62: Running Away With It

And Maria, the fake for Danilo, Danilo! Danilo! 3-3! Great scheme from Juventus! Danilo's right! At the back of Busso! We're even again! Hello and welcome to say a spotlight season 2 episode 22 where your host Jake and Matt sat here freezing our asses off. Yeah, I mean guys, if you think it's all glitz and glamour and heat and sunshine in Malta, every January it's fucking freezing. January or February we get those Mediterranean freezing ass winds and it's hell.

But to be honest December was really hot, sunny and nice so I don't think we can complain. Yeah, it's not bad. The only problem is that our houses aren't built to cater for this type of weather. There's no insulation, you know, everything's made of limestone and you know it's fucking cold in here. I wish you guys could see Jake right now. He looks ridiculous. So he's got a blanket around him.

He's got a hood over his head and a beanie over his hood. I've never seen anything like that before in my life. And you look fucking ridiculous, man. Thank you, bro. The last time I saw something similar to this outfit that I've put together was when I was watching the Super Coppa between Milan and Inter in Doha which ended 3-0 unfortunately to Inter. I thought the seats were empty but turns out everyone was just dressed home just right now with all in white.

It is confusing. But what's even more confusing is the way the game turned out pretty much. Inter 3-0 Milan. Of course Milan travelled a very long distance to make that game but didn't actually show up. No, pretty much. I don't know what's going on with Milan. We'll discuss that in depth when it's time to discuss them. But for now it's time to address the, first of all, the goal of the week.

Yeah. Which was the brilliant free-kick routine where Di Maria laid it off to Danilo who just smacked it in. Allegri was asked about that. He was like, what was with the old school free-kick routine over there? And he was like, football is so complicated nowadays. We have to do these strange things to get the advantage. The secret? Danilo can hit the ball really hard. It's a method we have, you know.

Didn't Allegri a couple of months ago say that football is really simple, you need to put the ball into the back of the net or you need to pass to your teammates or something like that? He takes pride from being from Livorno and apparently people from Livorno are honest and they always speak honestly but they have a sense of humor. So humorous approach to certain things. They also have a very weird accent.

Yeah, that's definitely the case. I barely understand Italian but like when he talks I don't understand anything. It's way harder. It's way harder when he talks. But yeah, that's our intro. That's our goal of the week. That's a super Coppa. So next up. The best. Our bet. Yes. And we won one guys. We ended our losing streak. We bet that Roma would win or draw against Spezia and they would be under three goals. Now, come to think of it. That was a pretty safe bet.

An incredibly very, very, very safe bet but... Odds were one... 197, I think. We were close to doubling our money. Just a few cents off. It was kind of scary because Roma got the second in like the 60th minute. So there's half an hour. We're just hoping against a Roma goal. And this time this Roma really looked inspired. They wanted to attack. They wanted to move the ball forward. Tammy obviously full of confidence. Di Valla full of confidence. So yeah, we were a bit scared but here we go guys.

Hopefully this is the start of I don't know a plane ticket. And let's go man. Let's go. Don't forget to follow us guys. Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Atzeria, Spotlight. You can see our snippets. You can engage with us. And give us a rating. Wherever you're listening. You could be honest or you could just be really nice. And give us five stars. Wherever, where you get your podcasts. Especially Google Play, Apple podcasts and Spotify. Very good. I'm gonna do the weekly rundown this week bro.

I'm gonna take it upon myself and attempt the challenge, okay? Okay. Okay. Let's go, bro. So Lazio spanked Milan 4-0. Juventus 3, Atalanta 3 in the game of the week. Salernitana rehired Nicola and lost 2-0 to Napoli. Inter were embarrassed by Empoli 1-0. Roma got the job done yet again against Spezia away from home 2-0. Sampdoria continued to play well and lose against Udinese this time 1-0. Fiorentina continued to disappoint as they lost to Torino 1-0.

Bologna and Cremonaese shared the spoils at 1-1. Cremonaese almost getting their first victory over there. Monza and Sassuolo ended the hard 4th battle 1-1. And Verona beat Lecce at 2-0 to continue their escape from the relegation zone. Not bad, bro. Thanks, man. Not bad. Not as good as you do it, not as well as you do it, but... I'm just good at improv. That's all I've got, man. I'm not a smart guy. That's your only skill, man. I could just spit bars. That's pretty much it.

