Serie A: Palermo v. Bologna
View attachment 247557Wednesday, 2 March 2016
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It's a balmy 10C (50F) in Palermo tonight. After this winter, this seems downright nice. Thankfully, the flight down to Sicily was smooth, our warm-up went well and Stadio Renzo Barbera is one-third full.
The players took my talking points to heart and were really up for this one. The first half was exciting but goalless. We dominated possession and we had the better chances. Palermo didn't look very dangerous as Guiseppe Iachini set up his line-up so defensively that nobody ever got forward to support their two forwards.
Andrea Russotto and Alejandro Pintos both wasted glorious chances to give us a first half lead.
I pulled off Russotto and Michele Pazienza at the break as they weren't playing well. Matthias Lepiller went on as left wing and Antonio Vacca as the second ball-winning midfielder.
I was late getting back to the dugout at the start of the second half. I realized rather late that I needed to pee just a moment before the refs knocked on our door. So as I'm walking to the dugout, I see Matthias Lepiller spray a pass out to the left flank for Francesco Migliore. Migs whipped in an early, high and arcing cross towards the back post. When I looked down, Shawn Parker was breaking free of the Palermo left back and eased the ball into the open net from 4 meters.
0-1
The nearly empty stadium went deathly silent except for the 750 to 1000 Rossoblus in the far corner.
Palermo still didn't threaten much as one hour of calcio passed. In the 70th minute, Lepiller shot from 25 meters. The ball caromed off the inside of the post, scooted across the goal line and behind the surprised keeper before it was cleared.
Then I dropped my two midfield ball winners, Simone Pasa and Vacca into defensive midfield positions to park the bus. It worked. Palermo were just as ineffective as during the previous 70 odd minutes.
Until the 88th minute, that is.
Dedryck Boyata stepped up to intercept a pass. Rather than chest it and control it, he decided to head it. Instead of taking the easy option of Vacca directly in front of him or Gyorgy Garics out wide right, Boyata tried to head it past Palermo's Francesco Della Rocca. Everyone orifice in by body puckered up.
Of course, Della Rocca intercepted and heading the ball into the gap Boyata had left. Palermo forward Paulo Dybala fed a pass behind Davide Monteleone and Ishak Belfodil was in alone on Stojanovic. Dejan takes a weird angle and Belfodil has half the net to shoot at. Until Garics comes thundering in with a goal saving tackle.
I don't unpucker just quite yet because the ball rolls out to the left where Francesco Bolzoni has a wide open net from a somewhat tight angle. He smashes it into the side netting wide of the near post as Monteleone comes sliding across and Dejan wraps himself around the post in an effort to get there in time.
I have an overwhelming urge to both vomit and fill my pants as my orifices unpucker.
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