Today in Beautiful Florence, The mighty Viola of Firenze defeated the visitors from Cagliari 1-0 in a mind-blowingly boring game that was even numbing for those of us on the winning side. I have written in the blog a thousand times: these are the games we have to win, and that’s exactly what we did. We played today against a little-talented team (they have a single point on the season) that was clearly going for a nil-nil draw on the road. Our superior talent, attacking verve, and work rate grinded out the win, and that’s exactly what you have to do in these situations. But it doesn’t make it any prettier to watch.
Impressions from today:
• Vargas continues to impress, with lung-busting runs, a great work rate, and a sweet cross that led to the goal. This obviously wasn’t what I thought we were getting when we signed him (I thought we were getting a full back) but I continue to like what I see.
• Central midfield and the defense did fine against an admittedly disinterested-looking Cagliari team. This was probably the first match all season where I didn’t have a grinding stomach-ache.
• Just so no one feels like this isn’t a “real” Ted post, let me add that I thought Jovetic looked good, added a creative spark, and probably should have earned that penalty at the end of the first half.
• And what the hell happened to Cagliari? Does anyone else remember them as being fun to watch? I was always a big fan of their forward Bob Freshwater (as one of my friends insisted on calling him) and I knew they would lose a spark when he left; but today was grim. Get your shit together or get ready for relegation, fellas.
Regardless of the aesthetic qualities of today, however, I am very, very happy with the start to our league season. Seven points out of nine is perfectly fine by me. Color me one happy viola fan, and use plenty of the purple crayon.
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As we all know, the boys have a much, much bigger game coming up Wednesday in the Champion League vs. Lyon. Looks like we will continue to be without Mutu, so it will be a grind vs. a good team, but as I said in my preview a few weeks back, I think anything is possible.
Here on the east cost of the USA, the game is being televised on THURSDAY at 5pm, obviously on tape delay, on FSC. There’s a chance I might watch a live feed of the match on the computer, but since I have a grindingly busy day on Wednesday, and the pleasures of watching it on my 50-inch plasma far outweigh squinting at a few blurry purple images on the computer, I may wait until Thursday to watch. We’ll see. But if you don’t see the recap until Friday, well, that’s why. I will be on radio (and internet) silence. Obviously, though, we all know what a big match this is for the boys. I will be thinking of them every second.
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Finally, on a personal note, beloved longtime poster to the Fiorentina Offside discussion board ‘Slakas’ apparently got engaged this weekend. Slakas, as many of you will know, is the “Red from Shawshank Redemption” of our discussion board. Red (who was ably portrayed by the great Morgan Freeman) was a man “who could get things.” Slakas too, is a man who can get things, but instead of procuring us ball-pen hammers and near-pornographic posters, he instead gets us links to illegal feeds, questionable transfer rumors, and occasionally amusing photographs. This man who “can get things” has now apparently gotten himself a fiancé, and he has all of our warmest congratulations.
Forza Viola, everyone! I’ll talk to you next after we beat Lyon!