Today at the San Siro Fiorentina lost 2-0 to a superior Inter Milan squad. A gutsy and injured Bassy Frey played well, but otherwise the Viola looked tired (especially in the second half) and pretty much deserved to lose. And you know what I think? Screw it! So we lost a game. We were playing the best team (okay, the team with the most points) in Series A. We just came off a thrilling European night in Holland on Thursday in the UEFA Cup. (The Viola are the last Italian team still competing in Europe, in case you haven’t heard.) Most importantly, the three other “contenders” for the fourth spot in Series A also somehow contrived to lose this week, so thank you, Milan, Udinese, and Samp. At least we had a decent excuse, playing on Thursday and playing the league leaders and all. I don’t know what to say about you guys.
Readers of this blog will recognize, I hope, that I usually do a pretty good job on the match recaps. Even though I post almost every day, match recaps are my favorite postings to do, and so normally I take pretty copious notes on the match and try to give readers at least a flavor of what happened. Today was different, however. I spent the day with my wife and parents and didn’t even get to the game until about 7PM, on tape, hours after it happened. I didn’t have a good feeling going in because of the tiredness and the fact that they were playing Inter. I was optimistic after the first half, but once Inter got their first goal in the second half I put my pencil down and just WATCHED the game. I didn’t take any more notes and thus am not really providing a recap. Inter had more energy (understandably, since they are playing fewer games) and were able to convert their chances. Our guys looked beat and need some rest. That’s all. It wasn’t the end of the world. We knew going in this was going to be our hardest match coming in, and so this was the one to lose. It gets a bit easier in the league from here on in. We really are lucky that everyone else fighting for the fourth spot lost, as we retain our four-point cushion.
That’s really all I have. If you are a Viola fan then shrug your shoulders, order another drink, and tell your friends the boys will get ‘em next week. And they probably will. Also, if you see any of your Roma friends, buy them a drink and tell them you were sorry you couldn’t help them out. Most Roma guys are good guys, and it would’ve been nice to give them a hand taking down Inter. But it wasn’t meant to be, so now we can go back to focusing on that fourth spot and also, just maybe, bringing home the UEFA Cup.
I’ll be back this week with news, notes and anything else that comes up.
Forza Viola, everybody.