Serie A: Atalanta v. Bologna
View attachment 256136Sunday, 31 January 2016
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Everton have only a mere 30 hours left to buy Federico Casarini. We haven't received an offer, yet. But every time my cell jangles or dings I nearly **** my pants.
3,000 Rossoblu are crammed into the away corner and displayed a
Casarini Please Stay banner the size of the away corner. Bergamo's Atleti Azzurri d'Italia is not quite half full which means there are only 7 or 8K Atalanta supporters in attendance. Oh yeah, and the weather sucks. Well, I mean it's not raining or snowing, but it's fkn cold.
I think word got around about my interaction with the fans and with Guaraldi and Savoia. First, because Enzo is a good ally and would retell and embellish and turn the interaction into a legend given enough time. And secondly, because I left the door open so nearly everyone in the office could hear me. The players had noticed that I was a little extra fired up. I used this in my pre-match talk. I told them Savoia doesn't think they're good enough and wants to be put back in charge of buying and selling players. I told them to prove that he's got it all wrong.
Maybe my speech didn't work or maybe it was just too cold. We let Atalanta charge down the pitch and Simone Padoin fed Matej Vydra and the only alert player on the pitch, Dejan Stojanovic, made a fabulous foot save or we would have gifted them a goal inside a minute.
I was up off the bench and screaming at them to tighten up.
Pintos tried to show how committed he was to the cause but nearly got booked for a poorly timed tackle. A minute later and Francesco Migliore was warned. Thankfully, we had woken up.
In the 13th minute, Bernardo nearly shattered the crossbar with a free header from a Gaël Kakuta corner. The ball careened at high speed directly at Shawn Parker. He had the presence of mind to adjust his feet and side foot the ball into a gap between defenders.
0-1
We had a real scare in the 24th minute. Bernardo followed fellow Colombian Duvan Zapata out to the flank. They exploited the gap and Dedryk Boyata blocked Vydra's shot. The ball rolled out wide left and Padoin hammered a bad angle shot that nearly wrong-footed Dejan but he managed to do another foot save for a corner.
In the 33rd, we had another corner. Kakuta curled in another near post special for Bernardo. This time he had a marker but shrugged him off and glanced a header that evaded the Atalanta keeper and bulged the far side netting.
0-2
I realized that as halftime approached I was grinding my teeth and mumbling under my breath. I was urging my players to maintain focus in those critical last seconds before the half ends. We'd talked about it, now would they do it.
Nope.
Suddenly, no player on either side could control a pass, head the ball correctly or pass to a teammate. It was embarrassing. Recognizing this, somebody should have just put their foot through the ball and cleared it to safety. But, no. We attempted to suicidally pass our way out of the stupidity. Atalanta should have scored twice but there's a reason they're in 15th place and in a relegation dogfight. They blew to golden chances to score that we presented to them on a platter.
Then in the 44th, we cleared a corner back out to our right flank from where it came.
I warned my players not to get complacent in the locker room. Luca Cigarini curled in a second try. Zapata stepped backward to position himself for the header. He didn't have much power on it but he hit it perfectly. In baseball, they call this a seeing eye single. The ball just knew where it had to go and got there. It bounced on the goal line a millimeter away from Dejan's glove.
1-2
I warned my players at half time not to get complacent. I also replaced my teenage Uruguayan prodigy, Pintos. He just didn't have the legs, yet. On went Andrea Russotto.
And the first fifteen minutes of the half, they did great. Atalanta didn't really have any chances. This continued through the 60s and the 70s. I pulled out Simone Pasa who was looking exhausted. Then we choked on three successive chances to ice the game.
I knew we were going to pay for this.
In the 83rd, we cleared a corner but only to Padoin. He lofted a ball into the corner for Cigarini. Cigarini leapt and whacked a cross towards the middle. Directly into the path of Zapata who had the easiest of redirections to level the score.
2-2
Where the **** was our marking? Boyata was the nearest defender but let his man get the better position and muscle him off.
I had been about to start yelling at my players to re-position to defend the lead. Now I was urging them on to find a winning goal. I had Loris Damonte and Leonardo Guerra warming up. Loris is the defensive option, so on went Guerra for Michele Pazienza. Now I have to player-makers on the pitch: Guerra and Casarini.
The game now resembled basketball. Each side would race to the other end and try to get a shot off before the 30 second clock would buzz. Since Atalanta play with three at the back, my wingers Kakuta and Russotto were always open and always had room to run.
I dreaded every Atalanta advance up the field and hoped against hope that we could create something on our attacks. But every chance for both sides fell apart or was squandered.
The fourth official signaled 4 minutes of extra time. Bernardo got carded in the 91st minute. He'll miss the next match.
As the clocked rolled over 94:00, Antonio Vacca won a header in the center circle out to the right for Guerra to run onto. Leonardo zipped a pass up the line for Russotto to chase. As the left back and a midfielder converged, he pulled the ball back and onto his weaker right foot. He smashed the ball hard toward the penalty spot.
AND FEDERICO CASARINI MET IT WITH A MURDEROUSLY ACCURATE KNIFE INTO THE GUT OF ATALANTA!!!
2-3
He ran toward the bench, but straight past us and all the way into the far corner where the Rossoblus were absolutely losing their minds followed by his teammates and everyone on the bench. He kissed the Bologna badge on his shirt and blew kisses to the faithful. They lapped it up.
Atalanta restarted and managed a second kick of the ball before the ref ended it.
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