Fiorentina 2 – Juventus 1 (If the Match Had Been Called Honestly)
By: Ted | January 25th, 2009
Well, the fix was in.
During the midweek I wrote about and linked to the growing suspicions among the Viola brass that they were just not getting the calls this season. That wariness was proved right this Saturday when one perfectly good Gila goal was ruled offside and a clear penalty against My Precious was ignored by the referee. When we gave up a tough goal off a sweet feed by Del Piero, I knew we wouldn’t get one back; even if Frey had kicked it in from his own six yard box, it would have been called offside. In the end, Those Who Decide These Things (formerly known as Luciano Moggi) decided that the Viola simply could not win two years in a row in Turin. So, of course, they did not.
I watched a bit of Milan today, and watched two penalties called that were both less clear cut than the one ignored against Jovetic. As one poster to the board said earlier, Kaka gets the calls when someone breaths on him wrong or looks at him funny. But obviously Fiorentina has fallen out of favor this season. Something happened, someone got pissed off, or somebody decided that we shouldn’t finish in the top four this season. So we probably won’t. Welcome to Italian football everybody. If you’re a newcomer to the sport, get used to it. Italian football is the most beautiful, complex version of the sport played anywhere in the world. It is also the most crooked, and it looks like we drew the short end of the stick this season. Juventus, as they always do, will continue to get the calls.
Aside from the fact that the match was fixed, many Viola fans were down about the play of the boys. I disagree. I think they played pretty well. And think about it this way: I watched Milan destroy Bologna today, but we kept the score to 1-0 last week even though we weren’t getting the calls. This week we played in a match fixed beforehand but still kept it to 1-0. Juve and Milan are both good teams even when they don’t cheat, so I don’t think we should hang our heads. And in retrospect, it was impossible to win Saturday’s game; the referees would not have allowed it. So we did all right.
The Good
Gila did OK up front and had a perfectly good goal taken away. Jovetic was good for long stretches and created a goal from the penalty that the refs ignored. Melo was tough and strong in midfield. I like Pasqual on the wing and thought Gamberini did a good job at centerback, especially as he was playing both centerback positions. (More on that in a moment.) Frey was God-like and could do nothing about the goal.
The Bad
I want to take back what I took back last week when I said Santana was playing better. Ugh. I should have trusted my first instinct. As soon as Mutu’s owies get better we slide him into the front and push My Precious back into the hole where he belongs. Santana can fight for a spot in midfield with Kuz and Gobbi.
Speaking of which, Kuz, Gobbi, and Monto were very quiet in the midfield. What the fuck is going on with Montolivo? Are we going to put up with this “great one match, invisible the next” shit for the rest of our lives? Show some consistency, man.
Koldrup is just fucking awful. And he’s making Gamberini work so hard to cover his ass that he’s making Gamberini look bad too. Koldrup’s only move is apparently to fall down whenever anyone gets near him with the ball. Good stuff, jackass.
The Ugly
The real ugliness of all of this is that it really doesn’t matter one way or the other. We lost because somebody in a suit decided we should lose. If you haven’t figured it out yet, I am really, really, fucking pissed and have been ever since about five minutes into the match. Just when you think Italian football is on the way to cleaning itself up and being respectable, this shit starts happening again. It drives me nuts. I love Fiorentina with a passion, and love everything about the club, but I hate how fucking dirty the sport is in Italy.
Hey, I live in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. I don’t have to be a fan of Fiorentina. I can’t get to Florence NEARLY as much as I would like, and have to do all sorts of pain-in-the-ass things like get up early on a Sunday morning to watch the games on a grainy computer feed. It would be a hell of a lot easier to just be a fan of the Boston Red Sox, the Celtics, or even the New England Revolution. In fact, I am a season ticket-holder to the Revs and live a few miles from the stadium. But at heart I am a Viola fan simply because that is the team I love. Every time I see this shit, however, every time I see something crooked going on in Series A, it makes me love the sport just a little less.
We’ve got Napoli at home on Wednesday. We’ll see what happens. We’ll see if we even get a chance to win.
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Also, sorry to apparently throw everyone off with my little Newcastle joke in the preview. (Well, everyone except Johonna, who did get it and had to explain it to everyone else). Please rest assured that I do actually know a tiny bit about Italian football and am well aware that Newcastle isn’t in Series A. I’ll try to keep things joke-free in the future, so as to not to confuse any of my readers. If I stay in the mood I’m in right now, it won’t be too hard to keep from making jokes.
Some Related Fiorentina Posts:
Category: Team News
Comments
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haha touche alessio. seriously though i wish people would stop attacking serie a for being crooked when bad refereeing is happening in every game in every league! man utd get all the decisions for them as do liverpool, chelsea and arsenal. its madness but thats how it is
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Ignoring the Juvemerda for a second, I will say I understand the penalty not being called – I thought it was a dive while watching the game to be honest, but the replay showed there was in fact contact – Jovetic most likely tried to milk it, unfortunately it was a legitimate foul but as I said it was a tough call.
However the offside was complete bullshit.
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To quote two incidents from Fiorentina-Juve in 07-08
Semioli was knocked down in the box between two pllayers
and Iaquinta’s goal was offside as Trezeguet ran right in front of Frey’s line of vison -
an error once in a great while is understandable.
errors every single week are not.i’m not saying the fix is in, i’m saying the refs have it out for us
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For the karma police that have come out of the woodwork, none of the participants on this blog were applauding Gila’s volleyball goal. We recognized.
For what it’s worth – the announcers on Fox Sports en Espanol thought Jovetic was brought down in the box, and before the replays confirmed it.
