Fiorentina 2 – Napoli 1: Recap and Notes
By: Ted | January 29th, 2009
Yesterday in Beautiful Florence the Viola defeated Napoli 2-1 in a closely fought contest. Mario Santana got the first right after the break (huh; go figure) and Ricky Montolivo got the winner with about eleven minutes to go. Both goals were impressive. The Napoli goal went in due to a flukey mistake by Bassey Frey, for which he is instantaneously forgiven due to his general awesomeness. We shall never speak of it again.
I did not see a moment of the game live, and thus can’t say too much about it. (I was in meetings all day yesterday, and since the match wasn’t on TV I couldn’t DVR it.) By all accounts Fiorentina played lively, dominated possession, and had plenty of shots. Aside from the two goals the boys apparently still had a bit of trouble in the box. Irregardless, I will gladly take the win (the first of 2009) and move on. A decent-enough set of highlights of the match can be found here.
Fiorentina now sit alone in sixth place, a point behind Roma and two behind Genoa. We are now through that “killer” part of our schedule, although we don’t really have any softies coming up, in my opinion. We next have Bologna on the road (on Sunday) followed by Lazio at home and Genoa on their ground. If we are serious about finishing in the top four we need to build up some points in this stretch regardless of the fact that some of these teams we are playing are pretty damn good.
The other news bopping around this week is related to the end of the January transfer window.
First, the Ivanovic deal is still unclear. I would like it to happen, but we’ll see. Here’s the latest ‘report.’
Here’s some news of da Costa going to Samp, apparently so Pazzini can have a wingman when he’s picking up girls.
And here are some general rumors about us selling. This one has Donadel going to Newcastle (the real one) and Pasqual going to Naples. I’m not seeing it.
Finally, two last bits of news. First, here is a report that poor old Gila is being extorted, which apparently has nothing to do with his recent goal drought. The second is an essay on Fiorentina’s youth policy, which I include for your interest and reaction.
Hope all is well. Forza Viola, everybody.
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Comments
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Inter Crap – That’s why some people are turned off towards Seria A. This kind of stuff is hard to defend.
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Also about that channel 4 article, it does make a solid point in that clubs these days (not just la Viola) are guilty of rushing youth, throwing money at them and not giving them time to develop maturity. We lost Osvaldo because of it but there’s no better example than the crap Ballotelli is pulling at Inter. It’s a global problem and every success story like Pato (so far) is just fueling the first.
However the article clearly tries to make us look worse than we actually are. Pazzini was no victim, the club showed plenty of faith in him but the pressure was too much for him to handle; I feel bad for him and hope he lives up to his promise but players must be able to handle competition. They also try to write off Jovetic as a flop already; the kid has a lot of work to do before we can rely on him but an 18 year old can’t be expected to be scoring goals for fun in Serie A; the great Pato got special training with his teammates for a year before his debut and plays for Berlusconi’s version of the Harlem globetrotters with Kaka, Pirlo, Ronaldinho and Beckham giving him crosses and through balls by the dozen.
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you have been cheated this season i have to say thats why your not further up the table nothing to do with youth. same as milan last season alot of decisions went against them. looks like your going to get ivanovic, ive been following him for a while ever since someone said he was the new vidic which is the best compliment a defender can have as vidic is the best at the minute. if he can get up to that level then you have one of the most promising defenders in europe! ivanovic and gamberini could be the start of something special….and im a huge fan of montolivo as well if he was more consistent then he could be better than pirlo as he can actually run!
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Rumor is that we secured Ivanovic! Would be great news, but he might not be available until the summer.
The Palombo rumors, meanwhile underwhelm me. Yes it’s nice to bring back people who started their career here but he’s been injury prone all season and would mean the end of Donadel, not really worth 12M IMO.
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Random question for the group: Teams in the top leagues are fairly international. When deciding on whether to acquire a player, is any consideration given to what language(s) he speaks? Let’s say a guy like Ivanovic doesn’t speak a lick of Italian or English. How do they communicate? I always wonder about that. I’m sure the team helps them learn Italian, and after a couple of years guys can get fairly proficient in it, but before then how do they communicate? What’s the language on the pitch?
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Prandelli has a pretty strict Italian policy and makes sure his players are all able to communicate; he won’t play someone who can’t understand the language at all. Ivanovic is lucky in the sense that Kuz and JoJo both speak Serbian.
This has been a problem, especially for other very international teams; when Barcelona bought Turkish keeper Rustu he was unable to communicate with his defense, and that’s one of the reasons he lasted a total of 3 games. I’m pretty sure even Inter uses Italian for communication as Argentinian Spanish and Italian are almost the same language.
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Thanks, Nolan. That’s tough for me to wrap my mind around. Not only does a guy have to switch countries (in some cases), live in a new city with strange customs and food, adjust to new teammates, a coach, a system, a new league – he’s got to do it all in a new language! What a tough task.
You’re telling me Beckham speaks Italian now? I know he speaks Spanish from his days at Madrid.