The gift of the gab, the gift of the gab, baby. There's so much to uncover, bro. I mean, even just those first... The first four fixtures. So you look at Lazio Milan, which is obviously headlines in itself. Juve at Alanta, same. Six goals and they shared them. Salernitana-Napoli being up there, Bian Salernitana bringing back Nicola. Napoli 1-2-0. And then the Inter-0 Empoli 1. Just so much to uncover. We're just saying last week how things are starting to take shape.

And now it's like, no. Yeah. Things aren't starting to take shape. Things are crumbling. Things are fucking crumbling. Some teams were second and now they're fighting for a top four. You know what I mean? Some teams, like Verona, are on a fucking hot streak now, man. And they really are. We predicted that when the World Cup ended. We did, bro. We predict a lot of things. Yes, we do. Except for our bets. That's the only thing we can't say. Our money where I'm out is we lose. Exactly. Exactly.

Shall we kick things off and get the first game over and done with, brother? What do you think? Let's do it, bro. All right. So the first game we're going to be covering, guys, is Lazio 4-Milan-0. Although a lot of people would have predicted a Lazio victory over here, considering Milan's form, I think it's safe to say that this was quite a shocking result for goals to nil in favor of Lazio.

So Lazio lined up in their 4-3-3 formation with Providel in goal and a back line of Meirisic, Ciazzale, Romagnoli and Hisaï, a midfield three of Alberto Cataldi and Milinkovic-Savage, Zaccani out on the left, Pedro out on the right, and Anderson up front.

For Milan, it was a 4-2-3-1 formation with Tata in goal, a back line of Calabria, Calulo, Tomori and Dest, double pivot of Benassir and Tonali, out on the right was Messias, out on the left was Leão, behind the striker was Brahim Diaz, and up front was Olivier Giroud.

So things started off very early in this game, it was in the fourth minute that Sergei Milinkovic-Savage opened the scoring, Zaccani played the ball into the box and both Louis Alberto and Philipp Anderson led the ball around to Sergei, who finished into the bottom corner, a spectacular move there by Lazio, Milan's press was on point but they just moved the ball around swiftly and brilliantly, and just that double melee by

Alberto and Anderson was just gorgeous, and obviously who else but Sergei to finish things off when Immobile isn't around.

In the 38th minute, Zaccani scored, the Italian finished into an empty net after Maricic struck the post and Tata was grounded, half-time came, Milan came out in the second half, looked a little bit better, made a triple sub, brought on the usual suspects, however in the 66th minute, a penalty was awarded to Lazio after Calulo brought down Pedro in the penalty area after some sloppy play by Milan at the back, eh, Louis Alberto stepped up to take the penalty and the Spaniard went down the

middle with a powerful strike sending Tata the wrong way, 3-0 to Lazio. In the 75th minute, Philipp Anderson made it 4-0, the Brazilian finished cleanly after an intelligent and sneaky through ball by Louis Alberto, and then in the 81st minute, Jake turned to me and said, Bro, why the fuck are we still watching this? A question I have yet to answer.

Obviously, Bro, very disappointing result for Milan, an incredible result for Lazio and all the Laziali out there, what did you make of this game overall? So Lazio clearly came out with a vendetta, right, a point to prove against Milan as they

were winless in their last three head-to-heads against Milan. Milan came in with a point to prove as they had a winless run of four, they had recently been knocked out of the Coppa, they had lost Trinil to Inter in the Supercoppa and this was the time for a reaction. And Milan did not react well at all, they conceded the fourth minute, that's all it took, and the disaster continued from there. At halftime, Bro, I don't know if you remember,

but I told you, I was quite optimistic, no? I told you that Lazio came out fielding their best players, like you look at Lazio starting 11, they had a mobile out, they played all their offensive outlets from the get-go, Savage, Alberto, Pedro, Anderson, Zaccani were all on the pitch, right? So offensively that leaves maybe what, Country Leary and 17-year-old Romero.

So I told Matty, I'm like, Mat, Milan have depth, you know? Milan can grow into this game, all it takes is maybe a late goal in the second half, a late goal in the first half, sorry, 2-1 and then there's all to play for, or an early goal in the second half and then Milan are back in it, can go for the drum, but actually even the victory. That did not happen in the slightest.

