How To Do Yourself And Rioma No Favours

By: cathal | May 17th, 2009

No matter how good your team is, whenever you go to Palermo you have to be prepared to lose. Unfortunately for us and our city rivals, I think we had already decided on the outcome before we even played the game.

There was no real desire to win this game and there was never going to be. We’ve achieved our goal for the season so now is the perfect time to do a little experimentation and work towards the future. Hence, Mendicino was given his first start in Serie A and young Perpetuini also got a short run out. The rest of the team was comprised of second string players who would benefit from some game time you would hope.

The scoreline may appear comprehensive and in all honesty, it was, but the game could have turned out differently. We made the worst possible start by conceding a penalty that never was. Miccoli went down ever so easily in the box and proceeded to put on a mask as part of his goal celebration. Any theories as to what it actually meant? I got one; he robbed us and thieves generally wear masks. Unless, of course, you’re a diving Palermo forward in which case, you steal first and wear the mask later just to rub salt into the wounds. We could of got ourselves back into the game with a fluke that was conveniently disallowed with the referees ruling it was not over the line. Judge for youselves below.

To make matters worse, Carrizo gifted them another which now gives the Sicilians a real chance of nicking that last Europa League spot off Rioma. Hopefully they do and then I can buy a crate load of those Miccoli masks and remind the other half of Rome how we conspired to screw them. We didn’t, but no doubt their minds will think like that. Forza Lazio!

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Reaction:

“It was not easy to organize the team after three days and winning the cup, that was important for our season.” – Delio Rossi

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“It was beautiful, 30,000 people and the pressure. It was true soccer and I must thank the coach for the opportunity and my companions who helped me.” – Ettore Mendicino

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Highlights:

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Pictures: http://www.lazialita.com/VisualizzaSezione.asp?IdArticolo=3892

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Player Ratings:

I like Franco’s ratings so here they are and I added in my own score for Perpetuini. I won’t give a description of all the performances because there’s not a lot to describe. All I would say is, JP was poor, caused a defensive mess for the second goal and was tamely fooled for the penalty, Mendicino is promising but on today’s evidence, not quite ready and Zarate was once again the highlight when he eventually came off the bench.

Carrizo – 5.0
De Silvestri – 6.0
Radu – 5.5
Diakite’ – 5.5
Kolarov – 6.0
Del Nero – 6.0
Rozenhal – 6.0
Dabo – 6.0
Mauri – 4.5
Mendicino – 6.0
Rocchi – 5.5
Zarate – 7.0
Foggia – 6.0
Perpetuini – 5.5