Well I certainly wasn’t expecting this

By: Marco | October 18th, 2009

antonio_conte

Going into the Udinese match I was expecting a defeat. With Di Natale out of the lineup the chances weren’t stacked as high but it wasn’t looking good. I expected us to shell up in a 4-5-1 and contain the game and scrap it through in true relegation style. But to my surprise they shock me again. Sure 1-0 win seemed plausible but 3-1? Tiribocchi opened up the scoring early in the fourth minute but Lodi equalized a few minutes later (usually this happens). Valdez managed to give us the lead later on near the 70th minute mark before De Ascentis finished it off in the closing minutes of the last half. Overall our team performed great and our midfield definitely was the highlight. Udinese had more possession then us which is a worrying sight but in the end they simply couldn’t get all of those shots on goal. (20 total shots with only five on goal.)

Conte grabbed his first win of the season and De Ascentis made his comeback in a great way. Udinese did put up a fight and linked together some good combination’s and their usual quick passing play caused us some harm but Consigli was on form today and gave a great performance.

Even though we are at the bottom of the table (out of the drop zone for now) we do have more quality than our relegation rivals. We started out with a difficult schedule against Lazio, Sampdoria, Genoa, Bari (horrible match tbh.), Catania, Chievo, Milan and Udinese. We lost the first three matches 1-0 and got drubbed by Bari before tying Catania 0-0 and drawing Chievo, Milan with 1-1 scorelines. Plenty of hard losses and lackluster play against the likes of Chievo.

If I have learned anything from fighting relegation in FM or watching footy you have to beat the teams that you can beat. Don’t lose against Chievo, Bologna, Siena and the like. Milan lost against Genoa and Bologna last season at the beginning and they could have won the Scudetto with those six points. But in Italy the smaller teams tend to give you the biggest problems and overall that is the story of football. Whether its the tortoise play style or Italian time wasting upsets happen a lot and more than it happens in other leagues.

Next we host Parma, sitting at fifth in the league, who have been enjoying a great first season back from the Serie B. But as with Bologna last season I don’t expect them to be in that spot for long. Yeah it would be nice to see but frankly history dictates otherwise. They are 4-4-2 in the first few games and have done well at home with three home wins and one loss. Their away form is 1-2-1 but on the road anything can happen. Regardless we need to capitalize on the momentum from this match and bring in another three points against Parma, Livorno and Cagliari before hosting Juventus.