44: Kvarasexual

Radonic, Svirgola, Carboni, a ball becomes good for Ricci who digs on the second pole, manages to coordinate, turned over to Toni Sanabria. Hello and welcome back to Seiya's Spotlight Season 2, episode 4, we're your host Jake and Matt. Guys, as you heard from our intro, that was the Toni Sanabria goal that he scored this weekend. From now on we're going to be choosing our goal of the week to put inside of our intro, so you could just automatically assume that that is our goal of the week.

Let us know if you agree with us, if you disagree with us, what your goals of the week were, and I don't know if you want to take us through the goal. It was an amazing goal, of course Ricci with the cross over, the keeper, looping ball and Sanabria with an acrobatic finish, absolutely beautiful. Sure, it was a bit clumsy by Ricci, I think he was actually going for a goal. He might have actually gone for a goal himself, but still that finish is just amazing.

That's literally the closest you can get to a dunk in football. Yeah and it's a big set of balls as well for him to come flying in the way he did, he nearly clattered the post as well, the man in the wing, so what a goal. Amazing, amazing. Now before we continue. We are 38 euros and 24 cents richer thanks to Seiya our spotlight slips, our first public bet that we placed on Instagram, right? Like we said, you could feel free to join the train, choo choo, but we do not encourage it.

No, don't join. Don't join actually, just watch our journey, okay? Enjoy our journey. So of course we bet that Roma would beat Salernitana, we bet that Fiorentina would beat Cremonese, we bet that Inter would beat Legtrian, we bet that Atalanta would beat Sampdoria, we're a little bit lucky. We got very lucky. Radu will forever remain a hero of mine. I love Radu man, he's my favourite keeper. He had such a good game before that man, such a good game.

He was playing really well, it's true, poor guy, but we'll get into that anyway. Also as well, Inter were lucky to equalise at the end through Denzel Dumfries. Yeah, yeah, but they did us a good little favour, we're still deciding what we'll do with our winnings, should we grow this 38 euro to god knows what, not today 38, who knows what we'll be on, it could be 5 euro. We might have to deposit again. It could be 500, you know what I mean?

So we should decide, you guys should let us know what we should do with the money, be it like go watch Milan or go watch maybe… A giveaway? Maybe a giveaway. Spend our money on them. Or maybe we set up a Patreon with the money. And you'll have to pay to listen to us all the time. Exactly. Now we'll see, let us know what you think we should do, whatever we'll do, we'll vlog it for you guys, you could follow it, so on and so forth.

But the first matchday of Serie A brother, what were your thoughts overall? I was just so happy that football was back man, I was so hyped, you know, 6 o'clock took so long to come. I was waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting, man, it just wouldn't come. But thankfully we had the opener Milan-Udinez, which typically is a very stressful game. Shall we just get into it? Yep, let's get into it. Milan-Udinez.

So the first game was between Milan and Udinese, of course the opener was at the same time as the Atalanta-Sampdoria game. Milan won this game 4-2. A fun fact about Milan-Udinez is that Udinese have actually drawn more matches against Milan than any other side in the world. They have 36 draws out of 91 games. In fact the last three games between Milan and Udinese have all ended in 1-1 draws. Before of course, yesterday's 4-2. Or sorry, last Saturday's 4-2.

So Milan lined up with Manean in goal, Calabria right back, Calulo and Tomori as a centre-back pairing and Theo Hernandez as the left back, a double pivot of Krunic and Benassir, Leo, Maudias and Messias playing behind Rebic up front. What did you make of Milan's lineup before we get to Udinese's? So I think since the players that came in came in quite late throughout pre-season, it's pretty much what I expected.

I expected to see Messias out wide, I expected to see Giroud up front instead of Rebic but it was quite refreshing seeing that level of pace up front. So I was a fan of the lineup personally. It's true and these are the guys who are amazing in pre-season. Purely praised Krunic, Messias and Rebic in pre-season and in fact they all started and they all played pretty well to be honest. Yeah agreed.

Udinese's lineup, they had Silvestri in goal with his really cool hairstyle, a back three of Rodrigo, Bekow, Bram, Nuiting and Perez, Sopi and Massina out wide and a midfield three of Pereira, Wallace and Mckengo up front, Deo Lefeo and success. Thoughts? Solid no? Solid Udinese like tough team. Nothing really different from last year, I was surprised to see Beto on the bench. That was the only surprise. A very physical team as always, this is the 6 foot 1ers, everyone is 6 foot 1 in this team.

But anyway, play by play of course the game started out, how else would it start out with a second minute Rodrigo Bekow goal and in swinging corner by Deo Lefeo fell to Bekow's head who just smashed it into the back of the net. Fun fact bro, Bekow has 5 goals in Serie A. 3 against Milan. 3 of them are against Milan. Every Milan fan knows it, I promise. It's just stat pads against Milan.

In the 11th minute Milan were awarded a penalty, Calabria was fouled by Sopi, it went to VAR and Hernandez took the penalty and scored. I forgot that Theo can't hit them. He reminded me, he's very good at it. In the 15th minute Ante Rebic started his slaughter, it was a really cool finish after Calabria squared the ball to him. And in the 48th minute a late surprise for Milan as Massena scored a great header, not much money on could have done on that, beating Messias at the near post.

Now why is Messias so frequently marking these target men at the near post? I think Milan focus more on zonal marking in those situations rather than man marking in the box. I don't think it's Messias literally being placed on the biggest guy. I think Messias is placed on the near post and I think Odinese took advantage of that because it was in fact two headers at the near post. Yes, it was two headers at the near post. That could be actually.

It could also be that maybe he was covering for Calabria, it was a counter attack. In the second half Milan started off very well with Brahim Diaz scoring, Theo's cross was clumsily headed down by Massena and Diaz pounced and in the 68th minute Rebej scored the final goal of the game as Brahim twisted and turned and not made Bram Newton and of course classic lethal finish by Rebej. So bro, first thing I want to talk to you about is Milan's depth.

Suddenly Milan have three players in each position up front. They went from having absolutely no options, you know, just like up, Giroud, if Giroud was injured, you know, there's Rebej injured, there's Lothan injured, you know, Brahim Diaz etc attacking midfield, what are we going to do? Nothing else, no other options. Now all of a sudden there are all these players, Adli, there's de Kettelaar, there's Origi on the bench, there are all these players. What do you think bro?

I mean, I think what Milan did was they kept the base that won them the league, they in inverted commas improved certain areas, still yet to be determined whether they've been improved or not because at the end of the day, the new players need to outperform the older players. But the main thing is that they kept the players who won them the league, Baring Kesi, and they added more depth to the team. They let Adli come back, they let Pobega come back, they kept Florenzi, you know what I mean?

And they kept all of these players, they kept Krunic, players that can come on and put in a shift and players of quality, you know, it's not like last season when Baccaioco or Pobega was kind of come going, Krunic was being played on the wing, it was a little bit weird. Now there are players designated to their roles, they're more versatile, they're reminding me of Inter last year with their squad depth Milan.

Fair enough actually, I remember this was a solo game, we had gone up to watch and it was matchday, it was early on in the season. It was like matchday five I think. And I remember in the 60th minute the board went up and they brought on Dzeko, they brought on Fidal, and they brought on someone else, who the hell was it? I forgot. I don't remember, but just three like superstar players, I was like Jesus Christ these guys. But that's Milan this year.

So like everyone says, oh Milan signings weren't good, but Milan kept the same players, they kept their spine that won the league and they added quality to that spine, which is, you know, very very promising. Exactly, and Pobega man as well coming on. People gave him shit because they wanted to see Adli, but anyway, everyone will get their time.

Brahim and Rebic bro, as we mentioned, these are two guys who aren't, to be honest, if you had to ask people to write down their starting 11s for Milan, Brahim and Rebic wouldn't be in there. No, never. And you have these two guys that carried the game with monster performances. It'll make purely think, how can you go into the Atalanta game, matchday two, and bench Brahim and Rebic right now? I don't think you can right now. You simply can't bench Rebic and Brahim.

First it's Lilleon and you know, you just need to utilize the players that are on form, that are performing now. You know what I mean? The Catalar and Orifia should still start to be utilized slowly, slowly. Same as Adli, they shouldn't come in and start from next week. You know what I mean? And Brahim and Rebic were the two best players on the pitch by a landslide, by a landslide.

Particularly, okay, Rebic scored two goals, but Brahim, you look at his improvement from last season to this opening game of the season, he was unbelievable. He's been eating spinach. He's been eating fucking spinach and chicken like. He's growing. He's super strong and he has a good center of gravity for his size. He was winning fouls as well, drawing them in, winning fouls.

And that's what he's good at, man, and those megs that he was pulling off and squaring the ball, finding himself in good positions, I was very, very impressed by him, which goes to show what we were saying last year about he needs someone to compete with, someone that that's the starter in inverted commas. Here he is, the Catalar. Here he is, Adli. Good luck. Go for it. All of a sudden you have the incredible little Brahim Diaz, dude. Diego fucking Maradona.

Of course, bro, I don't think there'll be a week where I don't praise Kronic. Kronic is literally we have a leak in the wall. He plugged Kronic in right there. Literally, literally. Kronic is the man I would call if my AC is broken. He's the man I would call if Milan need a defensive midfielder, if they need a winger, if they need an attacking midfielder, if they need a left back, if they need a right back. If I'm a brother, my girlfriend needs a cuddle. I'm calling Kronic, man.

Man, let me tell you what, if I'm in a devastating accident that makes me lose everything from the waist down, Kronic is the man to step in for me in any given situation. That's it. He just plugs every hole. I love the double pivot. He was amazing, man. He was really good again. Bro, he'd be good in the single pivot. He'd be good in the triple pivot. The man just pivots. Ross Geller would love him. A friend's joke for the enthusiasts. Fantastic. Kalulu. Amazing tackle.

You know the one I'm talking about. They were left over, coming through. Tomori had initially fucked up. Exactly, he pressed up high, of course, which is good to see. I mean, they can because they've got each other to back each other up. Before, when it was Romagnoli or Kier, they couldn't be as adventurous. Tomori and Kalulu couldn't be as adventurous because Kier can't track back. Romagnoli can't track back. But these guys with each other, they've got the pace. Okay, I'm going to go up.

You cover for me. And they can catch up with the pace and catch up. Kalulu did. And Kalulu, bro, is so exciting. It's crazy how he's outperforming Tomori nowadays. Bro, he's insane. He's a centre back. The man's a centre back. I agree. But then you play him on the right and he fucking advances and ships the keeper from out of the box like he did with the France under 21. Fucking hell, that was nuts. But with that being said, El Capitano David Ecalabria had the game of his life as well.

