I Want My 90 Minutes Back

By: cathal | February 14th, 2009

In all seriousness, that was a rather unpleasant game for us to watch. Ninety minutes of painful, fun-free football. What is there to say about a game where the main highlight is watching the referee get blasted in the face?

I did say it would be a tough encounter and I was proven right. On paper, it was a strong line-up despite the absence of key individuals such as Ledesma, Zarate and Meghni. Evidently they were missed. Matuzalem had too much to do in that midfield creator/protector role that Cristian usually occupies. Rocchi looked injured and had none of the zip that Maurito tends to provide. Mourad’s spot was taken by Dabo who foolishly gave away possession to Torino in the lead up to their goal. The stand-ins were not good enough today but what can we do, that’s what we have got to work with.

The team was jaded and I Granata took advantage. They played a highly physical game, bullying our players at every opportunity and conceding petty fouls when we were in good positions. That is not the brand of soccer I like to see but when you’re in the relegation zone and need points, you have to play to your strengths. Unfortunately for us, strength is what we were lacking. On top of that, the confidence is low too; how can we be confident after four successive defeats and protests from fans at Formello? I cannot attribute this draw to a lack of preparation or concentration. For me, a succession of unfortunate and untimely events has led to this shallow performance and all we can do is regroup, pull ourselves together and hope we pick up a win next time out. One win could change everything.

No doubt Rossi will be questioned again, no doubt people will point fingers at an absence of determination, no doubt Lotito will be embroiled in some criticism; that is only natural. However, we must realise that we are now a long way off a UEFA Cup spot, sitting in the lower half in the table, out of form but still in the Coppa Italia. Our season, in many ways has been shattered in recent weeks but now is not the time for evaluation of the overall picture. What we need to be doing is focusing on the present and working out a solution to current problems. There are still goals we can achieve so we should be planning on making those goals reality and not let our heads drop. We can look at the bigger picture at the end of the season. Non Mollare Mai!