Week 14, Or: When it Became a Two-Horse Race

By: Martha | December 4th, 2006

Milan-Cagliari I know there’s really no excuse for the endless sucking of Milan this season, but look at the injury list they carried into yesterday’s game at Cagliari: At the very least, they were without Dida, Cafu, Billy Costacurta, Nesta, Serginho, Favalli, Gattuso, Ambrosini and Kaka. I mean, for the love of god — that’s two players short of a full team! Imagine, one of the smaller clubs with an injury list that long — they’d just have to pack it in. Oh, and though Kaka is supposed to be back in time for the midweek Champions League match, Nesta is headed for shoulder surgery and Serginho will have a spine (!!!) operation this week. All of which is a long way of saying, “A point off Cagliari? Party at Ancelotti’s house!”

The weekend’s complete results are after the jump.

Ascoli - Catania 2-2: For those of you gazing with morbid fascination at the bottom of the table, Ascoli STILL have not won, and I hear the team are officially on suicide watch. What’s the record for longest winless run to start a season? Anyone?
Cagliari - Milan 2-2
Fiorentina - Lazio 1-0
Inter - Siena 2-0
Livorno - Chievo 0-2
Messina - Sampdoria 0-2
Parma - Palermo 0-0: Siiiiiiiiiiiiiigh.
Roma - Atalanta 2-1
Torino - Empoli 1-0: You know the goalline technology they were testing at Udine? They needed it in Turin. If you ask Torino, however, things went very nicely, thanks — they got to celebrated their centenary with three stolen points.
Udinese - Reggina 1-1

So, barring a miracle from someone else or a disaster from one of the frontrunners, Inter and Roma seemed destined to spend the rest of the season pulling away, and trying to steal points from one another. Inter still haven’t lost and have 36 points, four clear of Roma and eight above poor, flagging Palermo. That said, in two weeks Palermo play at Roma — my heart insists that, if they can pull themselves together and take the full three points, you never know. Right? Hello? Sigh. Meanwhile, at the other end of the table, I would just like to point out that Reggina started the season on -15 and have two points. That’s only four fewer than poor, poor Ascoli, who started the season tied with the great Inter (and, you know, pretty much everyone else).