He looked nimble, he looked light, he looked quick, he looked strong. He was good, man. I liked him. He was in the zone. A fun fact about Udinese, they're selling Sopi to Atalanta most likely. So Milan will have to play him twice in two weeks. How fucked. And he played pretty well. I heard that Sopi was initially getting transferred to the Prem, but he was going to stay in Serie A another season. So he instantly belonged back. That's a good dodgy. You're thinking good dodgy. That's a dodgy.

But he didn't play because of the transfer market. But we'll see what happens over there. Do you think that Udinese, they played well, right? Of course, they scored two goals against Milan. They held their own. They collapsed at the end. Of course, there's a lot of quality in Milan's attack, especially when the substitutions happened, they couldn't really keep up. But they remind me, like, what's the difference, bro, between Udinese and Hellas Verona?

I mean, Udinese are Hellas Verona when they play Milan. Otherwise, Udinese are Udinese. They're more physical. I think if you have to exchange their shirts, you wouldn't tell them apart. They play the same style exactly, man. Udinese are much more physical. I think Verona, I still need to see more of Verona this year. But last year they had a lot of love and sexy magic about them with Caprari, with Barac, with Illich, Kdoglazzi as well, which is what we're calling him from now on.

But there are a few similarities going forward. They're very similar. Even the shape, man, the shape, the big players that they have all around. They're very, very similar. Udinese played well, but they always play well against Milan. I feel like this time round, the freak occurrences happened. You know, that first minute Bacau goal and then the Massena goal as well at the near post, that freak shit happened. They left the half though.

Milan didn't do anything to concede and they still concede against Udinese. Difference is, a couple of years ago, Milan would have scored one, maybe two and drawn the game. This time Milan got four goals. They're capable of finding goals and they won 4-2. We were never stressed when we were watching the game. Even when they equalized late on, it's like we have time. That's a fucking good point, bro.

Milan have the quality to get goals back, similarly to fucking Napoli, who we'll talk about later on. They conceded, but they kept going and going and going. Yeah, so that's basically it, bro, for this game. I don't know if there's anything you want to mention. What did you think about Milan overall? Seeing them back, I know there's Udinese that we haven't really touched on, but it's very much a let's wait and see. And Udinese are very unchanged as well from last year, come to think of it.

Milan this year, the first game of the season, what did you make of Milan's performance? It was against a team that once again has caused problems for Milan in the past. They attacked Milan this time, they didn't sit back as they always do, which probably actually ended up helping out Milan. They conceded early on, lapse of concentration at the very beginning, boom, Becow goal, of course that would be unacceptable. So early on matchday one, second minute of the game, you excuse it.

In fact, when it happened, I was just like, Jesus Christ, I wasn't pissed. I was more like, it was funny. It's Becow again, you know, fucking celebrating and fist pumping there. I was like, fuck this guy. I would spend seven million on Becow just to take him off of Udinese, because the man literally risks two to three points every time Milan play Udinese. I would pay seven million to guarantee two, three points every fixture against Udinese, but fuck it, it is what it is.

But I was very happy with Milan's performance. And you know, I was really happy from what I saw with the subs as well. We had Origi coming on, Decetler coming on, Giroud coming on, and Giroud was running at his men. Are you okay? I just vomited a bit. Giroud was trying to take players on, man. It was crazy. And he's blonde right now, so I didn't recognize him. Everyone's a champion now. They've all got that confidence of champions. We are at the end of the day.

Should we move on to the next game? We're not going to say Milan are first with three points, level on points with five, six other teams. That comes from match day two onwards. Not even, I would say like match day seven, eight. I don't know. We'll see. So the next game we're going to be covering is Lecce 1-Inter 2, Marco Baroni's men taking on Simone Enzaghi's men.

So Inter lined up with Handanovic and Goal in their classic 3-5-2, Skriniar De Vries and De Marco forming the back line, supported by Dharmian and Gossens out wide, with Czalanoglu, Drozovic and Barela being those three key pieces in the middle, with Martinez and Lukaku up front. Falcone started in goal for Lecce, no surprise there, with Gallo and Gendry being the wing backs and Basquirotto and Chetin being the two center backs.

Gonzalez, Hulmend and Bistrovic formed the three center midfielders, with Di Francesco, Streffetza and Cisse in the front line. So after two minutes, Lukaku opened the scoring, just 80 seconds into his return to Serie A, it was an early cross in by De Marco, to Dharmian, who squared it to Lukaku, headed the ball in.

In the 48th minute, just after the break, Cisse scored for Lecce on his debut as well, it was a counterattack that caught Inter and Skriniar out of position, I feel like Skriniar pressed a little bit too hard over there, leaving his teammates exposed, and it ended with Cisse finishing from a tight angle thanks to a Di Francesco assist.

It was in the 95th minute that Inter finally managed to get that winning goal that they were looking for for so long, it was Dumfries after a Barella corner was flicked on by Lautaro Martinez, so the oncoming Dumfries, who only needed to make contact to convert and he scored with the final kick of the game. So my initial reaction to this bro is, sure, Inter struggled, but they got all three points, which is what good teams do. But why do you think that Inter struggled?

So I think that Inter play a system that is difficult to execute efficiently if you're not 100% match fit, and I think that that was something that we saw from Inter, we saw particularly in the midfield, Barella, Brozovic, and Inshallah Noglu, nothing special. That's a very good point because Brozovic literally just came back from injury 3-4 days ago.

There we go man, they were honestly, Barella was probably the best one of the lot, but invisible to be honest with you, Gawson's was a shadow of his former self. You know, I mean Martinez as well was getting frustrated more than anything else the whole game. But I think that was the biggest problem, they were match fit. And then you see for example, DiMarco, and he looked great man. DiMarco was probably one of the better players on the pitch.

I think he was by far the best player on this Inter team. He was advancing from that left center back position as well. Of course. He pretty much created the first goal. Towards the end of the game when they were 1-1, and it was like the 80th minute onwards, it's so funny dude. And then in Zagie I'm pretty sure lined up a 2-2-6 man. 2-2-6 with Lautar, Olukaku and Zerko in the middle, and DiMarco and Denzel Dumfries on the wings. Honestly, that's what it looked like to me.

And there was Correa as well playing there somewhere, probably in midfield or some shit like that. Feels like us when we're playing FIFA against each other, ultra talking 4-2-4. 4-2-4, bring on all my strikers. But that's literally what happened. And DiMarco was literally the main offensive threat for Inter this game. Agreed. I think Barela was quite good considering what was around him in that period.

I'm looking at the match ratings, the only people that have a high-ish rating are the ones that contributed to goals. Otherwise it's Barela. He didn't contribute directly to goals but it was his corner, it was a bit of build-up play by him as well. You know what I mean? He was inserting himself quite a bit, much more than his teammate Hakan Kralenoglu and Brosevic just seemed a bit slow. But you know how those three are.

They pick it up in fucking no time and end up being the best midfielder in the league probably again. So Inter struggled against Alekse, listen to this because I don't think you know this. So Alekse came in with a couple of injuries. Two of them were Alessandro Tuia and Kastriot Dermacu. These are two centre backs of theirs. So it left them with one centre back in Tretin and he was partnered up with a right back named Basquerotto. Oh, Basquerotto is a right back.

Yep, Tretin went off injured in the 21st and he was replaced by a midfielder named Blin. You're taking the piss. So Alekse played 70 minutes with a right back and a central midfielder as their two centre backs and Inter couldn't score, bro. That's amazing. Couldn't score. Sure, Falcone had the fucking game of his life, bro. Falcone had the game of his life. He had a couple of good ones with Samp.

I was surprised last year to see Audero come back in and bench Falcone because Falcone is a fucking monster, man. A monster. So that's just a little interesting fact. I had no idea, bro. So they didn't even have a centre back. They currently, they're really struggling. Lecce because their centre backs are all injured. They have the Milan last year when Kier, Romagnoli and Tomori were all injured. So they don't have the legs when the Mattia Gabbiati cover.

Exactly, Mattia Gabbiati and Calumunu starting together. Just a heart attack back then. Obviously, Lukaku scored 82 seconds into his return against Lecce in 2019. Lukaku scored his debut goal for Inter against Lecce as well. Oh, ridden in the stars. Who stood out for you from Lecce? From Lecce, I quite liked fucking Streffetza down the wing. Streffetza was really good. Streffetza was good. And I'm impressed by Cissé.

I know I mentioned two offensive players, but at the end of the day, Lecce, obviously Falcone as well. I cannot say Falcone. But those three in particular. So Lecce looked calm. They looked like they kept their shape well. They transitioned from defence into attack quite well. So their build up there was decent. That's how they got their goal in the 48. I was quite impressed by them. But then individually, if I really had to pinpoint people, it's Falcone, Streffetza and Cissé. What do you think?

For me, it's the same. I mean, I would say Falcone, Streffetza. Of course, Cissé scored, but I was really impressed by Gallo, the fullback. Gallo was good. He looks really good, man, honestly. And against Darmian, there he had Darmian and Skriniar on his side. They did really well. And they brought in Frabotta. I'm not quite sure Frabotta will find it easy to displace Gallo on this team. It's difficult, but then Frabotta has more experience.

Frabotta has the fact that he's owned by Juventus, man. That's the card he'll play. So yeah, not a bad first game for Marco Barani and his men, especially against Nzaghi's Inter. And you can see, if you manage, Marco Barani, with newly promoted Lecce, manages to make a sweaty, stressed out fucking Nzaghi celebrate like he won the league at the end because they fucking got a late winner against Lecce. That's a job well done, dude. Honestly. It is, man. It is. No, I had Lecce in last.

I'm not going to be that guy to change my opinion after one match. But after this game? No, but I'm impressed. I'm impressed. I mean, that doesn't look like a team that comes 20th and say, yeah, I'm going to be totally honest with you. But we'll see. They might absolutely suck off. They did. Exactly. Exactly. Inter, obviously, I'm sure that they'll grow from this game. I'm sure that they're on a high. I think Lecce should also be on a high from that as well.

So I'm interested to see what these two teams are going to do. I'd like to say as well that Inter have sold their youth player, Cassidy, to Chelsea for somewhere between 15 to 20 million. And that's Pena Monty as well for 20 million. So suddenly they have 40 million plus Valencia. So turns out the Corea by might have not been that bad after all. It's not worth half of that. Another thing about Inter that I had to mention, what the hell was it? I had something in mind. Brain blast.