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beckham could speak only swahili and they would find a translator
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ivanovic isn’t a citizen of the EU, so the earliest that could happen is june (theorectically and allegedly)
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oh the pressure. i should be 18 and rich
It’s been a turbulent few weeks for Inter starlet Mario Balotelli, who has been repeatedly left out of the squad for the team’s matches by Jose Mourinho due to disciplinary problems. Reportedly he did earn a call up for the match against Genoa in midweek, but refused to join the squad.
He’s clearly under extreme pressure at the moment, particularly for an 18-year-old, and it seems today it finally got to him. According to SkySport24, in fact, at the end of today’s training sessions the youngster broke down crying.
Mourinho and the players immediately tried to console the player, showing all their affection for him in spite of his recent behaviour.
Full back Maicon talked about this to Sky Sport, saying: “We love him, the whole group is close to him. We know he has an impressive potential and that he can remain in our group because he is an important person, like all the others, and we are close to him. Of course, everyone has their own personality, he has his, and we must understand him.”
Balotelli played his last match for Inter against Siena in the last match before the Christmas break. He scored his last goal in the Champions League match against Anorthosis in early November.
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could you guys give me some italian fiorentina forums where the people from the curva discuss their team?
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what sort of man crys?! shown him for what type of person he is behind that attitude. in regards to ivanovic i couldnt imagine a better team and city for him to go to in italy! tuscany is beautiful, ive heard florence is peaceful and amazing and you have one of the best managers in the world teaching you the trade! i imagine that because when players arent playing or training they have alot of spare time (alot of players do degrees) if they are new to a country they will just learn the language. and living there really helps
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Words can’t describe how beautiful and wonderful Florence is, while the locals have a reputation for being elitist I found them for the most part warm people, Tuscans are down to earth when you compare them to Venetians or Lombards. There’s a reason the likes of Batigol and Rui Costa found it so hard to leave. The only two cities that I love more than Florence are Montreal (as it’s currently home) and Buenos Aires.
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I love the view from the campanile
http://www.terjenet.com/2005-Tuscany&Venice/Bigpics/099_View_from_Campanile-Firenze.jpg
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Hey Nolan, your from Montreal? Thats amazing, I’m the only Firentina fan I know, ass all my friends watch Premier League. My one friend Mani is a Bayern Munich fan, and he’s the only one I can actually talk to about Fiorentina as he knows a few things about the club. It would be awsome watching some football matches together, I’m always alone squinting at my monitor cheering by myself.
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On the language thing, I think this was one of da Costa’s problems with Prands last season. The Great One was simply not willing to give him time on the pitch if he couldn’t communicate, and from there, south it went.
On Ivanovic, it seems dangerous to let da Costa go and not have a CB ready to step in when Dainelli gets the flu again. Can’t we resolve that EU thing with a bribe? Has Mazuch gone to Feyonoord or wherever he was suppose to go?
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Tibi – I’m always looking for people to watch football with around here, Viola fans are out there, but unfortunately we are islands in a sea of EPL tools.
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i wore my mutu jersey out and about in los angeles today
i love the puzzled looksPosted from
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Interestingly enough, the only reactions I ever got from wearing a Fiorentina jersey came from Juventus fans (and a half-Italian chick who lived briefly in Florence who I had the hots for, but sadly nothing came of it)
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Tri: Firenzeviola.it and fiorentina.it have Italian language Fiorentina Forums. BigSoccer.com and Xtratime.org have English language Fiorentina forums
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Thanks Nicky. How about the actual organized fans, do they have their own forums? Like Settebello, CAV, etc.. ?
Florence (and Tuscany) is beautiful, however it is bit tightly populated and a bit small too on the negative aspects.. not much to do unless you’re a culture freak.
Must say that Naples is a great city even though it has its problems, the people are also really nice. What do you guys think?
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Well Florence isn’t exactly a large city. There’s things to do even besides museums, as far as nightlife goes it isn’t exactly Rome or Milan, though for younger crowds Florence’s student population means finding drinking buddies wouldn’t be very difficult (not to mention cheap Tuscan wine!)
Rome is probably Italy’s most “fun” city, but Florence would be a wonderful place to live, and there are still plenty of parks, resturants, etc to keep one from getting bored.
The only city I’ve been to in Italy that I have no desire to ever see again is Venice…beautiful for 24 hours, then it wears out its welcome quickly.
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Nolan, I have to agree with you. There’s soo many EPL tools out there, I wish all the Italian teams eliminate the English teams from CL so I can rub it in their stupid faces.
I got my gf into watching the matches with me. And shes starting to like it (or at least pretending)! She especially likes Frey, who she says is chubby and cuddly and looks like a grisley bear.
Where exactly do you live in Montreal? I used to live in West Island but now I moved downtown.
Give me your msn/e-mail.Posted from
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As I can’t bring myself to cheer on any of the Italian teams left in the tournament except maybe Roma, I’m going to be cheering on the non-Real Madrid Spaniards primarily (I like Serie A and La Liga about equally)
Anyway, I currently live off Atwater, you can MSN me at nolanberlin@hotmail.com
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While I would not, for example, throw my bra at Frey and scream “marry me” (unless such an action would directly result in him saving more goals, in which case I would pretty much do anything), he’s always looked like he’d be good for a cuddle.
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