Re: Serie A Thread - 2013/14 Season
Gomito said:
Roma is so good right now, watched whole game didn't realize totti was injured until panic took PK. What a renaissance maicon is having
yeah, maicon and gervinho are 2 completely different players from their "premier league version". as for totti, trust me, had he been on the pitch u would have noticed. totti is just unplayable theese days.... it's like watching the hero from "matrix" playing football. ridiculous.
anyway it was a weird game, as both teams had a much more cautious approach than usual, yet the game was still quite eventful and entertaining. u feel like saying this was a tactical battle (and it definitely was... a very good one too), wich is weird, as usually the expression "tactical battle" is nothing but a diplomatic way to say "the game was boring aas hell".... but that's not the case this time, as even though both teams didn't really play their usual football, the game was still quite fun to watch.
unusual as it might be, we've already see both theese teams playing defense a few times before, but this time was different.
napoli, as a team, are very self conscuious about their defense, so they usually try to keep the ball as high up the pitch as possible (to prevent the opponent from exploring their weaknesses). and that's a good plan. those 3 nightmares upfront (hamsik, insigne and callejon) provide an unbearable high pressing, so it gets hard for the opponent to even get on the other side of the midfield line.
the problems begin when the napoletani hit the panic botton. as soon as their self-consciousness kicks in, those 3 fellas upfront fall back, shifting the entire centre of gravity of the team (good bye high pressing) and leaving the forward (higuain or pandev) alone. and of course, since insigne, hamsik and callejon are less than useless in defense, not only the team still can't defend against any attack... but they don't even have any punch upfront anymore (the arsenal game being the most evident example of this situation).
yesterday instead napoli didn't panic. even in the second half, when they were already down on the scoreboard, they still looked quite exuberant. unfortunately though insigne was completely worn out after the international break, and maggio and higuain clearely haven't recovered yet from their injuries.
just like napoli, roma too isn't used to play defense as much as they did yesterday..... but unlike napoli, when they need to, they're still deadly with their quickest counters.
but yesterday, once totti was off the pitch, relying on counters ceased to be an option and even roma's deadliest counter attacking weapons (gervinho and florenzi) couldn't make an impact, without totti serving them from behind.
it's kinda ironic to think that the game was decided but zeman's two exiles: pianjc and de rossi. one provided the goals and the other (almost single-handedly) obliterated hamsik and inler, with (yet another) monstre performance. and u know what's funny? im 100% positive that if we would ask zeman today, he would still tell us he made the right call.
so right now roma holds a 5 points advantage over napoli. they've won every game they played this season, scored 22 goals and conceded only 1 in 8 matches. and yesterday they showed us that even when they're not playing their best football, they still can handle the heat and keep a clean sheet against the 2nd best offence in the league (the 1st being the giallorossi, obviously).
yesterday they made napoli look like an average team, wich is something we've only seen from arsenal this season. but, whereas against arsenal, napoli were playing their worst game of the season, yesterday napoli actually looked in a pretty decent shape (wich makes roma's feat even more remarkable).
one last note on international breaks: 2 of the main protagonists were missing yesterday, as they looked exhausted after their efforts in the italy game: insigne and florenzi. but since those 2 kids were the only 2 who bothered showing up against armenia, the result is: italy still played a horrible game and florenzi and insigne had almost no contribution to yesterday's game.
this is a disgrace. why do we have to interrupt the domestic leagues like this is just beyond me. the national team coach can't do any real coaching work in 10 days and it's a big distraction for the players from their club duties. why do we have to do this?
why can't we save the international games for after the season? no more useless interruptions, the seasons will end a month earlier (april instead of may) and then we might hand our national team players to their respective nt coaches, so they could play all their friendlies\qualifying games during that month. not only it would be better for the clubs and the players.... even the national teams coaches could do a much better job having their players for an entire uninterrupted month.... instead of 10 every 3 months! sorry about this little off topic rant.
joe red, never heard that one before 