Oh, shit, I forgot. OK, never mind. Moving on. Moving on quickly to the next game. The next game. Jesus, he's lagging. Yes, sir. The next game took place between Juventus and Suswala. This was the Monday night game. Oh, God. Oh, God. I love football on a Monday night. Football on a Monday is lovely. Better than summer days on a Monday. I'll tell you that. Honestly, I don't know why. So Matt, you decided to go to a festival. It was great. It was really, really fucking good. It was really good.

But you missed the De Maria and the Guevara Xelia show with Bro. I saw a bit of the Guevara show, but I did end up at a festival with five women. Just myself and five other women. I had a blast. I don't get it wrong. You had the shortest shorts of the group. That's because I have the nicest legs. Anyway, Juventus 3 Suswala 0. Suswala, a fun fact about this game before we get into it, have only ever beaten Juventus once away from home. Last season. And it was last season.

Remember who scored the winner? No. Maxime Lopez, who was suspended for this game. So unfortunately, I mean, I wouldn't say that's the only why. In fact, I want to point out that I was particularly impressed by his replacement, Henrique. In fact, for the first few moments of the game, Henrique, Henrique, Henrique. Yeah, maybe Henrique, Henrique. Let's call him Henry. No, because I think he's the Hellas Verona striker. But anyway, Henrique. In fact, I thought he was Maxime Lopez at the beginning.

Oh, okay. I was like, oh, Maxime Lopez, turning like playing the ball around as usual. I don't know. What the hell is that? Then I realized it's Henrique. And he was playing very well. So let's go through the lineups. Perrin started in goal for Juventus. This happens sometimes before Shesney comes back and we'll never see Perrin again. Danilo on the right, Bonucci and Bremer, which has a nice ring to it as the centre back partnership.

Sandro out wide, McKennie on the left and Quadrado on the right. It was a 4-4-2 at the beginning. Locatelli and Zakaria in the middle with Vladovic and Di Maria up front. The 4-4-2 did not last very long. It lasted until the first water break. He did it like bamboozle. Like he lined up a 4-4-2, just a bamboozle Sassuolo. I think he did it because at heart he's still a terrorist.

Concelli was in goal for Sassuolo and Muldow was on the right and Rogério on the left with the centre back pairing of Ferrari and Aihon aka Nannujo and Nanname. The midfield three were Frattesi, Henrique and Thorsvedt. And up front of course was Berardi on the right, Kyriakopoulos on the left and Defrel up front. I just say I fucking, every time I think of our theory about Concelli, I laugh so much. It's so funny bro. I love so much. Do you want to explain it to new listeners about that?

Yeah, we'll have a few new listeners. Firstly, thank you very fucking much guys because we're randomly getting a bunch of downloads ever since I think we've introduced a bit of video on social media. So we'll keep that up for sure after that. Our theory is basically, you know, we can't believe that Italy keep on calling up Donnarumma, Cranio and then Sirigu. And last time Donnarumma was injured and it was Cranio, Sirigu and some motherfucker. Maret.

And there was another time they called up someone, bro. I've never heard of him in my life. They call up weird keepers. They anything not to call up Concelli. So our theory is one cap. He has one cap. So he was there once. You know what he did? In our opinion, our theory is that he wanks in the shower. I lent this relentlessly. I feel like once in Sydney, I just drew the curtains and found him like squatting down with his hand between his legs, giving himself all those backhanded blowjob.

Wanks after sitting on his arm for too long, like numbing it. And I think it was never called up since. So I guess someone else is doing it. I was like, what the fuck? Never called up again. Yeah, that's the thing. No, all jokes aside, Concelli is a brilliant keeper. It's surprising that he never plays for the Italian national team. So I don't know what's going on over there. Sassuolo were also missing Hamad Traore, who was absent due to injury.

Now the game started off, Juve weren't as dominant at the beginning of the game. Sassuolo were playing their part. You know, it looked like a balance affair. And then the first water break came and Allegri decided to change things around. He changed to a 4-3-3 instead of a 4-4-2. And honestly, this changed the game completely. In the 26th minute, in fact, an Alexandra Cross fell to Di Maria. And Di Maria just shot it, like bounce shot it off the floor and over Concelli.

And that was 1-0 to Juventus. In the 43rd minute, Vlaović found himself clean through on goal, 1 v 1 against Ferrari. Ferrari, to be honest, still had, he was equal to him, but he used all 30 years of his footballing experience to just grab Vlaović and like wrap his arms around him and drop him on the floor and give away a penalty. What else can you do at that point? Honestly, imagine, like, I don't get it, man.

Why as a, you're 30 years old, you're a centre back, you're one on one with Vlaović, you know, and you're going to wrap yourself around him before he's even beaten you. Yeah. It's just weird to me, man. Yeah, it's a, it seems like a non-experienced move at the end of the day. You're obviously giving away a penalty. It's panic, he's panicking. He's like, oh my God, this is Vlaović, shit, shit. You know, he's literally freaking out, like you can see it.

And Vlaović just seemed stronger than if you struck him off, fell to the ground and won a penalty. Exactly. And then boom, he scores it himself. That's 2-0. And then in the second half, in the 51st minute, Di Maria's deflected pass fell to Vlaović, who stretches and finishes very well. This was after Aihon's mistake. So Ferrari and Aihon both had mistakes leading to goals, terrible display by both of them. And we thought that Vladimir Kirikis was the problem back there.

Turns out it's just a curse over there. It's a swallow. They can't have a decent centre back performance over there. Agreed. Bro, 3-0. I was surprised. I thought Sassuolo would bring it. I thought Sassuolo would bring it. Obviously we know what Sassuolo are like against the top seven teams. They just simply always perform against them.

But more than that, I was very pleasantly surprised by Juve because Juve did not give Sassuolo the opportunity to do any of that shit that they like to do against the top teams. They didn't concede a single goal. I feel like they had a good performance defensively. Midfield is TBD. I feel there's still a bit of TBD over there. Up front, Di Maria was fucking sensational. He was. I'm sure you have a point there to talk about him.

Vlaović was… I mean, I thought it was obvious that Di Maria would do well in Italy. The thing is, to be fair, we've both been right so far. I said he'd do well in Italy. He said he can't play consistently. So he started his first game, one goal, one assist, and he's off injured. Allegri said he's not worried about the injury. It's just an abductor injury. It's something he struggled with for a while apparently.

And even when he was training, he had this injury, a minor form of this injury, I guess. But yes, I think he'll be out. Last thing I saw was two weeks out. I saw seven to ten days. Seven to ten days is the kind of timeline they're giving him. But I thought Sassuolo would bring it, primarily, but I was also very surprised by Uwe's performance. They just hit the ground running immediately, man. It's true.

And in fact, they did so in such a manner that they were able to bring on Miretti, Rovella and Sule towards the end of the game. You know, the youth team. They also brought on Costich and gave him a pressure-free first performance. They brought on Matteo Desilio, who had two moves, bro, like fucking prime Ronaldinho. I swear to God, man, there was a point. The commentator was like, sure, that was intentional by Matteo Desilio. It gets a replay and it literally was.

He's looking at the ball and he looks at where he wants it to go and he plays it there, with the back heel. Where was this guy for Milan, man? Well, anyway, Thord's Velt, I thought, looked very raw for Sassuolo. He needs some time to adapt. But that's pretty much it. No point on milking the dead cow that is Sassuolo. What do you think? I think there's one more point, actually. Pinnamonti's entrance. I think he had some promising runs, some promising moments.

I think he'll score a couple of goals with Sassuolo, Pinnamonti. I think so as well. I rate Pinnamonti a lot as a player. I think he's a young, creative attacker and he's got the grinta, the grinta that is in great strikers, the great strikers of Italy, like Luca Toni, for example. He had some good grinta. That passion for goals. Exactly. He just loved scoring.

And I think in a team like Sassuolo, with Berardi to your right and Frattesi behind you, Thord's Velt is apparently a very good forward passer, so I'll be looking forward to seeing more of that. But he looks good. Exactly. Obviously, we probably won't see Raspado a replay for Sassuolo again after it seems like he's very, very close to a Napoli move. But I feel like overall, Sassuolo have a good enough squad to put food on the table for Pinnamonti to be able to back them. I think so too, man.

I think that he'll get goals. I think it's 12 goals guaranteed for him this season. Well, I'd say around 8-9. I mean, a kit. I mean, I'm still waiting for my three. One more you need. One more in the world. I told you, I pitched in for the classic. That was before we made the bet. And I got to the Fiorentina one. And for your fourth birthday, I got you a toy. Who the fuck cares? You're up, bro. You don't want to discuss Juve a little bit more, bro. I think they looked really, really good.

They looked really dominant. They looked and then they kept scoring. It's not like the classic allegri way that we know where you score one and then you defend it and you concede, then you sweat to score another. You know what I mean? They kept going all game. Di Maria is a breath of fresh air for them. Quadrado playing up higher up is just incredible, man. Like even there was a point when a ball was coming from the top, like quite high up.

He just touches it first time and just instantly does it like wiggle turn, you know, the one like and he skips his man instantly. He's so good. He's the closest thing. He's the closest human. How am I going to word this? He's a human cockroach, bro. That's what he is. Okay. He's slipping around, you know, you can't catch him like going through the crevices, like he's trying to fucking whack him with your shoe and you can't get him.

You know, you're breaking your furniture trying to get them and you can't like he's a human cockroach. Quadrado, honestly, so slippery. I see what you mean about Quadrado. And just Quadrado having Di Maria up ahead of him is nuts, man. It is. Uh-huh. Juve will be up there, man, this year. Juve will definitely be up there. I think so. So the next game we're going to be covering is Verona 2-Napoli 5, not the first high scoring affair we saw between these two teams.

It was the first time we saw Verona under Trophy ourselves. Obviously they had the midweek loss a couple of days ago that was under Trophy as well. I believe it was a 4-1 loss to Bayern. But yeah, Verona 2-Napoli 5. So Napoli lined up with Maret in goal with Di Lorenzo and Mario Rui being the right back and left back. Rachmani and Minje forming the centre back duo. And Gwisalobotka and Zielinski started in the midfield with Lozano and Gvaracielia out wide and Ozymen down the middle.

On the other hand, Verona lined up with their 3-5-2 formation, a much changed side from last year's 3-4-2-1 formation. Cosmonte Pongole with Amione, Gunther and Davidovic at the back. Farane and Lazovic were the two wingbacks. Illich, Hongla and Tamez were the three centre midfielders. And Kdoglazzi started up front alongside Thomas Henri. So in the 29th minute it was Kdoglazzi that opened the scoring.

