Week 13, Or: Look Out, Here Comes Inter

By: Martha | November 27th, 2006

Adriano the bear. It’s not the loss by Palermo that worries me — they more than held their own, and given how … oddly Fontana dealt with Ibra’s rocket from distance, one could make a case for a tie being a reasonable result. Without di Michele and Simplicio, playing even-ish with Inter is something to be proud of, right? And though they’re now six points off the lead (and behind both Inter and Roma), that’s not insurmountable, this early in the season. Or it wouldn’t be, were it not for one terrifying fact: Adriano is finally awake.

You know how, when bears hibernate, they basically react to nothing? You can poke them with sharp sticks all day long, and they’ll just sorta growl and lazily wave a paw around in slow motion. So, that’s what Adriano has been for months: A fat, hibernating, slow-moving Brazilian bear. At some point in the last week, however, he woke up and started sending the people with those sharp sticks flying. Because yesterday? He played a full 90 minutes, created both Inter goals, and look terrifyingly fit and lively. This, friends, is more than a little alarming: Inter haven’t lost while he’s been curled up, snoozing in a cave — who the hell is going to beat them when Adriano is Adriano?

The other, less dispiriting results, after the jump.

Atalanta - Torino 1-2
Catania - Parma 2-0
Chievo - Udinese 2-0
Empoli - Cagliari 1-0
Lazio - Ascoli 3-1
Milan - Messina 1-0: Yes, you read that right — Milan won! And the goal? By Maldini, of course. Ever at 90, he’s still the one who steps up when things are utterly dire.
Reggina - Livorno 2-2
Sampdoria - Roma 2-4
Siena - Fiorentina 1-1

And so the table has some space at the top for the first time: Inter lead with 33 points, Roma are second with 29, and Palermo are hanging on with 27. A very solid Livorno squad is fourth on 20 points, but the gap between the top three and everyone else will probably only grow, so all the clubs with 17, 18, and 19 points are really fighting amongst themselves for European spots. At the other end of the table, meanwhile, Reggina have made up their entire point deduction, and are finally in positive territory. Woo hoo!