No. Of course, the triple whammy that you're talking about in the 58th minute, Salamakker is coming on, Origi and De Quetelare, Origi and De Quetelare have not hit the ground running, they're not the people who are going to change the game for you, you know, 67th minute, boom, 3-0, nail in the coffin, Milan are dead. I think personally, Bro, this point in the season is

really highlighting Milan's failed summer in Mercato quite frankly. No, 100%, man, 100%. When a team wins a Scudetto, one of the most important things is to improve your side, because all eyes

are on you. And it's very difficult to, obviously barring you there, it's very difficult to win two Scudettos, two Scudetti in a row, because you get figured out, people get used to you, people have studied you for an entire summer essentially, and you go in with, I would say, I wouldn't even say virtually the same team, because Milan lost Kessy, they lost Romagnoli, those are the ones that were lost, right? Yeah, I mean, so as you said, Romagnoli and Kessy left

them, were not replaced. Yeah. Theo Hernandez's deputy remains void, right? That's something that has needed addressing for a while. The right winger has needed addressing for a while. A striker, when Origi was brought in, everyone was like, okay, he can't rotate, which was unlucky, the fact that he's been injured. Dickey Talaria was an investment for the future, sure, but people did think that he was going to do better. And in fact, his first two or three games were way better than

what we've seen recently, his confidence has really plummeted. So you look at the starting 11, overall, it's weaker than it was last season. But in reality, you look at this team and you look at Lazio's team on paper, this team, this Milan team should be putting up a fight. Now, I'm starting to have my doubts about the effectiveness of the 4-2-3-1 formation without Kessy in the double pivot. Now, this formation was amazing with Kessy in the double pivot, because Kessy does the work

of two men. Yeah. Therefore, you know, essentially having a Czech wartista, you're not missing out on anything in the midfield because you have this guy who's everywhere, who's outmuscling everyone, who's getting all the hard work done, who's doing all the dirty work. Not to shit on Tonali or Benassir, but they have different traits to Kessy, because he's a very unique player.

I'm finding it difficult to justify playing this 4-2-3-1 formation with Brahim Diaz in the pocket and the CDK as the only alternative, when to be honest, they've been quite ineffective. Milan played, I mentioned this recently, Milan played a 4-3-1 against Juve, and they played it against another team. I forgot who it was, and I can't stress on how well that worked. Yeah.

And it was Pobega that took that additional space in the midfield three, and it was Brahim who played out on the right, where he looked really, really good, especially drifting centrally, and obviously layout on the left and Giroud up top. I really liked that, and I think that should be utilized on a case-by-case basis. I agree with you that the 4-2-3-1 isn't effective as it was when there was

Kessy in the pitch, but we've seen it work. We've seen Milan dominate some big teams with Tonali and Benassir in the team, even last season when Kessy was either playing an attacking midfield role or he was benched. So I wouldn't say that it's totally ineffective, but you play against a team like Lazio who are known for their midfield, especially when Sergei and Luis Alberto are playing together, and you're going to be pressed to oblivion in the midfield, then maybe that's one of the times where

yeah, you should play a three in the midfield rather than a two in the midfield. Brahim tracking back, he's definitely improved in tracking back. He's put some mass on, he's put some muscle on, he can win the ball back, but still in comparison to your average player, he's very, very weak in that department, and he's going to need to get a lot more involved if Milan are going to be playing Benassir and Tonali in that double pivot. So there are a lot of things to focus on for Milan

for improvement. It seems like Piole is more interested in trying out the 3-5-2 formation rather than the 4-3-2-1 formation. Was it the 3-5-2 or was it the 3-4-3? I believe it was a 3-4-3 or like a 3-4-2 or something, a 3 at the back, and then they just kind of do their own thing. But that's going to become even more difficult, bro, because Tomori has suffered a muscle injury. So that means the only options being Kier, Gabia, Kalulu.

Who else? That's it. No, that's all, that's all. And obviously Kalulu hasn't been having the the best time ever, gave away a penalty in this game. It seems like the right side of Milan's defense with Calabria included. I mean, guys, go look up the goals. They all came from Milan's right side. They all came from Zaccani's side and Calabria's side. Calabria has experienced a defender he is and as good as he is when he has a lot of minutes to his name and he isn't just returning

from an injury and a long layoff. It seems like he doesn't put any pressure on the man in front of him and the cross always goes in, man, a cross always goes in. He never stops the fucking cross. He does have a tendency of being beaten on the right side. He does get dribbled quite, quite often. Yeah, and his defending and his prime at his peak when he's at his best is one of his strongest points. He has standing tackles and all that. But it is a bit depressing and you know,

seeing looking at Dest and Calabria this game, they were isolated the entire time. You know, Leo and Macias provided no balance. You know, I much prefer when Salah Makars plays when Leo is playing simply because of his defensive contribution. But you know, it's so easy in

hindsight to point these things out. You know, I mean, essentially, this has to be mainly a confidence issue, not a systematic one, because we've seen this team even with Tata, even with, I don't know, Dest or Balot, for example, even with Macias and the team, we've seen this team do some spectacular things. So it has to be the run of form. It has to be something going on in the locker room. It's the players confidence. It's the shit run of form that Milan are going through.