It was a corner by Illich that was flicked on by Gunther and into Lozano's path at the far post, leaving him with an empty net to thump the ball into. It was totally unmarked and I feel like Rui could have done much better in that situation. A goal for Lozano is a goal for Seha Spotlight. There you go, thank you Kevin. In the 37th minute, Kvarac scored his first goal of the season on his debut after a header in after a Lozano cross. It's good to know that he can hit the ball as well.

And apparently it's not his strongest point. You know what I mean? And I would have never guessed by looking at the way he headed it in. He took it very well man. He did. He took it ridiculously well. But he said that's not his strongest point and it was good to see him scoring a header. In the 48th minute still, in the first half, Rui's corner was flicked on by Di Lorenzo and volleyed in by Ozymen. This man just loved scoring against Verona. We were talking about Bakal against Milan.

Ozymen has the same against Hellas Verona. I believe he scored two against them last year, if not three bro, over the course of the two legs. In the 48th minute, but in the second half, Thomas Henry got the equalizer. He headed in on his debut after a brilliant run and cross by Davide Faroni. He seemed to injure KDoglazzi while they were celebrating. The creamy main course went on to play until the 72nd minute though. So you can't bring the man down like that. No, but he did.

He was bleeding from his mouth. You know, that's fucking nuts. Like he was playing with a cotton pad in his mouth for the rest of the game. Henri needs to take a trip to Milan, speak to Lukaku, speak to Lukaku's mom because it seems like he has a bad omen about him. So she could bring him some good juju after that. It seems like everywhere Henri goes, sure he's off to a good start, but it seems like he just brings a bit of trouble with him.

In the 55th minute bro, Zieliński scored this goal and it was just a classic, sexy, stylish, luxurious goal by the gangsters of Naples as it was a one touch play. It was Zieliński clean through on goal who slotted in without issue. Same old Napoli brother. Same old Napoli. Gwara that ball man. Like it's safe to say, I'm sorry, I'm going to come out here bro. You heard it here first. I, Jake Weneck, I'm Gwara sexual. Fucking hell. I appreciate Gwitra Gwara Srela to the maximum bro.

He's such a cool player. He's so direct and he's so skillful. You never know what he's going to do when he gets the ball. That ball that he gave to Zieliński was so clever man. Like he, many players have taken an extra touch there. He knew that like he did, it would have been better without it. And he put the perfect amount of weight on it. The perfect ball to Zieliński man. Amazing ball honestly. I'm a real big fan of this guy.

Firstly, I support you, but still if you need to talk, I'm here for you. Thank you very much. But Gwara, it just seems like, okay, I'm at Napoli. So this is a first time ball. You know what I mean? Ozyman dragged the ball down to midfield so well. He released, I believe it was to Lobotka who released it to Gwara, who released it to Zieliński, who finished off so well. And that was just a classic, classic Napoli goal. In the 65th minute Stanislaw Lobotka turned into Lionel Lobotka.

It was such a messy goal. He just like ran down the middle, swiveled his fucking shoulder left, right, left, right a little bit and curled it into the bottom corner from just outside the area. Spalletti said that he reminds him of Iniesta. Really? Lobotka reminds him of Iniesta? Yeah. Fucking hell. Has he ever managed Iniesta? So high praise. Is the question, but sure. At this point, just everyone's getting their name on the score sheet.

Seventy-ninth minute, then Poletano, mama fucking mia man, another brilliant goal for Napoli. This one, Loki, might have even been better than Zieliński's with a slight question mark around it, take it to a pinch of salt. The man who converted, which was Poletano, was the man who started the attack. He played the ball to Di Lorenzo, who squared the ball into the box. Ozyman flicked it back stylishly to Poletano, had time to control and convert into the bottom corner. It was fantastic, man.

Adamou Nass then came on the bench and had a brilliant performance. He scored within 90 seconds after combining with Poletano. A really good goal. A really good goal, man. But it was disallowed for Alessio Zerbin's foul on the goalkeeper. That's why it was disallowed. But man, fuck me. Do Napoli look good? They look really good. Fuck me, Napoli look good, man.

They look really good, honestly, for a team that lost so many fundamental players, like in Ospina, Koulibaly, Fabian Ruiz, Insigne, like Jesus Christ, they lost an important player in every single position. So yeah, I was extremely impressed by them. And I was surprised to see Napoli under Guevara, kind of. Now this is obviously after one match, so again, take it to the pinch of salt. But I see them with Guevara being slightly better than they were under Insigne. Especially towards the end.

I agree with you. Insigne, towards the end, wasn't that great, in my opinion. His last season was slow down. And he was a bit predictable. He had this ego where he'd just shoot, you know. I think Guevara is a breath of fresh air for them, 21 years old. He's a breath of fresh air. It seems like he's quite an all-rounder as well. He could link up there, could score with the head, he could score with his feet, he's explosive, he's dynamic. But above and beyond everything, he is incredibly direct.

Him and Lozano down the wings are incredibly direct. And for Napoli, it's so good. Because when they play down Insigne's side, sure, he'll bring something a little bit different. Well, different. At that point, it was something, you know, it was on paper, essentially, for them. He used to cut inside, slow down the play. But now it's like, whether we go down the right or whether we go down the left, we're going to be explosive, we're going to be quick, and good luck.

They wouldn't leave time for the defense to adjust in this game. And that's why they won this game. And you can see that they were playing with a chip on their shoulder. Napoli, they wanted to remind everyone that, hey, we're still here. We're still competitive. They're not coming fifth. Matt and Jake. Yeah, Matt and Jake, you fucking assholes. We're going to be in top four. They also got revenge on Hellas.

Remember that Hellas is the team two years ago that stopped Napoli from playing Champions League football. When they were under, they got two, so they missed out by one point or two points, something crazy like that. Exactly. Yeah, it was a Farone goal at the end. But I also need to point out that this is match day one, right? Napoli have already worn a special jersey. Incredible, man. Incredible. They have four kits already. It's match day fucking one, dog. Match day one.

It was a replication of the kit that goalkeeper Claudio Garella wore in goal when they won the Scudetto on 84-85 because he died last week, which is why there was the minute of silence before the game. It's cool. It's nice. I get it. But I don't have any excuse for them to create a new kit. They love making money off a dead person, Napoli. But anyway. The amount of Maradona kits they had made. One player that stood out to me as being not up to the task whatsoever was Amione.

Amione was kind of rubbish for Verona. Fuck Verona concentrating every transfer window, putting all of their finances into the attacking part of the game and just totally neglecting those three at the back because they're weak, bro. They're simply not that good. It's true. Sure, Gunther is good in the air. Sure, Davidovic has a good slide tackle to him. You know what I mean. But bro, very average for a team that's aiming for ninth, eighth, top ten, essentially, their back three is awful, man.

It's true. And I know I'm judging them against Napoli, but this isn't only against Napoli. This was last season as well. Yeah. Amione was terrible. Amione was bad. Otherwise Gunther and Davidovic were okay. Yeah. Okay. But again, Napoli were just too quick. They were too dynamic for them. They couldn't find their feet. And they grew into the game well, Napoli. There was a moment in the first half before they were winning and they had a free kick, right?

There was the kicker and there was the guy who does the fake run. What is this, American football with the kicker? There was the kicker, man. There was the player outfield who ran by the byline. No, no, no. There was honestly, there was the guy taking the free kick and there was the guy who did the fake run. Okay. So the player fake runs and the player who was meant to take the free kick ran away from it as well.

So there was a massive miscommunication and basically both players standing over the free kick ran away from the ball. And now this was like the reaction from the fans was hilarious. It was like, how embarrassing, man. At that point, you just want the game to end, man. I'm sure they wouldn't have minded the final whistle being blown soon after. Yeah. I had another point.

Of course, Giovanni Simeone didn't start this match for the simple reason that he has moved to the opponents in Napoli and it is official. He will be joining them. I don't know about fees. I don't know about length of contract, but he is now a Napoli player and we'll see him there in the coming weeks. Probably playing second fiddle to Ozyman, but not a bad second fiddle to have. And they need one. How many goals he scored last year? Quite a few, man. Oh, bro, like 18. Something like that.

Something like that. I mean, they came in four games. You know what? I hit a score of three goals here, two goals there. But yeah, it'd be a good addition to Napoli. Him under Spalletti. I see him growing a lot. He's a player with a fine set of testicles. And obviously Fabiano Ruiz didn't start after, after his transfer to PSG. He's moving to PSG. Fabiano Ruiz. I was not expecting PSG. It seems like he's been flirting with fucking. I thought it'd go to Real. Hey, hey, hey, hey.

But yeah, that's pretty much Napoli, Verona for you. So Napoli, like we said, they looked fucking incredible. They picked up Adam Unas looked amazing. Hey, man, hey, they picked up where they left off last year. We saw Olivera, come on, we got a nice little glimpse of him. Verona on the other hand, I mean, you can't judge them too much. They did manage to get two goals to this Napoli side that looked phenomenal.

It's good to see Lasagna and Henry both scoring is a very good sign for their new front two. They obviously saw from the three, four to one to the three, five, two. So it's good that that seems like it's going to work. It was interesting to see Barack on the bench and that coming on later on in place of. He might be leaving Barack. Really? Yeah, yeah, that explains him not starting. In fact, I believe there was something today about him leaving to have a news update for you. Let's see.

Fiorantino going after him after Barack. Yeah, well, there is. Yeah, there's West Ham as well who are targeting him. So there's quite a few. There's a lot of interest. There's Fiorantino, there's West Ham. Yeah, I mean, it'd be a shame to lose him. Yeah, it would. It would. He's a super player. He's just Verona after losing Zakani, after losing Caprari. They don't want to. After losing Semi O'ne. Rahmani, Amrabat. Rahmani, Amrabat. They're going to lose him now. They're going to lose Barack now.

Di Marco. Ah, Di Marco. Oh my God, man. But they always seem to find adequate replacements. They always manage. They're a really well run team, in my opinion. Yeah, I think that's enough to move on to the next game. Lacio Bologna. This was an entertaining one. It really was. The score was 2-1. Fun fact about Lacio Bologna is that Lacio have won more home matches against Bologna than any other side in Serie A. They've won 38 matches at home against Bologna.

But it did not prove to be so simple as in the sixth minute, the new goalkeeper for Lacio Maximiano charged out confidently, slid and grabbed the ball to stop the striker from of course being cleaned through. And he was actually out of his box. So he got a straight red card after a Varchek for a handball and he looked humiliated. You know, of course, that's a nightmare situation over there. Who would you have rather been, Maximiano or Radu? I'd still say Maximiano.

