Bah Bah Black Sheep

By: salvatore | May 6th, 2008

black sheep

Bah, not sure what to say anymore about a season as bad as this. Can you blame one person? A group? Can you look down the line and say, he should be replaced, him too, and also him, etc?

How else do you rectify a season involving, let’s see, massive, massive mismanagement, a consequently failed champions league jaunt, a ridiculous amount of injuries, a league leading number of cards and suspensions, the death of a fan, serious under achievement throughout the entire team, and oh yeah, a lot of infighting, finger pointing and shit-talking?

It would be easy to just blame Lotito, make him the black sheep he seems to have been born to play, but there’s clearly something else going on within the team. I mean, even if you hadn’t noticed the makeshift line-up that took on Palermo on Sunday, you had a sense they were going to blow it. You could just sort of see it in the players’ body language, even before they missed two absolute sitters and hit a post. They were going to lose it, and it was like they knew.

Ordinarily, I’d say when a team has given up like that, it’s the coach’s fault, but really, what else can Delio do with the team he has? As we’ve seen time and time again, the group Lotito gave him is just not deep enough to handle injuries or suspensions. There is just not enough quality to survive a heavy loss in numbers.

So now we’re on the eve of the Coppa Italia semifinal against Inter, and Delio is talking about a win to “save the season”. My question is, can it really be saved, and more importantly, should it?

Don’t get me wrong, there’s never anything wrong with winning a trophy. After all, that’s the point. Still, there’s a part of me that can’t help shake the feeling that a win will only have a negative impact on the team’s long-term plans. What do I mean? Well, take last year’s third place finish. There’s no doubt that it was exciting, unexpected, and positive, but on the flip side, it also fooled Lotito into thinking that the team could get by (on three fronts keep in mind) with patch-work, cheap, thrifty additions and fixes.

Of course, the moment the team was hit with some injury problems everything wrong with that line of thinking was exposed, and he was forced to actually make some moves in January, bringing in Bianchi, Dabo, Radu and Rozehnal.

So what am I saying? I don’t want them to lose tomorrow, but if they do, well, there may be a silver lining in that it would force Lotito into making some serious changes. Maybe it’s time to really consider unloading some players who are of value (Behrami, Stendardo, Ledesma and Mauri), start fresh and bring in some more youth to play with Radu, De Silvestri, Pandev and Kolarov. Maybe it’s time to embrace the inevitable?

A rumor today suggested that Juve were considering offering Palladino for full rights to Stendardo, which would be a great start to this kind of plan. But frankly, I think Juve would have to be out of their fucking minds to give up on Palladino so soon, and I doubt that deal ever happens.

In any case, the match is tomorrow, and for the first time in a while, Delio will have more or less a complete starting 11. I say complete because according to PiazzaDellaLiberta he’ll have the benefit of his first choice starting keeper, the trident attack of Pandev, Bianchi and Rocchi, and I think this year’s most efficient Lazio midfield, Dabo, Ledesma and Behrami. The only thing that makes it suspect is a back four made up of Zauri on the right, Siviglia and Cribari in the middle and Radu on the left. You’d have to wonder why De Silvestri or Kolarov aren’t playing, but then again, this is not the official starting line-up yet, so we’ll have to wait and see.

Probable formations:

Lazio: Ballotta; Zauri, Siviglia, Cribari, Radu; Dabo, Ledesma, Behrami; Pandev, Bianchi, Rocchi.

Inter: (Guessing) Toldo, Maxwell, Rivas, Materazzi, Fatic, Solari, Bolzoni, Pele, Jimenez, Suazo, Crespo

Highlights of the first leg: