Alpha Romeo Metaphor II

Enrico Pucci said:
So you're wagering two wins, one draw and one loss? I ask because Inter is in the Coppa.
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Ah interesting! Well you'll beat them in the Coppa, draw with Juve and beat Roma and Milan :P 7 points hahaha
Maybe a little optimistic but you never know :P
 
Gripping

I purposly dont read your story for a month at a time so I have a good 30-40 min read when I do check. Great story and as others have said it is like a novel. You really could wrote a book I would deffo buy it :-)

Are the mob going to make another appearance? Your life seems to be going to smoothly this season ;-)
 
willmolly3 said:
I purposly dont read your story for a month at a time so I have a good 30-40 min read when I do check. Great story and as others have said it is like a novel. You really could wrote a book I would deffo buy it :-)

Are the mob going to make another appearance? Your life seems to be going to smoothly this season ;-)
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Thank you very much!

You can't really escape the clutches of the Camorra or La Cosa Nostra, can you?
 
Would just like to say that this story is absolutely amazing, I have only ever read one story like it and I cant find that story anymore. I caught up on the Alpha Romeo part 1 only a few days ago and jumped straight onto this. Thank you for all the hard work you have put into this as it is simply astonishing, I created an account just to say this man. You.Are.A.Boss.
 
DNA8892 said:
Would just like to say that this story is absolutely amazing, I have only ever read one story like it and I cant find that story anymore. I caught up on the Alpha Romeo part 1 only a few days ago and jumped straight onto this. Thank you for all the hard work you have put into this as it is simply astonishing, I created an account just to say this man. You.Are.A.Boss.
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Thank you so much. Now I'm blushing.

Back in the hey day of FIFA Mgr in the early aughts, there was a story told by a guy who managed Sevilla then Cancun. His original story was about managing Liverpool, I think. You talking about that guy?

Or else there was a guy who had this incredibly complex story going with some small club in the north of Engerland.

It's too bad EA went mental. They had a good community site going.
 
Coppa Italia, fourth qualifying round: Bologna v. Inter

View attachment 275385Wednesday, 2 December 2015

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Seriously? Only a half full Stadio Renata Dall'Ara? Seriously? Do I need to run the marketing department for this club, too? How is it that Inter can't even half fill our stadium on a Wednesday night? Is it a foregone conclusion that we're going to lose? Did someone tell everyone but us that the fix was on?

It was the weirdest thing you might ever have a chance to see. Curva Sud was packed and rocking. At the other end were 4,000 or so Nerazzurri who'd made the grueling 2 hour drive to Bologna (or took the train, whatever). In the middle, were two virtually empty stands.

Ridiculous.

View attachment 275381Casarini rests, Migliore rests and Shawn Parker are hurt. So this is sort of a patched together line-up.

I instructed my players to sit deep and hit Inter on the counter and reminded them of the statistics which showed that Inter gave up the most goals after half time.

Not that they listened. The teams started off by trading chances in rather open play. Inter hitting straight through the middle despite us packing it and we exploited the flanks.

In the 9th minute, Loris Damonte was totally dangling the ball down the right flank. This was a side I'd never seen of his before. Now I know he played wing or right midfield for Messina in Serie C, but I'd utilized him in the middle because of his size, speed and sheer tenacity. After making the far more highly paid Gabriel Silva look rather foolish on several successive occasions, he decided to let someone else have the fun and passed inside and back to Simone Pasa.

Pasa one-timed a pass up to Antonio Vacca who gave it to Loris who'd run inside and took the pass at the edge of the box. Loris chipped the ball at Andrea Russotto. If he'd have done that during practice any of my coaches would have stopped the drill and yelled at him to pass it on the turf.

Andrea didn't care in the least, he cushioned the ball perfectly with the instep of his left foot and then in the next stride smashed the ball past a helpless Samir Handanovic.

1-0

Wow. One doesn't get to say helpless and Handanovic in the same sentence very often.

However, I would be covering my face with my hands inside a minute.

Directly from the restart, red hot Simone Zaza, Serie A's top scorer had the ball at his feet and was advancing toward our box looking for options. Bernardo stepped up with an immaculately time tackle which jarred the ball loose and dumped Zaza on his ****. But this is where everything went wrong.