The same man, Radu, which is the fact that happened twice, right? Exactly. Once it cost the team the league, which was the only game we played all season. But anyway, yes, so let's go through the lineups first of all. So we have Maximiano on goal for a solid six minutes for Lazio. We have Lazari on the right and Marisic on the left with the centre-back pairing of Roman Ioli and Patrick.

We have Basij, Kataldi and Bilingovic Savic as the midfield three, Zakangi out wide on the left and Anderson on the right with a mobile up front. While Bologna lined up with Skorupski on goal, Samauro, Medel and Likojanas at the back, De Silva on the right and Cambiasso on the left, Dominguez and Schouten as the double pivot with Soriano right in front of them, Aron out of it and the San Sonne up front. So in the sixth minute, Maximiano got his red card. Of course, he was replaced by Providel.

Who came on it to be honest, that's a good replacement, Providel. This is the perfect opportunity for him to make himself indispensable. In the 38th minute, Soriano was brought down by Zaccani in the box. Of course, Arne converted the penalty. Such a good penalty taker Aron out of it. He's a really good player overall, man. I feel like United fans were very quick to shoot down the option of them getting Aron out of it when in reality he would really help them. I mean, right now.

Right now, anything would help them. For sure. Madonna. Someone said they're going after Rabiot. That's gonna help. They're no ball, huh? They're no ball. In the 49th minute, Saumauro got his second yellow. He got two yellows in 11 minutes. Saumauro, more like Saumoron, am I right? Honestly man, you're a man up. You're beating lots of 1-0. And you're gonna go and get a fucking... You're gonna go and get two yellows in the space of 11 minutes. It's stupid, honestly. It's very stupid.

And in fact, he blew the game wide open. In the 68th minute, Dessalvesi scored a no-goal. He was under a lot of pressure across the game and it hit him and went in. And then the 79th minute, Immobile got the winner when he was played through by Sergei Milyankovitch Savic and his finish was just good enough to get past the goalkeeper. The Lazio classic, Sergei to Immobile. The captain! The commentator forgot Immobile's name. But that was before, on a chance earlier on.

But anyway, I feel like it's difficult to judge these teams from what we saw, especially Lazio. Their mentality is one thing we can highlight because they overcame quite a difficult situation in the first few minutes of the game and still managed to get three points. But it's always difficult to judge a team and how they play after playing with ten men for the whole game, basically. No, for sure. And I think there's more positive than negative to take out of it for Lazio.

Sure, they didn't look flashy. They didn't look like a Maurizio salary side. You know what I mean? At the end of the day, we always talk about teams under pressure getting the job done. And you know, after six minutes, your new goalkeeper gets sent off. So you need to take a player out, you need to bring on Providel and then you need to play against a Bologna side. That looked good. And Bologna are always, if they're anything, they're tough. They're very tough.

So it was no easy task for Lazio, but they kept it up and they managed to fight back and win 2-1. It was not easy at all, man. They forced it. For sure, for sure. Great saves all around by Skorupski and Providel, of course. To be honest, the only thing I have to highlight right now is that Musa Barrow, when he came on, had a few moments to actually inspire the game and to affect the game, quite frankly. But instead, he got his usual tunnel vision that he's had for three seasons now.

He just doesn't see the pass or he just makes the wrong decision, quite frankly. And I'm starting to wonder right now, is it a tunnel vision thing or is it a… Because he's selfish, stupid. Honestly, what can you say about this? I'd say selfish, aha. I think he's used to being the best player. Even with his national team, man, if they have a free kick from the halfway line, he's shooting. That's the type of team they are. Musa Barrow is incredibly frustrating.

To me, he's got no place in this team. Firstly, they play a 3-4, 1-2, and to me, he's not a striker. You think he's more of a left winger? For sure. For sure. Yeah. In fact, Mihailovic has said the same thing. Mihailovic has said that Barrow doesn't inspire in front of goal. No, he's a winger. Put him out wide. If he loses the ball, it goes out. You know what I mean? Win a throw in something. You can cut inside. You can play the ball in. Go for a goal from distance, whatever.

Don't put him in front of goal. Sure, he has less opportunities to pass in front of goal, which is probably a good thing for him. But no, to me, he doesn't fit the system. And Tobiaso brings more bad than good right now for Bologna. Cambiaso was decent. Of course, on loan from Juventus, Lico Giannis was decent his first game after joining from Caliari. But that's pretty much it for the Bologna side. For Lazio, Romanioli had his first start. He was okay. That's pretty much it.

I think the classic Sergei was their best player. I think Zachanie was good as well. I know he gave away the penalty and that will impact his rating, but he had some opportunities where he would turn a quarter of a chance into a chance. The player can do that. Like he cut inside and shot at a point and it was incredibly close. Would have been some goal. Would have been our goal of the week, probably, if he put it into the back of the net. He was quite good as well.

Cataldi impressed me as well for center midfielder filling him for Lucas Leyva. He seemed to do his job well. He's done, all right? Exactly. Lazio fans love him. He's been there from day one. I thought Cancellari was fine when he came on. Luis Alberto was fine when he came on. This was a very, at the end of the day, a systematic performance for Lazio. Players were coming in. Look, we're down to 10 men, nine outfield players. Do what the fuck you have to do. Do what the fuck you have to do.

And that they did. That they did. Shall we move on to the next game? Let's move on to Salernetana Roma. Let's move on to the other side of Rome. The classic transition. Here we go. It's Davide Nicolas Salernetana losing 1-0 at home to Jose Mourinho's New Look Roma side. So this New Look Roma side lined up with Patricio Ngole, who else, with a back three of Mancini, Smalling and de Bagnès, flanked by Karsdorp and Spinazzola.

The midfield two were Pellegrini and Cristante, with Deballa and Zaniolo just ahead of them, and Tammy Abraham playing in that lone striker role. For Salernetana it was Sepe Ngole with a back three of Fazio, Gjomber and Bron, supported by Mazocchi and Candreva as the wing backs. Vilena Koulibaly and Kastanos formed the midfield three, with Bonazzoli and Botheim playing up front.

The only goal came in the 33rd minute, it was a shot from outside the area by Cristante that took a slight deflection of Koulibaly, enough to throw Sepe off and fly into the bottom corner. So the New Look Roma, how did they look to you? So I thought they looked good overall, and I don't think the 1-0 scoreline does them justice because I do believe that they played much better than their opponent.

I liked the way Zaniolo was deployed, I liked the way that they utilized him, especially like they created space for him, he was charging down the middle of the pitch and down the left. He was playing very well, Deballa as well, they were wasteful though, it has to be said. Deballa and Zaniolo particularly very very wasteful. And in fact it took out Brian Cristante to get them over the line, Karsdorp were close at the point, he had the crossbar.

A deflected Brian Cristante goal, you know what I mean? But that's it, clean sheet on your first match and the win, that was pretty good for them.

So I thought that they looked much more fluid than they did last year, it didn't seem like they were playing for those one-off situations, they weren't playing for the corners, they weren't playing for the free-kicks, they were switching play nicely, they were overlapping, they were running down the wing, you saw a lot of good support down the middle by Pellegrini, Deballa always available, Zaniolo carrying the ball forward, they were a handful. They are a handful, even Spanazzo on the left.

However, that being said, it looks like Zaniolo is set to stay in the capital, it looks like he's eager, Mourinho wants him, the fans want him and it seems like he still wants to write his story with Roma. He was really good, they were playing off him more than they were playing off Deballa, he looked fucking strong, he looked fit, he looked fast, I hope he can stay fit, but Jesus Christ, his finishing needs weren't.

Because three times he was clean through on goal and he hit the target, he hit the target once, great save by Serpe, was kind of straight to him from a slightly tight angle, but was clean through on goal three times, Deballa had two chances, hit the post once and was off target the other time. A lot of work needs to be done in those scenarios, obviously cold feet, they're just getting back, they'll brush up on their finishing, you know what I mean?

What pisses me off is Zaniolo could have found Tammy on a number of occasions, Deballa could have as well, you know what I mean, but they want to hit the ground running, so they didn't. There's an element of selfishness to it, but I'm sure once they gel, they'll start playing for each other, there's a Mourinho team at the end of the day, I doubt they'll have any selfishness. Yeah, well they looked energetic, they looked optimistic like we said, but they just failed the final product.

If there's one area, well if there's a second area of criticism for Roma, seems as though there's a slight gap from the midfield too to the defence. Totally agree man, especially when Salernitano are charging towards them, there were moments where there was no midfield, it's just the midfielder of Salernitano charging against the back line of Roma, and that happened on multiple occasions.

You know what that is bro, in my opinion, I think at least from just watching the game and looking at the starting XI, Pellegrini in that holding midfield role, in that box-to-box role. It's the fact that Cristante isn't this crusher.

No, he's not, he's kind of a hybrid, he's a jack of all trades, master of none kind of player, he tackles well, he's very strong, way stronger than the average player, but when it comes to his tackling and winning the ball back, you can't compare him to for example Benassar or Lobotka, they're the guys who fucking, or Torreira, they fucking crush it, Torreira would have been a great move for Roma.

100%. I think Cristante is okay everywhere, but he's probably better at crushing than he is anything else. I mean I see him as a box-to-box player, almost nothing at Salernitano. I see him closer to a defensive midfielder, Cristante, but the fact of the matter is he's got Pellegrini to his side, now Pellegrini in an ideal world would be filling in either for De Ball or Zaniolo.

He's an offensive player, we've seen him play in the centre midfield role before, but you get your best player in Pellegrini and you put him in a position that weakens him and makes him a worse player and I don't think that's the move.

Now you tell me what are you going to do, you're going to bench Zaniolo, you're going to bench De Ball, you're going to bench Pellegrini, I don't know man, I'm not the manager of Roma, you know what I mean, I don't make these decisions, but it just seems like Pellegrini is going to want to advance, it just seems like Cristante can't do it by himself, he's got three behind him, what's he going to do, fucking turn into a super stretch man and stop everyone, maybe

hasn't got the legs on him to track back that much either, you know what I mean? It seems like they will see more of Matish. I think typically Mourinho works in similar formations to this, two holding midfielders, what I predicted was to start Matish along with Wijnaldum, now I know Wijnaldum isn't a defensive midfielder but he can be utilised as well. He's a box-to-box midfielder with goal prowess.

Exactly, as long as it's not an attacking midfielder like Pellegrini, Pellegrini should start 100% but it will need to be in place for De Ball or Zaniolo, simple as that.

