ground or in an empty stadium, it’s likely nothing will be done. And so the racism of some Italian fans will continue.

•Not only was Zoro the object of racist chants, but he also was supposedly headbutted by, yes, Marco Materazzi during the match. Video of the game is currently being reviewed, and Materazzi could face punishment if the charge is upheld by video evidence. Man, that Materazzi is such a class act.

•And, finally, a bit of good news: Press rumors in Spain indicate that little Fabio Cannavaro has won yet another award, this time beating out Ronaldiho and Zidane (ha ha) for the FIFA World Player of the Year Award. At the ceremony tonight, Canna is already assured of picking up one award because he, Andrea Pirlo and, yes, Zidane are being honored as the best players of the 2006 World Cup. Oh, and Buffon is being named best goalkeeper, as well — it’ll be all Azzurri, all the time!