BatiGol Weekly Ed. 15: Gloating

The Oxford English Dictionary (grad school is rad school guys) defines a "gloat" as "an act of gloating; a look, feeling, or expression of triumphant satisfaction."

I was as unfamiliar with this type of emotional expression myself, so I had to search deep within myself for similar experiences. Most of the things I could come up with were expressions of schadenfreude, the high tenant of the German church of which I am a member, in which one delights at the misery of rival clubs (see: guffare, literally, "to owl" which is an Italian colloquialism for "to fervently root against").

Why gloat you may ask? Well you might not have heard, but Fiorentina are in *expletive deleted* first place in Serie A after partying all over poor old Atalanta on Sunday. They have the best defense in the league and the best goal difference. They have won 5 straight. Pretty much everything that could go right is going right for Paulo Sousa's Purple People Eaters.

But the problem remains. We lack any strong parental figures when it comes to gloating, and are even unable to uncover where such an expression lives in the body (Is it in my toes? Do I gloat with my toes? My elbows?). I settled, for the time being, to feel another fairly strange emotion that required no action: "joy."

After all, we have plenty of time to learn how to gloat. The season is young yet, and an electric start provides no guarantees that this "gloating" stuff will be useful to the Viola faithful at a future time. But we have a quiet two weeks now to practice with no one watching, just in case we come up with some big results against Napoli and Roma.

via GIPHY

Are we doing it right?

THE LATEST

You can catch up with all of our match coverage on the heavy wins over Atalanta and BelenenenenenNANNANANANAnenees, including our match report on the 3-0 demolition of the visiting La Dea.

Isn't it weird that we are top of the table without Giuseppe Rossi scoring a single league goal yet? Well, he is back to full fitness and signed a new adjusted deal with Fiorentina last week.

Gilberto is injured, and so is Manuel Pasqual. That's bad news for our already-thin depth in wide areas. Thankfully our starters are playing really freaking well.

RECOMMENDED

Our friend Conor wrote about how Serie A is crazy and fun again without a certain old hag dominating proceedings. My words, not his.

Tito will have another of his excellent statistical breakdowns up soon, so stay tuned for that!

COMMENT OF THE WEEK

Europop Mike shares a fine model of gloating, which we shall all copy into our spiral ring notebooks and study, just in case we beat Napoli in a fortnight:

Teach me - gently and politely - how to gloat in the comments below. You may also, if you like, teach me how to "Dougie," as something deep within me tells me that these two mysterious expressions are related.