And you know what, the season is long, there are many competitions they're going to be competing in, so at the end of the day we'll be seeing these guys and there'll be injuries, you know these guys are all injury prone, Zaniolo, De Ball, Zaniolo and De Ball, they're very injury prone, so we will be seeing a lot of Wijnaldum, probably Aisharawi as well.

And if I see them directly swap a Fena Jan for them when they could move Pellegrini up there and start a holding midfielder alongside Cristante or alongside Matish, alongside whoever, Wijnaldum, it will piss me off because what we're seeing here is a slight misbalance in the team that sure didn't cause problems against Salernitana but it's Salernitana. You do that against Milan, that against Inter, against Juve, you can't very much get exposed.

But that being said, Roma do look like a much improved side, they look very fluid in their play and they look way more optimistic than they did last year. That's true. You look at Salernitana on the other hand, I mean, no on the other hand, they were fine, they were very organized. I was particularly impressed by Matsoki and of course Kandreva.

At a point, I think it was Kastanos who had the ball and Kandreva was screaming for it on the right and he didn't play it to him and you can see Kandreva having a word with him later on. It seems like Kastanos wasn't aware of how fucking good Kandreva is basically because in fact, after that moment, they kept playing the ball to him and you give Kandreva time, he will play the perfect ball.

You get Salernitana, you plug in Kandreva, play the fucking balls to Kandreva no matter what and you put Bonazzoli on the other side on the left and just cross them into him as often as you can. And they have a decent team to be honest with you. I was going to say, so on paper, I wouldn't look at their team and say it's anything to write home about. Sure they have certain labels like Bron is good, Sep is good, Kulibali is good, Bonazzoli is very good, Kandreva is very good. That's what there is.

And Ribery has a number seven shave into his head. But they seem like the same Salernitana towards the end of last season. They kept that great up. They kept that energy, you know what I mean? For now. Exactly. Match day one. If they kept it from last season through preseason and on to this year, I don't know. The relegation battle is going to be as exciting as the Scudetto winner battle. For sure, especially since some surprise teams, two newly promoted teams managed to stay up.

There is in inverted commas less quality at the bottom. And then you have teams like Roma upgrading at the top end. It's just going to be a juicy Lucy from both ends. It really is. I can't wait. I can't wait. But yeah, I think that's all I've got to say about Roma Salernitana. I think I'm happy to move on. Plus three for Mourinho's men. Of course, he'll gladly take that. Roma fans will gladly take that. Three points are all that matter in the first match of the season.

The next game is Fiorentina 3-2 Cremoneze. Fiorentina are unbeaten against Cremoneze in Serie A. They've won six now and they've drawn six. Their last game was in 1996, bro, and it was a 0-0 draw. Mildino was managing Fiorentina back then. 1996. I mean, no way. Claudio Ranieri. They came to love against Cremoneze. Jesus, bro, retire. You've made your money. You're still good. Just relax. Go to the beach. Put your feet up, bello. So Fiorentina had Gollini in goal. They had Birogni as left back.

Gollini in goal. Gollini in goal. They had, okay, so Gollini in goal, Birogni on the left, Benassi on the right as right back. Very weird. Gavrilović and Martinez Quarta as the center backs. Malekh, Amrabat and Bonaventura as the midfield three. Sotil on the left. Kwame on the right and Jovilj up front. Now please forgive me. I forgot that Kwame existed. Kwame had a fantastic season with Genoa. He joined Fiorentina. He got injured. Oh. And we didn't see him at all.

We saw a lot of Saponara, a lot of Sotil. We saw a lot of Gonzales. All those guys. Ikone. We saw all those guys. I forgot about Kwame. Kwame usually plays as a striker, but I must tell you out wide today he impressed me. We'll get to that very soon. Man, Fiorentina could like spare a winger. They could give us a winger for free. They have so many wingers, honestly. But anyway, Cremoneza had Raadou N'Gola unfortunately for them. They had Bianchetti, Kirikes and Vasquez.

At the back of Vasquez of course is the former Genoa man and Kirikes is the former Sosuolo man. They had Gilione out wide who played a very good game. They had Ser Nicola on the left, Escalante and Pickel as the midfield double pivot. Pickel, hilarious name. They had Zanimakia as the track-warter and Okereke and Dezers up front. One thing to notice about Dezers is he has the beautiful combination of light eyes and the dark skin. Now. A gorgeous man can't chip the ball though.

Yes. Gorgeous man struggles to play football. In the 16th minute Bonaventura scored thanks to a Kwame masterclass. Of course he looked like kind of shades of Leao over there but a right-sided Leao. Honestly, I hate to cause my own. It was an amazing assist. He plays the ball directly to Bonaventura who finishes perfectly with his left showing off his experience over there. What a goal. In the 19th minute, only a few moments later, Okereke actually caused an upset.

He scored a lovely header thanks to a Gileon assist. He did his usual celebration and he puts two fingers under his chin and wiggles them. I'm not sure what he's trying to do over there. Could be maybe like a rooster. I don't know. I think it's more like the Prince of Persia. I don't know what it is. I have no idea. His face has legs. But it's cool. I like what he does with his posture when he does it. He slouches forward, he does a little hop and the fingers are... He scored midweek as well.

He did. He's played. In the Coppa. He's doing well for it. He's got a lot of experience for him. Congratulations. Well done Okereke, well done Gileon. In the 34th minute, Jovic of course scored the debut goal. Any striker works for Italiano quite frankly. How many debut goals were there this time? Madonna, Madonna. What a start. What a start. What a way to start. Where was that? Man, oh. Jovic got the ball after Sotil played it to him. He spun and he shot.

Too much time was allowed to him and he did eventually punish Cremones. In the 44th minute things escalated very quickly and Gonzalo Escalante got a red card for a two footed lunge over there. It's straight red. No fucking questions asked. Bro, he's a dum dum. Like the way that he left... If you leave the ground that way when you're making a slight tackle, you're off. Bro, come on man. He knew he was in trouble as well.

But yeah, he was off and then in the 68th minute, 10 men in Cremones managed to find an equalizer. It was a corner, Gollini palmed the ball away, Bianchetti came out of nowhere and prodded it home. It was until the 95th minute. I was already like shit, we lost our first bet. Man, we think we're dumb. We don't know what we're talking about. Four outright wins in match day one. What are you, amateurs? New to this guys, new to this. We actually knew this was going to happen. Exactly.

So in the 95th minute, Zurkowski passes the ball to Mandragora who crosses it in. Radu catches the ball and just keeps walking back into his own net. What a nightmare. I slowed it down because I like giving goalkeepers benefit of the doubt because goalkeeper's mental health is very important. You heard that, Carius? Miskin. So what happened was when he grabbed the ball, so he was moving backwards obviously in that situation as a goalkeeper you parry, no matter what you fucking fist it away.

They've got good fucking forearms on them. We could have fisted away. Yes. But while he was moving back, he tucked his legs up, his back leg, his back foot kind of got stuck into the net man and he lost his balance and he fell backwards. That's what I saw. I just saw him grab the ball and walk into his own net. No, but he was moving. It's almost like he landed badly. I don't know if his foot got caught whilst he was falling or if it's what caused the fall.

Thing is the only angle that it got then was zoomed into his legs and there definitely is contact between his shoes and the net and there's an entanglement pretty much. But nonetheless, you parry it in that situation. I feel like Radu, you know, was learned to be a goalkeeper when he was 12 years old and his first experiences were in Serie A on the biggest of stages. Because why do you need to learn from these scenarios? You couldn't have learned that in training.

You've never made that mistake in training. You've never played the ball out the back in training. You've never grabbed a looping ball in training. And you have to remember that for a goalkeeper Radu was actually quite young. For a goalkeeper he's quite young. He's 25 years old. For a keeper again, that's young. At the end of the day, bro, a 25 year old goalkeeper is considered young because they retire at fucking 45. And it's a role that requires, it's a very high pressure role.

At the end of the day, he makes a mistake, it's a goal. And he makes a few, man. He does, unfortunately. Well, he's made two and they were on a big stage, both of them. Yeah, good game, man. He did have a very good game. I'm just looking at it again, bro. It seems like he, so the ball comes in over the top. He takes a few steps back and he looks at it and it seems to be falling into the back of the net. He's looking at it. He jumps up to catch it.

In reality, he should have just tipped it over the bar at this point. He's probably thinking to himself, I don't want to give away a corner. It's the last moment of the game. I don't want him to have a corner. This is where he should have probably just tipped it over the bar. He falls into the back of the net. He's holding the ball over the line and that's when he just, of course, he keeps falling back. That's probably when there was the entanglement.

Yeah. I think the entanglement happened more like as he was falling, to be honest with you. But yeah, it could be he got entangled. But yeah, I felt so bad when we started crying again. Like, don't, oh my God. I felt so bad. What's he supposed to do, man? There's nothing to do. You break down in those situations, man. Fiorantina, bro, they looked solid, but they're still not quite street smart enough. Like they could have easily lost two points over here.

I was slightly weirded out by the starting 11, man. So firstly, just totally, they didn't replace Torreira. They didn't really replace Torreira, no? I mean, no. I mean, is Mandragora replaced? Yes, sorry. Of course. But he didn't start. He didn't start. It was Bonaventura. But he scored the winner, bro, according to every single. But I don't like Male personally. You don't like Male? I don't really like Male.

And I was weirded out by Sotil starting and by Kwame starting and they both got assists, so they probably think I'm weird. I was weirded out by Male starting and I was weirded out by Benassi starting. So Benassi, I get it. I was even, I don't know what the hell he was doing there. I'll write back, but once again, a versatile player, why not? Male has been kind of flirting with the starting 11 for a while now, coming on for the last few moments of the game.

You know, two season ago, we'd seen him being introduced in the last five minutes of the game. Like last season, he was a bit more involved. I think he's a very skillful player, has potential to him. On the wings, they have versatility. I was surprised we didn't get to see much of Nico Gonzalez. We didn't get to see any of Nico Gonzalez. No, he came on. Did he come on? I think he was dangerous. He did. He did. Towards the end of the game for sure. Yeah, no, it was like 80. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was like 80. That I was surprised by. I have it in front of me. He came on 86. There we go, man. So late on and Sapanara came on earlier than him. It was weird, but I guess at this point in the season, you play who's the fittest. So fucking Gonzalez showed up after two months of eating only barbecue and chain smoking fucking cigars, you know, maybe Sapanara decided to stay in shape, you know. Didn't look like he was an incredible. Like, bro, Gonzalez came on and he was as light as a feather.

