Roma v Udinese: Totti Strikes Again

By: Martha | March 11th, 2007

Aw. Are there any Udine fans around here? This may have been the first time I watched them play a full 90 minutes all season and, based on this game alone, they seem very delicate mentally. For the first 30 minutes, everything was going great — they weren’t exactly scaring Roma, but their timing on long balls played forward was very good, and you could see they’d start creating chances eventually. Roma were countering really smoothly (as they did against Lyon), but Udine were defending very well, and handled every attack Roma threw at them. It looks like it was going to be a good match.

Until, that is, Guillerme Siqueira (Who look like he’s about 14 years old, rather than an old man of 20) handled the ball in the box and gave away a penalty. Since it’s an odd day, Totti actually successfully converted the PK, and Udine just fell apart. They gave up another goal less than 10 minutes later, and were lucky to only be down by two at half. I mean, all the organization and fight left when Totti’s goal went in — Udine completely forgot everything they’d been doing to that point.

Things settled down in the second half (Roma’s third goal came on a well-worked free kick, they weren’t dominating play, really), and then when Udine grabbed a goal they suddenly remembered how to play and were all over Roma. Di Natale hit the bar, and there were several smooth attacks and threatening corners after his strike. It was just weird — are Udine usually that helpless before the flow of the game? It was as if they were trapped in the proverbial tide, totally unable (or unwilling) to exert their will. If that makes any sense.

Other bits:

•The stuff about everything being fine between Mancini and Roma is crap. He celebrates with the team but is otherwise totally isolated — when he was subbed, he walked off shaking his head, got attention from no one ask he approached the bench, and sat down entirely alone. It was sad, really. My prognosticating generally sucks, but I’ll be shocked if he doesn’t leave this summer.

•I remember reading once that Udine were one of the last (if not the last) Serie A clubs to sign a black player because of the terrible racism of their fans. Now they’ve got more African regulars than any other club I can think of — I hope to God that means the fans have joined the rest of us in the 21st century.

•There was a weird, drawn-out scene before the game involve Totti, a man, a woman, and a baby (I assume it was theirs) in a stroller. They were pitch-side, and Totti spend an oddly long time talking to them, and speaking very seriously with the kid before giving him a tiny Totti jersey. No idea what that was about.