And Lazio, on the other hand, they're fighting back. They've been a bit on and off. They were super to start with. They fell off it a little bit. But now, bro, this performance, it was we're talking here, we're sitting here talking as if Milan were terrible, which they were. But Lazio, it's no joke. They were on fucking fire, man. They were best fucking fire. Performances of the Serie A for a hundred percent. So complete. Everything worked perfectly. Even the

chemistry between the players. You can tell it's finally clicking like Philipp Anderson. And before the start of the game, bro, I told you, Philipp Anderson is shit enough to score against. He didn't only score. He played a brilliant, brilliant game. He was so smart in that false nine position. Yeah. And I also want to highlight, bro, so he has power to Lazio, very good performance, amazing Milan bad. Lazio had five shots on target. So Lazio had 10 shots. Milan had

10 shots. Lazio had five shots on target. Milan had three shots on target. You would never think that those stats would lead to a to a foreign thumping. You know, I know like there's obviously something wrong at the back over there. And, you know, you look at Tatarasano, who is so passive when it comes to leaving his line, who's such. He's so weak when it comes to this character as a goalkeeper, like he doesn't command his area. No, the defenders seem to be so skeptical of him,

everyone constantly shouting at him. And it's a bit of a disaster at the back right now for him. So there's two points to be made with what you just said. So number one is Milan defensively. So obviously Milan defensively, we've already spoken about Calabria out on the right, maybe Calhoun not being on the best of form. One massive factor is obviously Tatarasano and goal. And it's not only because of his lack of shot stopping abilities, but it's because he fails to guide

that back four and he fails to take initiative when the back four aren't present. So for example, in the sequence that led to Pedro winning the penalty. So Kier gives the ball away because I believe it was Salah Makers was on the back foot. I didn't receive the ball and it was intercepted with one pass. It was played not down the wing, kind of centrally towards the wing, essentially. Tatar could have come out and dealt with that had he made up his mind in the first

split second. But because he operates the way he operates, he kind of thought about it, went back, thought about it again. Then by the time he was thinking about it again, Philip Anderson was fucking there. And for that reason, Philip Anderson had all the time in the world to play the ball into the box and Calhoun had no other option than to merc Pedro and give away the penalty.

So that was Tatarasanu's fault. In the second goal where Maricic shot and the ball hit the post, fell to, who was it that finished, Zakkani, fell to Zakkani and Zakkani finished, the ball went through Tatarasanu. Tatarasanu could have blocked that. You look at the replay and you slow it down. It's ridiculous how the ball went underneath Tatarasanu. So that's another mistake by Tatarasanu. None of them are obvious errors, but they do not happen when Mike Manon is on the pitch.

The second point to be made is Milan going forward. The lack of threat, even with Léo on the pitch, is ridiculous. Milan did not have a sniff at Lazio's goal in this match. Is it because Lazio are so good defensively because they are? Or is it because Milan lack ideas and that's what led to Milan failing to score against Torino and Milan failing to score against Lazio and Milan failing to score against Inter? Yeah, it's an offensive plan that simply isn't working at the

moment. The best manoeuvres Milan had offensively this game came through Junior Macias every time. Macias beating Hisai, that's it. And to be honest, I really thought that Léo was going to have a field day against Maricic, but of course he wasn't at the races. And Ciasale and Romagnoli again, power to them, very good center back duo. Yeah, very good center back duo. I think that's pretty much covers it. Obviously there was, you mentioned a knock on Tomori, he has a muscle injury, which is

pardon my pronunciation, but it's a lesion of a rotator muscle on his left hip. So that is a painful and potentially lengthy one. He's probably out for the Milan derby. So we'll see what happens there. Calabria suffered quite a tough knock towards the end of the game, but it's a knock. It's not muscular. He'll have a lot of bruising on his Achilles tendon after that, but nothing the guy can't recover from, I hope. Yeah, he was in agony towards the end of the game.