Like, you know what I mean? He was beating men. He looked so good. But I mean Fiorentina again, they looked good. It's just they looked kind of unremarkable for a team that played Cremona Eze, which is weird because last season they were very remarkable. They were playing that Italiano ball. They were really fluid. But once again, last season they lost 4-0 to Udinese. So there were moments of, you know, it's weird.

But at the end of the day, again, once again, they got the victory, they move and that's going to help you. Yeah, exactly. I don't know if there's anything else I want to mention. Maybe Luka Jovovich's debut managed to get a goal, obviously. He looked lively. He was desperate to score, had a few shots, you know, especially like on the turn. I feel like he was trying a bit too hard to get involved.

I think things will come more naturally to him as he gets used to his teammates, as he realizes that the only person that he has to link up with is Ricardo Sapanara. But yeah, the goals will come for him. Fiorentina will be fine. Yeah, agreed. Agreed. And yeah, hopefully Mandragora will start to get a bit more playing time and there will be more balance in the midfield because that did kind of seem like a slight factor to the unremarkability, unremarkableness. Unremarkableotomy. Just unremark.

You know what I mean? Yeah, let's just go with that. Unremark. The next game we're going to be covering is Sampdoria nil Atalanta 2. So the starting 11 for Atalanta. Moussongol, back three of Toloi, Okolny and Gymsity. I'll get into why very soon. Flanked by Hattaber and Meili with Kukminers, Derun and Pasalic down the middle, front two of Muriel and Zapata. No real surprises over there. Yeah, it's a classic Atalanta, right? Yeah, yeah. And you know, classic Atalanta.

Soon we'll start seeing, you know, fucking who knows who starting where. Who knows who starting where. Wow, that's that's that's great. Everything everywhere all at once. But obviously they're very notorious for changing things around in there and their starting 11. So remember this starting 11 and we'll see what happens in the next game. For Sampdoria, Audera on goal with a back four of Augello, Koli, Ferrari and Berezinski.

In the defensive midfield there was Vieira with Rincon and Sabiri up ahead of him. The wingers were Juricic and Leris and the striker was Ciccio Caputo. Who opened the scoring but the goal was disallowed after a Varchek due to a foul on Meili in the build up. Which wasn't a foul. It was very soft. It was really soft. I was surprised they cancelled the goal out to be honest with you. I was really surprised. I thought that wasn't a foul. It was very soft. Fair enough.

I need to take another look at it. But yeah, you're not wrong. Meili missed a fucking chance moments later, bro. Open goal and he hit the post. And it's not like the ball just came to him. You know what I mean? He had to run up to the ball and everything. He had time and he smacked the post. It was a really, really silly miss. But thankfully for him in the 26th minute, Toloi scored. He half volleyed the ball in after a Zapata cross was headed to the Brazilian by Pasalic.

As we always say, the smartest man in the league. And smartest man in my Fanta. So then Sampdoria got a free kick and Sabiri smacked the post from the free kick. He had Mussou beaten and he went to his near post. The power the man has in his shot is ridiculous, man. Qualiarella dinked the crossbar with a looping attempt. Sampdoria were getting their chances. They were looking decent. They were. They were playing really well.

Then Atalanta had the ball in the back of their net after 89 minutes as Duvon Zapata ran from his own half and whipped the cross in for Adamola Lukman. But it was ruled offside after the Jamaican Englishman converted. But thankfully in the 95th, Lukman managed to get the goal on his debut. He had a lot of time to finish after a counter attack. It was a good ball by Malinowski as well, but he did well to beat his man. Zapata was completely open.

But he did well to beat his man and bamboozled out there a little bit and put the ball into the back of the net. So both teams were coming off a summer of great change to their squad. You know what I mean? Atalanta missed Demiral, Zappa Costa, new signing Ederson, Rem of Reuler, who's joining fucking Nottingham Forest and obviously Palomino as well because he got caught doping following a couple of drug tests. So Atalanta already from day one had one, two, three, four, five, six players out.

There you go. Welcome to the Serie A campaign of 2022-2023 Atalanta. And then the Blue Cherkiati. What do they call them? Blue Cherkiati. Something like that, bro. I don't know why you'd even bother putting yourself in that situation. They had Leverba suspended, they had Gabbiadini and Conti injured as well. Nothing new there. Conti and Gabbiadini. Classic, classic. But to be honest, I was pleasantly surprised by some of the way they performed. I thought they played really well.

I thought they had a goal, of course, unrightly disallowed. I thought it was quite unjust. They had a bit of character to their play. They had a style. Caputo was lively up front. Sabiri good as always. Juri Cis looked quite good as well. I thought Ronaldo Viera had a decent game in midfield. And Atalanta are a team that can easily overpower you and dominate you. And I feel like they struggled a little bit against the Sampdoria side. And that's a good thing for them. No, they definitely did.

Sampdoria had a few decent chances. You mentioned that Qualierla got in behind the defence twice. Oh, and they gave them so much time. You don't give Qualierla time. Madonna, like crazy. But that probably does have something to do with the back three that they did have to end up fielding. But yeah, Atalanta were very moody last year, obviously. This performance, do you think things are going to change or do you think they're more or less going to be very similar last year?

I think it's too early to tell, of course. It would be purely a guess. And I would guess that playing once a week would really help Atalanta really get their play the style that they want to play. It takes a lot of stamina. So having a full week of rest between each game will really help them. So that's rotation as well. Exactly. You know, there are a few options here. Like this isn't the full team, as you mentioned, there are many players who are missing.

So I think that they will improve from last season. Now we'll see, of course. It sucks that Malinowski is leaving the league, man. Is it confirmed? He probably will, right? He'll be leaving to... Apparently, Nottingham Forest wanted them as well, but he said no. Like... Aha, wait, it's not confirmed. It's not confirmed. He's not confirmed to Forest. I know that Froiler is confirmed to Forest. Spurs have been linked to Malinowski. We'll see.

We'll see what happens, but it doesn't look like he's going to set at Atalanta. It looks like he's going for a move away. Like I said, we're losing Froiler from the league. He's joining Forest. And to be honest, we both tune into the Forest every now and then. And I'm excited to see him over there, at least we're not losing him because we still tune in a little bit. Exactly. For those wondering, our father is a massive Nottingham Forest fan. Shout out Kevin. Shout out Kevin.

Sabiri is kind of the star of the Sampdoria team. Abdel Hamid. Abdel Hamid Sabiri. He's amazing. He's the star of this team. I think so too. I think he's responsible for many of their offensive plays. Yeah, he'll hit free kicks, he'll probably be on pens. He'll be on pens, you think? I think he'll be on pens. Unless Collier was on. Well, when he's on the pitch, he'll be on pens. But yeah, I don't think there's too much to add. Yeah, I'm pretty happy to move on to the next game, brother.

So the next game is Monza 1 Torino 2. Torino had only won one of their previous six matchday one games in Serie A. And this was against a Swolon in 2019. So this is a very nice start for them. They lined up with Mlinkovic Savic in goal, Adopo, Gigi and Ricardo Rodriguez at the back, Singo on the right and Olayin on the left with Ricci and Lenetti in the middle. Mirancuk and Radonjic playing behind Sanabria. That's a good front three, man. That is a good front three.

Very fluid and as we saw this game, excellent goals followed. Very sex. Now, Monza lined up with Di Gregorio on goal. Weird, but I mean, I guess Di Gregorio was responsible for playing in goal as they got promoted. So Craniot, I guess I like this approach, to be honest. They're making Di Gregorio feel like his position is his to lose. You know what I mean? Like Craniot has to earn the spot, which is good. It's a positive thing.

Like you said, weird that Di Gregorio started, produced some fantastic save, so huh? For me, one of the best players on the pitch. He was really, really fucking good. He really was. Now, how old is Di Gregorio? He is 25. Young guy as well, man. He's a solid keeper. I was surprised when they got Craniot. But I guess you don't say no to Craniot. Augusto, Mari and Santos were at the back. Of course, Mari has joined from Guadineze. D'Alessandro on the left and Birindelli on the right.

Two very dangerous players. Valotti, Barberis and Ranocchia. And the middle no, that is not Inter's Ranocchia. He was on the bench. They have two Ranocchias. I was very surprised when I heard the commentator shout, Ranocchia! And it's like a shot from out of the box. Exactly. I'm like, what's he doing? But turns out it was the other Ranocchia. Caprari and Petania up front. Very interesting, very interesting, very interesting.

Now, in the 43rd minute Alexei Mirancuk scored a lovely, lovely, lovely goal. It was a beautiful sequence of play which ended up with Mirancuk rolling the ball past the goalkeeper and it was a Toni Sanabria assist. In the 66th minute was Toni Sanabria's turn to score. This was the intro. You've probably grown tired of hearing it. Richie looped the ball to Sanabria who was at the near post who basically dunked it home acrobatically.

And then in the 94th minute, the last kick of the game, it was Dani Mota who scored for Monza a goal for the substitute. It was a rebound goal. It was the last kick of the game. 2-1 a deserved victory for Torino who have lost so many important players. A tough time for Monza who, to be honest, looked like they were getting outplayed for the majority of the game. But as Dani Mota gestured at the end of the game, calma, calma, it's still matchday one.

So we'll see, Monza still needs some time to gel. Of course, many of these players are new. But yeah, we'll see. We'll see what they can do. Sensi of course came on of the bench which was nice to see. What did you make of this bro? I mean, like you said, Monza still needs quite a bit of time to gel together and at the end of the day they played short-or-in-a-loss players and they're significantly individually a weaker side from last year.

That being said, this is their second season in a row under Juric. Two seasons under Juric and one season under Juric are two very different things. He has time to cement his style a little bit more. He has time to grow closer to the players, get more enthusiasm in them. Torino are going to be a strong side this year just like they were last year. I believe they'll be pushing for that top 10 spot as well.

And they're not an easy draw for anyone, let alone for a newly promoted Monza who just signed a bunch of star players. Cleverly sure, but they still need time to gel. Caprari and Petania starting up front and Sensi coming on. It's going to bring a bit of confusion around. I doubt Caprari and Petania ever played together for Italy, you know what I mean, or Sensi. So give them some time to gel and I don't think Monza will be battling. It's still very early days obviously.

In this game Monza didn't seem like they were one of the weaker teams. They did bring it a little bit to Torino. Yes, I would say so. The goal at the end made things look better for them of course, but in reality Torino did kind of outplay them in my opinion. You know Monza had more position and they had more shots. Sure, they didn't look as convincing going forward. Their shots certainly didn't look as convincing, especially they had only four of them on target.