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try being a boro fan if you want injustice week in week out. you think you have it bad we are getting relegated because of bad refereeing
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and dont forget refs are more lenient to the home sides although im not saying you shouldnt have come away with a point i was impressed by your battling attitude. i have always liked juve and milan since i was a boy and im a stalwart napoli fan but fiorentina have always caught my eye since the days of batistuta and rui costa and are really impressing me the last couple of years. great club and it would be good too see the scudetto on the purple shirt in the near future……
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I don’t think the fix was in but I do think that as a group, the refs are trying to put us in our place. We as Fiorentina fans and Della Valle are doing the only thing we can … complaining and when they feel satisfied it will turn around. The Gila goal in the long run has really hurt us. Not that they got it wrong or we didn’t tell them but that Gila got up and celebrated. I believe they think in hind-site that he knew he hit it in with his hand and was in a sense rubbing it in. If he had just walked back to the line I’m not sure we’d be in this situation. It’s unfortunate that a team that was once the golden child of European football has to suffer this way because of one unfortunate incident, a player getting excited about scoring a winning goal. Let’s not forget Fiorentina has hosted several charity soccer matches recently, are leaders in the “Fair play” movement and is achieving success the right way, through player development and shrewd signings. Hopefully this nightmare will be over soon. And along that note I was beginning to worry about Corvino but if he pulls off this Ivanovic signing for 7 million and De Costa or 15 and we keep De Costa that will be huge. Giving up 3 or 4 players (Pizzani, Osvaldo, De Costa and now a keeper possibly Storari –to make room for a non EU player) it will be worth it. I love the idea of a big solid defender in the middle with an engine that just doesn’t quit. Forza Fiorentina
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refs are more lenient to the home side unless you’re playing inter or milan.
they did no favors to sampdoria or bologna this weekend
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god i hope it’s true, but i’ll believe Ivanovic is coming when i see gollum clutching his jersey
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I’m curious about Vargas too. He played really well against Milan and was looking forward to watching him against Juvé. Although Pasqual played really well in his stead.
Any chance of a Gila, Jo Jo, Mutu, Montolivo diamond?
And can we please sell Santana? The one good thing a game he does isn’t worth the crying and TERRIBLE crossing.
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Santana’s terrible crossing would be bad enough, but he shoots more than anyone on the team (as of last game, he’s had a wild go of it 51 times), and he’s sucks at that too.
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Inter’s Brazilian striker Adriano has received a three-match ban after he punched an opponent in last night’s Serie A match between the Nerazzurri and Sampdoria; Inter won 1-0 thanks to a single goal from the culprit himself.
Jose Mourinho’s men took all three points, allowing them to maintain their three point lead at the head of Serie A, but a bout of violent conduct from the Brazilian has spoiled the party for i Biscione.
In the 40th minute of the game Adriano should have been sent off for a punch to Daniele Gastaldello’s stomach, while trying to free himself from his marker.
The referee did not notice the aggressive act, and so the judgement fell on the shoulders of the Sporting Judge Gianpaolo Tosel, who dished out the ban.
The Brazilian had just recently rejoined the squad and began to play well once again, only to do something like this and dent his reputation further.
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*sigh*
good ole spurs.
I have a friend who’s a tottenham fan and he just brought me back to earth.
i was bitching about all this and he stopped me and said:
“at least you’re not goal differential away from relegation”
i guess there’s always that.
we could root for chievo
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Vargas did not play because he had a high fever.
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Let’s go Donkeys!! At least Chievo make things interesting. I’d gladly give up live games (temporarly, of course) for some aggressive offense. Maybe all this face time on American TV is distracting. We need a good, honest 4-0 ass-whipping to cleanse our collective palletes. I find the entire play up front a bit sloppy and the set pieces are often confused. These guys have been a team now for the better part of the season. It’s time to stop making excuses and execute! Top four would be great, but I’d just like to see more inspired play…forza viola yadda yadda yadda
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yeah, set pieces have been bugging me.
corners especially.
seems like there’s no plan or purpose.part of that could be mutu. we rely on him so much in that area that when he’s gone no one else can step up
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looks like ivanovic is very close to fiorentina according to his agent, who has already met with corvino.
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For the record if the refs had wanted, they could have sent Melo off for the little facepoke on C. Zanetti.
How to fix the referees? Make them professional, and institute some form of instant replay.
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Theres only one way to fix referees, tell them to stop working for newcatle, er i mean juve. Instant replay? In that case juve would be relegated before christmas, and now we can’t have that now can we.
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Papa Waigo has just joined Lecce on loan.
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Ok some REALLYYYYY interesting call ups for tomorrows game:
Prandels has called up 3 players from the Primavera…
Gulan (the promising young Serbian midfielder)
Diakhate (young Senegalese)
and Tagliani (20 year old defender and Under-20 international) -
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOo
Because of pending legal proceedings, Myp2p has removed all links in the following competions:
Elitserien – SM-Liga – NHL – Swedish Allsvenskan – Italian Serie A – English Premier
League – Dutch Eredivisie.
Once a judgment has been given, we will notify you of the outcome. -
To me the fundamental problem is a lack of accurate crosses into the area. Also, I think one reason Jovetic looks good is because he’s left relatively unmarked. The focus has been on keeping Gilardino out the game – and it sort of works. Usually it’s Mutu who gets that treatment.
I think I agree with Ted, almost. Once Mutu is back Jovetic and Santana should probably do a job-share in the hole. Jovetic is young, and needs to build up strength and stamina still.
I’m not as down on Kroldrup as the rest of you. Given he’s second-string (the photogenic Dainelli is first), I think he’s doing as well as any second-choice defensive back could be expected to. I’m more concerned whether Dainelli is much better.
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