Lazio – Palermo

By: salvatore | May 2nd, 2008

The two eagle-centric teams face off this weekend in a bid to determine which is the most self-destructive. If you’re a betting man, put money on both of them losing. Seriously, these two teams do such a good job of sabotaging themselves that I wouldn’t be surprised if the Lega creates a new result category just for this game.

Frown

On Lazio’s end, all of its eggs have been depressingly placed in the Coppa Italia basket, which essentially, has made the last month a complete write-off (with last Sunday’s embarrassment in Torino the pièce de résistance – at least one would hope). You’d think that the team would want to do everything it can to right the ship after six games without a win, but with the Coppa semi-final looming, I wouldn’t be surprised if motivation and tactics are affected.

Dabo and Siviglia are suspended again, but Ledesma should be back, which means we won’t have to watch Baronio play this time. Luciano Zauri is expected to play in Siviglia’s spot in central defense, with Radu playing at left-back.

The options up front are limited again, with Tommaso Balboa still out with injury. This is fitting, since he’s told the press the “team will say sorry on the field.” Not sure how he intends to do that from the stands. But I guess his intentions were good.

We’ll likely see Pandev and Bianchi playing ahead of Stefano Mauri, so God help us, especially if Delio decides halfway through to “turn over” the line-up for Wednesday’s match. This would be a prime location for a Fabio Vignaroli joke, but I actually think he played pretty well last weekend against Juve, and that’s saying something considering how dire everyone else was.

Fabio

Palermo has just as little to play for as we do, but they are spared the distraction of the Coppa. The only thing putting pressure on them is the fact that trigger happy Zampa may sell off and fire everyone involved with the team if they keep tanking. Funnily enough, if he does fire Colantuono, Stefano may end up coaching the Biancoceleste, which frankly, doesn’t make me feel one way or the other. Boh.

All that said, I happen to think very highly of some Palermo players, and I’m honestly baffled that they could have stumbled so much this year. Amauri is obviously the big name guy (with half of Europe after him), but I happen to believe that Miccoli is a great, and massively underrated player. In a different country, he’d be an automatic selection for the national team. Throw in some really interesting young guys like Cavani and Jankovic, and Palermo should be a tough team to beat. I’m clueless as to why so many teams have managed to do it.

In any case, whoever hurts themselves less will pull this one out. I’m just hoping that it’s an entertaining and well-fought battle.

Probable Formations:

Lazio: Muslera; De Silvestri, Cribari, Radu, Zauri; Mudingayi, Ledesma, Mutarelli; Mauri; Pandev, Bianchi

Palermo: Agliardi; Cassani, Rinaudo, Barzagli, Balzaretti; Guana, Migliaccio; Jankovic, Miccoli, Caserta; Amauri

Likelihood Lazio blows it: 65%
Likelihood Vignaroli comes on to score a hat-trick: 02%
Likelihood that Zampa says/does something crazy afterwards: 85%

Here’s what happened the last time these teams met: