Serie A: Torino v. Bologna
View attachment 248152Saturday, 27 February 2016
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Once again we're playing in front of a half full stadium. Conditions are blustery and cold. Clouds scuttle across the sky. It's almost March, but you can hardly tell the difference between today and any day in December or January.
We create two good chances inside the first ten minutes and I start getting hope that we can break out of our funk. Alejandro Pintos sets up Shawn Parker 2 minutes in, but Shawn smacks it centimeters wide of the far post. In the 10th, my keeper Dejan Stojanovic punts a ball upfield. Marco Alonso misjudges the flight of the ball, aided by the swirling gusts of wind, and Andrea Russotto finds himself 30 meters out from goal with nobody around him.
He jogs slowly goalward allowing the defenders to catch up. Andrea is light years faster than any of them, yet he just cannot seem to control the devilish round, brightly colored sphere at his feet. It's as if he'd never seen this type of spherical object before. Eventually, he feints and creates a millimeter of space in which to shoot, but dribbles a shot wide.
In the 26th minute, Archimede Morleo fouled Fabio Quagliarella just outside of the left top corner of our box. Everyone lined up for the free kick. Peruvian international Yordy Reyna lined up the free kick. Here's how you defend free kicks. You position yourself so that you can see both the man you are marking and the ball. Danilo Bernabini did this. He had Emiliano Moretti in front of him and could see the ball. Additionally, he had an arm around Moretti.
Suddenly, this mesmerizing, yellow sphere came floating over toward the back post where he was standing. He was so amazed at how this magical sphere spun through the air that he completely forgot about Moretti.
1-0
An easy tap in for the central defender.
Stefano Romanin and Alessio Frati will have a perfect teaching point for young Danilo on Sunday morning. Ball watching is the greatest sin a defender can commit in my book.
We created several good chances including Parker smashing a shot off the post and zipped across the goal line and behind the keeper before a Torino defender cleared it.
At half time, I told them they were just unlucky and to keep plugging away.
Shawn Parker looked really frustrated as the second half progressed. It was clear he and his teammates were not on the same page. At the 50th minute mark, he gave up and was only jogging into positions when normally he would sprint. I got Matthias Lepiller warming up. I was planning to move Pintos up top with Lepiller as the left winger.
Morleo let Reyna get past him in the 51st minute. Then Bernardo just watched as Quagliarella controlled the pass into the box and shoot.
2-0
WTF? You don't just stand there and watch when Quagliarella gets the ball in the box. The guy is fkn deadly.
"**** it," I grumbled to myself. "Monteleone starts next match instead of Bernardo. Can't get much worse."
The air went out of Parker when he realized the number up on the board was his. He dejectedly jogged off and gave a sad little clap in the direction of the traveling Rossoblus in the corner of Stadio Olympico before hiding inside a parka on the bench.
And then it got worse.
In the 61st, Quagliarella passed the ball to Angolan international Igor Vetokele just outside the top of the box. Vetokele had been anonymous for the first hour of the match. But Dedryck Boyata didn't close him down and the Angolan spun and shot. On another day, Dejan might have got to it, but not today. The grassburner shot slipped under his outstretched glove.
3-0
A few minutes later I yanked Federico Casarini and Loris Damonte off and replaced them with Leonardo Guerra and Michele Pazienza.
In the 73rd, Paz was unmarked at the near post and headed in a Lepiller corner.
3-1
How nice. Some consolation. Whatever.
The game was steadily grinding towards 90 minutes when Pintos crossed the half line with the ball at this feet. He looked around for options then chipped it out to the left for the onrushing Morleo. Pintos took off like a bullet train for the near post. And that's precisely where Morleo delivered the cross. My Uruguayan prodigy smashed a short hop volley past the frozen keeper.
3-2
But that's all there was. A decent enough comeback but where oh where was my defense when we needed them? We have much to work on before struggling Palermo visits next week.
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