First, instead of taking a couple of steps up and taking control of the loose ball, Bernardo retreated. Secondly, nobody else stepped forward and, with apologies to penguins of all ilk, Gary Medel waddled forward and sprayed a pass out to his left. The third mistake was Damonte was caught ball-watching and gesticulating for one his teammates to run forward for the loose ball. He wanted to torment Inter's Brazilian left back some more. This left Gabriel Silva, always more comfortable bombing forward than doing anything menial like defending, with acres of space.

The fourth mistake was, as everyone was sprinting toward our goalmouth in a panic, nobody bothered to mark anyone. The fifth mistake was Dedryck Boyata could have at least tried to go for the ball before it got to the near post.

So I covered my face with my hands as Zaza smashed his volley in from less than one meter.

1-1

Then the Nerazzurri went for the jugular and tried to put us down for good. We defended desperately and Dejan saved us with three fine saves.

In 24th minute, we finally got the ball out of our end and into the Inter half. Gaël Kakuta won a throw halfway down the left line. Morleo threw it back upfield to Pasa who spanked the ball into the space which opened up as Gaël ran inside. Morleo corraled the pass and instead of crossing to Damonte at the back post, passed inside to Russotto who wandered over.

Andrea spun and sprinted inside across the box with the ball at his feet. He sliced past both Andrea Ranocchia and Nemanja Vidic (this season's best defenders by far) and blazed a shot toward the far upper corner. Against nearly every other keeper in Italy, we might have had a lead. But not against Handanovic. He dove and snared it. Even made it look easier than it probably was.

Then both teams settled into a rhythm of trading chances. And by trading I mean that Inter would get three and we would get one. This is how it works in Italy. Juventus, both Milan clubs, Roma or Lazio (depending who is on the upswing at the moment) are just supposed to get all the chances. The only reason the score was tied was because Dejan stood tall (he can't help that part, 192cm) and would let nothing past him.

At halftime, I talked about not panicking when we got the ball and hoofing it anywhere but that we should stay alert and know where our options are. I praised everyone for playing great, desperate defense against a very hot team.

"But, Enrico, we suck out there," Boyata said in barely passable Italian. But at least he was trying. "Only Dejan stop them."

Both he and Bernardo were having none of me praising the defense. Bernardo was nodding in agreement with his defensive partner.

"Yes, you're right, Dejan held the line," I replied to Boyata in English. "So pick up your game. Prove we deserve to be in it."

"Everyone else," I said in Italian. "He's right. Dejan kept us in the game. Let's go out and prove we belong in this game."

So we left the dressing room in pretty good spirits. But that ended quickly. Bernardo got a second yellow card for a silly, useless and stupid foul inside the center circle. He had Zaza under control, the striker was facing his own goal. There was no need to kick at his ankles.

46:23 and we're down to ten men. F***burgers and S***biscuits!

I was counting on removing Kakuta and Russotto whenever they started looking knackered. I'd figured that was going to be somewhere between 60 and 70 minutes. Now, our most realistic chance of winning was via penalties. In other words, we'd need to hold off Serie A's top offense for 75 minutes.

So Pasa moved back into central defense. Vacca and Leonardo Guerra became defensive midfielders. We'd let them have the middle, we'd play up the flanks. I pulled of Kakuta and replaced him with Modibo Tounkara.

It took a few minutes for Inter to figure out how to break us down. Dejan had to make three successive saves on Icardi shots at 54, 57 and 60 minutes including an instinctive block of a volley from inside 5 meters.

Finally, in the 65th we managed to get the ball into the Nerazzurri box. Leonardo Guerra, Damonte and Tounkara all took shots as the ball pinballed about. None got through.

Of course, Inter broke on the counter and for the umpteenth time, Dejan thwarted Icardi.

Vacca was clearly exhausted, so I took him off and put on David Monteleone in central defense. Pasa moved up into the defensive midfielder role alongside Guerra.

In the 71st minute, I grudgingly took off Russotto. He'd run himself into the ground and I needed him Saturday against Roma. So on went Pierluigi Cappelluzzo.

Then the Nerazzurri seemed to stall out. We couldn't threaten their goal, but they couldn't create any decent chances. It seemed to me that they were hunting an injured prey waiting for extra time to pounce.

And they didn't have any real chances. Zaza headed wide in the 79th minute from a free kick and Dejan tipped a Hernanes long-range blast over the bar.

I was hoping for a free kick in the Inter half as the seconds ticked down towards 90 minutes, but the Nerazzurri were playing carefully. Then at 89:30, Damonte drove down the right side, made Gabriel Silva look foolish yet again and cut inside. Seeing his options limited, he passed back to Pasa. Pasa saw the whole pitch and saw that Gyorgy Garics was sprinting up our right flank. So he lofted a pass into the right corner. Garics controlled the pass and crossed.