Before we move on, I'd like to point out how amazing the Curvasudes, the Milan fans are unbelievable. It's in Lotio Stadium at the Olympica. The scoreboard reads 4-0, and all you can hear are the Milan fans singing, you are my first love, I'll always love you, those romantic lyrics, and they're chanting them and they're singing them so loudly, man, it's echoing through the stadium.

And this is when they were losing 4-0. It's amazing. After witnessing that on a weekday, on a Tuesday night, away from home in Rome, they're there till the very final whistle. Lotio fans, a lot of them weren't even there till the final whistle. At the end you could only hear the Milan supporters, and just beautiful to see. Players like the Catellari, the Tarasano, Tonali, who didn't have the best performances, all stood in front of the Curva, and the Curva urging them

on singing sweet nothings to them. If that doesn't fill you with adrenaline, I don't know what to do. No, fans like the Real Madrid fans that throw you under the bus for one bad performance, they fucking ruin you. But that is the fan base that we identify with, and that's the type of fan

base that should be encouraged in football. But yes, Milan are in second with 38 points, as Matthew said, they have gone from a title race, allegedly, even though that was quite a stretch already, it was quite optimistic, to fighting it out in the top four, as Lotio are in third on 37 points, Inter are in fourth on 37 points, Roma are in fifth on 37 points, Atalanta are in sixth on 35 points. What a league. So all those guys are going to be battling it out for Champions League. What a

league. The next game we're going to be covering is Juventus 3, Atalanta 3. Mamma mia, che partita. The game of the week, eh? Yeah. So of course, before we get into that, the line-ups we should address that Juventus have been docked 15 points due to financial irregularities and the whole

capital gains investigation. Yes, I guess that's what you get when you value the likes of Portanova, who is currently in prison for 20 million, Emil Aldeirov, no one had heard of, he hadn't even played a single game back then, 20 million, Sturaro to Genoa for 20 million, Danilo on the swap deal involved for Cancelo, granted that actually worked out quite well because Danilo has been quite a gem. The whole Arthur and Pianich drama, you know, so many weird signings. I mean, to me,

it's obvious money laundering. It's obvious money laundering. It's just there was that clause initially, obviously, that a player's price tag is subjective and the supply against demand. But yeah, this has been finally addressed and Juventus have been penalized. You can't help but feel bad for the players, you know, because of course this is an off the field issue and Allegri did say that it feels like all their hard work has been randomly taken from them. But yeah, these

are problems from the top. And of course, they knew that these were irregularities as the entire board fucking resigned. And that's not something that happens every day. Yeah, no, an entire board of directors resigns, resigned. The last time we saw that happen was with labor. Yes, that's the last time. There's a power cut, I can just start stepping down. Exactly, exactly. And suddenly there is no elected bureau. Konrad Mitzi has resigned. Chris Cardona has resigned.

Maltese politics. But anyway, you've lined up with a 3-5-1-1 formation with Shesney and Goal, the center back trio of Sandro Bremmer and Danilo with Kostilce on the left, McKennie on the right, Rabiolo, Kateli and Fagioli in the middle with the amazing Di Maria playing behind Millic. Atanata lined up with a 3-4-2-1 formation with Mussangol, Toloi, Palomino and Scalvini at the back with Hatteberg on the right, Mele on the left, Derun and Anderson in the middle. Ederson.

Ederson, sorry, not Anderson. My god, I'm so drunk. Lookman and Boga playing behind Hoyland, the budget, Haaland. Budget, not quite. But anyway, in the fifth minute, Lookman tried his luck from a rather tight angle and Shesney failed to keep it out of his near post despite getting two hands on it, giving Atalanta the lead. In the fifth minute, through a very, very rare mistake from the veteran goalkeeper, Wojtek Shesney. A very rare mistake this season because we have seen him be quite

mistake error prone in the past. It's true, fair enough. In the twenty-fifth minute, Di Maria scored a penalty after the referee returned to VAR to review an incident in the Atalanta area. He found Ederson guilty of a foul on Fagioli, who collided with Di Maria. Di Maria scored the penalty by sending Mussangol the wrong way,