But yeah, they were enthusiastic, they were lively, they were bringing it. Yeah, Lukic, have we spoken about this? No. No, okay. So we must have spoken about him before, that's right. Lukic didn't play this game because he was apparently trying to force a last minute transfer to Juric Surprise. Juric said he's a good boy, I don't know what the hell happened. He literally said he's a good boy, which I found very funny.

He has since apologized for trying to force a move away and is looking to extend his contract, the duality of man. It's crazy man. You know sometimes, I think it's the agents, the agents are getting in your head, you make a rash decision, you regret it instantly and you're just like you know what I'm extending out. Agents, girlfriends, friends, former teammates. Voices in your head. Voices in your head.

It could be anything that wanted to get him, you know it's probably been on his mind for a while and he panicked and he just brought it up. You know what I mean? And he decided to take strong action. But Sasha Lukic is a good player and the manager seems to think of the world of him so it'll be good to see him stay for another season at Torino.

For me the man of the match is Tony Sanabria, but a close second is Ricci who had a massive performance, he had one assist, he had 45 accurate passes, four chances created, three of them being big chances, three out of four long balls completed, seven recoveries, four out of four ground equals one, zero times dispossessed. He was amazing. The former Empoli man, what a performance by him. Yeah, really good performance by him.

It's crazy to think that two seasons ago the man was playing in Serie A for Empoli. Late six months in Serie A, it was enough for a top Serie A team to say we want him in our team. He was one of those and I don't think Torino is the epitome of what Ricci can do in the league. I think he's a great player, he's still quite young as well. He's 20 years old, Ricci, which is fucking nuts. Bro I just opened it up, I was not expecting to see 20. I'm not gonna lie, I was thinking I was gonna see 24.

You know what I mean? It's nuts that the man is still 20 years old. He was amazing. He was hot shit at Empoli. And then they fucking, Torino grabbed him mid-season and they replaced him with Aslani, who was also hot shit. So now Empoli are left with only hot shit. But anyway, for me the Monza team, the most impressive player was Birn Dele. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Out wide. So the great Gregorio between the sticks. Exactly, Gregorio and Birn Dele were the guys.

Okay bro, that's basically it for Monza Torino and we have one more game, the final one. Yep, it's Spezia 1-1 Empoli 0. It is Gotti against Zanetti, two new managers with two of the lower end teams obviously. Spezia lined up with their new goalkeeper Dragovski between the sticks. Back three were Nicolao Caldara and Kyivior. They were supported by Reka and Giassi. I saw you look at it when I said Kyivior. How would you pronounce it? I have no clue bro, how do you spell it?

K-I-W-I-O-R. How else other than Kyivior? Let's go for Kyivior. Let's call him Kyivior. Let's call him Kyivior. The Kiwi. The Kiwi. So Nicolao, Kyivior and Caldara, supported by Reka and Giassi out wide. Bastoni, Borabi and Agudelo forming that midfield three, with Verde and Enzola up front. And then Empoli, Vicario between the sticks, Stojanovic, Ismael, Luperto and Parisi forming the back four, Henderson, Marin and Bandinelli forming midfield three, Bayrami behind Lammers and Destra.

So the only goal was scored in the 36th minute by Enzola. It was Bastoni's through ball that played Enzola through on goal, who finished between the legs of Vicario. So this was a pretty underwhelming game of football. I mean it did seem that quality was scarce in this game, but at the end of the day it was quite a dogfight between the two teams. In my opinion, Spezia did not look like the better team. They got the win, but you know, Empoli had 59% possession and had 18 shots taken.

What did you make of Destra's debut? So Destra's debut, I thought that he looked lively and he has the tools around him for him to succeed over here. I thought that Empoli played well and they showed that they can be a very interesting team this season.

Spezia on the other hand showed that they are very capable of shithousing victories just as they were last season and to be honest the two seasons before that, when they stay up these random victories and time wasting towards the end, you know, this was the classic case of that. Empoli were the better team. Yeah, the much better team. By far, the much better team, exactly. But you look at them, you know, they have a strong core over here. They have a few players who have been there for a while.

You know, I mean, first of all, they've brought in Drogowski, who's off to a flying start. Great performance by him. They've got Kaldar and Nicolao at the back who have a lot of Serie A experience. They have Rehkaot White who has a lot of Serie A experience now and is becoming quite a fundamental part of this Spezia team. Bastoni in the middle, he is Mr Spezia himself, in my opinion. I agree.

He can play left back, he can play in the middle, he can play on the wing, he plays anywhere and he plays well wherever he plays. First name on the team sheet. Agudelo and Giozzi, man, another two guys who have been there for ages, Verde has been there for ages and Zola as well has been there for a while. So these guys have grown together and they're so used to grinding together and working and fucking for the victory, man. That's it, man. That's all they have.

They have each other and they have Serie A experience. That's all that Spezia have. Spezia, and I said this last year when you were when you thought that they'd get relegated, and I safely said out of the bottom five, they are the most capable of getting points and getting three points against anyone. Spezia have the biggest chance to do that out of the bottom teams. So it's like Real Madrid won the Champions League last year, right? You'd say you think Spezia should have won it.

Real Madrid excelled at beating teams that were better than them. Spezia do the same. You could basically start calling them Galacticos from now on. Italy's Galacticos. Yeah, I mean, they do beat teams that are better than them. And that's exactly what they did. I thought on the original question that I asked you, Destro looked very good for Empoli. He had two situations where he should simply have not got a shot away at goal.

The way he turned and the way he swiveled for a man of his age, how old is Destro now? He's not that old. I mean, he's 31. 31 years old. He's 31, but he's been playing football for 45 years. It's really weird. You remember Roma ages ago? Ma don't even floppin' at me. He's been around for so long. He's gone through all the stages. Qualiarella has gone through and he's 41. He's 10 years younger than Qualiarella and he's been through all of those stages. Destro's a really interesting player, man.

The guy... F**ks. Destro's a party animal that f**ks. That's what I think of him. Even his play style just says, I am a party animal that f**ks. Yeah, I would agree with you right there. He's a guy who works very hard, man. He knows what he wants and he knows how to get it. That's it. Goals. Yeah, and if you look at his flop season at Milan, for example, 15 games, 3 goals. I mean, not even the worst. I've seen worse. I have seen worse. Matri. Bologna, 105 games, 29 goals. Not very good.

Genoa, 56 games, 20 goals. Decent. That's good. He's always been the type of player... With Roma he was good. 57 games, 24 goals. That was his peak. That was peak Destro between 2012 and 2015. That was a Destro that we enjoyed watching the most. That's the Destro that landed him the Milan contract in 2015. And now Destro has become the player that you plug in as a striker for teams that are struggling for a certain life.

He does bring that Serie A experience to these teams and it just gives you, all right, if you get the ball to Destro on the box, we'll have a shot in the dark, we'll have a chance. And that's something he brings. Jesus, are you okay? So yeah, I think at the end of the day, Lokempoli look better than Spezia, but I think it says more that Spezia were the worst team but managed to get away with three points. I think it's massive for them.

I can't just say how well I see Dragovski fitting in at Spezia. I know he's a goalkeeper and doesn't take much to fit in. If you're a good shot stopper and you command your box, well, you're going to fit in anywhere at the end of the day, but his mentality is just Spezia. He's a bit of a shit house himself. Good at saving penalties so he can get more points. I think this is the perfect environment for him to improve. Hey, agreed.

Did you know that Destro's father, Flavio Destro, was also a football player? Yes. He played for Regina, Empoli, Cesena, Pescara, Ascoli, quite a few things. He was a defender though. He's 5'11.5, not quite 6 feet, is it? It's very close to 6 feet. He's up and in, he's a 6 foot dick. It's not quite 6 foot. No, you're right. He's right. Just right 6 feet at this point. 5'11.5. He was like, shut the fuck up. I was like, with the shoes, I'm 6 feet.

For his ID card, he's like, can I please keep my shoes on? He's also a football manager, but he manages a team called Fano. So is he even a football manager? They play in Serie D. He's been the assistant manager of Crotone and Torino, to be honest, and he's been the manager of Ascoli as well. So quite a few respectable teams over there. But anyway, bro, I think that's it. It's midnight, man. Is it? Yeah, it's midnight. It's one past midnight. That's it. Not bad.

We spent three hours setting up and two hours recording. How long is this pod? This pod is one hour 43. That's a good time. Yeah, that is a good time. Let us know, guys. We enjoyed listening to your feedback. Last episode was a fucking disaster. So sorry about that. So sorry, like honestly, it was Monday. The feast was in a week, seven days away. So there was no reason for these fireworks to start going so crazy. They went straight for around two hours and a half. It was mental.

And at that point, it wasn't Monday. It was later on that Monday. It was Monday. We recorded on Monday, no? Or Tuesday, was it? I think it was later on, because I remember us saying it was fucking Wednesday, dog. It was a Wednesday. It was Wednesday as fuck, because we're going to record on Tuesday, but we're doing the camera set up. So we said, let's push it. Let's push it to Wednesday. So it was close to say, yeah, so we couldn't put it off.

We knew we were going to have the same issue if we recorded the next day. So fuck it. Like we tried to edit our we tried to get some background noise killers. We're editing our voices. It ended up taking away a chunk of quality from our voices. And you'd still hear the fireworks very clearly. That's my least favorite episode by far. It's a shame because I was so excited to record it. It's good content at the end of the day, but I would not listen to it. Of course not.

After the first boom, I had to turn it off. I was like, Jesus, I'm cringing. 50 downloads. Wow. I was surprised. In one day. In one day. So thank you very much. Of course. Wow. All these fans, all these listeners, sorry, that were brought in, had to experience that. Endure that. Hopefully this is a bit better for you. We're into low energy. It's a random, is it Monday or Tuesday? It's a Tuesday night. Today is Tuesday, but it feels like Monday.

Yeah. Guys, don't forget to follow us on, and I say this and I mean this. We blast out a bunch of good content on Instagram and on TikTok. We have a couple of good snippets. We take away some best moments from the podcasts and share them with your friends. It's some good way to get into Serie A. If you have any Prem heads that need series or Man United fans that need some good converting to Serie A. Come on, Brent Fitt. Come on, Brent Fitt. Just share a podcast with them.

It might be a decent start for them. Follow us on Twitter as well. And yeah, I think that's pretty much it from us guys. At Serie A Spotlight to see Matthew's bandana and my cool hat. Exactly. We'll see you guys next week. Love you all and take care. Peace out.