Tounkara ran right past the ball. What. The. ****?

Of course, Inter broke on the counter. Dejan tipped yet another Icardi shot wide to save us.

Every Nerazzurri player piled forward. The fourth thousand away fans all screamed their support at the top of their lungs.

Matia Fernandez curled in a poor cross to the near post. But Pasa mishit his clearance. It went right to Crisetig who smashed a shot goalward. It ricocheted of any number of people and landed at Ranocchia's feet.

1-2

Even he wasn't going to miss from 2 meters.

View attachment 275380

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Serie A: Bologna v. Roma

View attachment 274028Sunday, 6 December 2015

View attachment 274026

It's the Francesco Totti Final Tour 2015. Apparently, he's really going to hang it up. Everyone in Stadio Renato Dall'Ara applauded when his name was announced. So imagine this: you've played in mostly Serie C and Serie B whilst Totti has been setting records in Serie A. This would be the case for Loris Damonte, Francesco Miglior and Andrea Russotto. Or you might be like Bernardo, Dedryck Boyata, Gaël Kakuta and Shawn Parker: you've watched him win the World Cup for Italy. Now you get to shake his hands. Here's how it works: your knees are knocking, you worry that your hands will be sweaty and clammy.

How do I know this? Because I've faced Totti, Pirlo, Maldini, Del Piero, Ibrahimovic et al. There's nothing that can brace you from it. If you're any good, you get used to it, you get over it.

View attachment 274027Suddenly handshakes are over and the game is on and your hands are still clammy and your knees are still knocking. Bernardo and Boyata had to mark the Living Legend. They pretty much didn't.

Totti scored in the 6th minute on Roma's fifth chance of the match. It was one of the simplest and utterly embarrassing goals to give up. Ivan Perisic dribbled inside from the left. Luca Ceccarelli, Boyata and Michele Pazienza offered no resistance. Bernardo was watching and that instant when the thought crossed his mind that maybe he ought to step up was the instant that Perisic slipped a pass behind for Totti to knock past Dejan Stojanovic.

0-1

The onslaught continued. Only Dejan kept us in the game.

In the 22nd minute, Dejan made an instinctive kick save on the Perisic shot. Ceccarelli and Gervinho ran out to the right of the goal after the rebound. Ceccarelli slid and tackled the ball out of bounds.

The ref pointed to the spot. Gervinho hadn't even fallen over or anything.

0-2

Totti doesn't miss a PK but once every fifth season.

From the restart, De Rossi immediately won the ball back and curled a pass out to Gervinho on our left. He took off down the touchline defended by Migliore. The Ivorian beat him like a rented mule and raced inside. Bernardo and Paz scrambled over to cover leaving Totti wide open at the penalty spot.

0-3

Of course, Gervinho fed Totti the pass to complete the hat trick.

I put my hands in my pockets. You long-time readers will know that this is a test. If I don't have any pockets because I'm not wearing any pants, this is a nightmare. At some point, I wake up in a pool of sweat and change the sheets. Sadly, this nightmare was the waking kind and I had pockets in my pants and now my hands were in them.

I stood there that way for the remainder of the half. Perisic made it 4-0.

At half time, I lost it. I screamed. The blood vessels on my neck and probably on my head were standing up and bright red. Spittle flew. I threw some things. At least two trash cans. I think a stack of towels, too.

I sat on the bench for the entire second half.

For those of you who have been following this story, you know that I'm always up and pacing the sidelines, yelling and etc.

The thought kept running through my mind 'how had I failed to prepare them?'

Afterwards in the locker room, it was pretty quiet and glum. My voice was still hoarse and sore from screaming at half time so I wasn't about to lay into them.

"Those people out there today pay good money to watch their beloved Rossoblu," I said calmly. "And what did they get? I get it that everyone loves Totti. He's a legend. But my teams do not lift their skirts up for every pretty man that walks by. My teams do not play like what I just saw. I will have my pound of flesh out of you tomorrow morning. Be prepared. I will have my pound of flesh."

And I walked out to face the press.

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9 clear cut chances!! :O Your players are in for some serious sprinting
 
Been a silent reader for a long time now, through both parts of the story in fact. Decided it was finally time to share my gratitude for what has become essential reading through "breaks" at work lol. So to you sir I thank you for all your efforts and look forward to seeing what else is in store.
 
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