1-1. In the thirty-fourth minute, Fagioli crossed the ball brilliantly from out wide and found the oncoming Millick, who finished cleanly on the bounce, giving Juve the lead 2-1. In the forty-sixth minute, there was a brilliant passage of play to start. This was at the beginning of the second half. Danilo gave the ball away to Scalvini at the restart. The ball was then played through to Lookman, Wojtek Atalca and played Mejle through,

who found the back of the net cleanly 2-2. In the fifty-third minute, Atalanta star Boga held the ball well out wide and provided a brilliant cross to the unmarked Lookman, who headed in well, leaving Ciesny rooted to the spot and now the score is 3-2. In the sixty-fifth minute, that's when our goal of the week took place, Di Maria fainted a free kick and lead it off to Danilo, who fired a rocket into the bottom corner. And that tied everything up at

3-3. What a game, bro. A very good game, man. It's not often that you see two comebacks in one game or three comebacks, rather. Atalanta open the scoring, Juve equalise and then go ahead. And then Atalanta equalise and then go ahead. And then Juve pull one back and make it 3-3. In the sixty-fifth, a very, very exciting and even affair between these two teams. It's like every team that was ahead, I was like, of course this team is ahead. Of course Juve are

ahead. I'm like, I know, of course Atalanta are ahead. But a very, very even game and two very talented teams. Juve returning well after that, obviously, incident that docked them 15 points. They looked full of confidence. They looked full of fire. They looked full of fight. And I think we're still going to see the same old Juve, except maybe their defence is a bit leakier after the Napoli game. Yeah, that's an interesting point, bro. They went eight games without conceding a

single goal. And now in two games, they've conceded what? Eight? Yeah, eight goals. Eight goals, exactly. In two games. Something has completely shifted over there. And now the fact that, you know, Allegri plays two makeshift centre backs and a back three, perhaps that was exposed against these very fast paced, you know, tough opponents. That's it. Because Juve are against most opponents, they have the ability to hang on the ball themselves. But once they catch themselves with

too much defending to do, then that's the only opportunity they have to get exposed. And against Napoli, obviously they got more than Napoli love having the ball and their quick passages of play and all their linkups, so on and so forth. Atalanta love hanging on to the ball and they've kind of rediscovered that pace that they were lacking earlier on with the wings with Lukman, Boga, so on and so forth. So the second Juve need to defend, that's when they suck at defending.

Otherwise, when they're hanging on to the ball, then their defence is great, man. Fair enough. And they did need to, not only did they need to defend this game, they also needed to attack, which left them quite exposed. The fact that Atalanta constantly kept pressing at them, you know, constantly taking the lead, Juve had to keep coming back and back and back. That did open them up a little bit. I want to highlight, bro, Adam Ola Lukman. Adam Ola Lukman is on 11 goals

and three assists this season. He's the second top scorer in the league. Ozymen is first with 13 goals and three assists. Ozymen is on a goal every 96 minutes. Lukman is on a goal every 99 minutes. What a signing, bro, completely under the radar, this Lukman signing, everyone talking about Gvaratskelia, who amazing, he's amazing. He's on seven goals, seven assists, you know, amazing for

a winger, but Lukman's numbers are insane. Yeah, yeah. And especially, like you could, you could regard him as one of the best signings or definitely one of the best signings in the summer window. I wouldn't say he's number one because of Gvaradon and because of what he's done and how magical he looks, but let me tell you what, bro, it is very close between Gvarat and Lukman for that number one spot. Lukman has been incredible and it's not like he's just getting goals against the

bottom tier teams, but two goals and one assist in a 3-3 draw at the Allianz against Juve. That is massive. He contributed to every single one of their goals and he netted two of them. That's unbelievable. And you look back at him in the prem, he was considered a flop. He comes here, man, he comes to our league and his talent is shining and he's himself, he's confident and wow,

what a signing man, totally transformed the South Atlanta team. He really has. And if you look at his shooting stats as well, they're way better than everyone else around them, even better than Ozzy, even better than Lautaro, Zola, Lea, all these guys with the stats. His goal conversion rate is 50%, which means he scores every other shot and the shot accuracy is 73%. To put that into perspective, Lautaro's shot accuracy is 44%, Ozzy meant 53%. Conversion rate, Ozzy meant 28%,

Leuqman meant 50%, Gvar at scale at 23%, Debal at 29%. It's crazy, dude. Leao 22%. That's fucking mad, man. That's fucking mad. The guy is accurate and he chooses his moments. Another player, the protagonist on the other, on the opposing team, was of course DeMaria. Now, DeMaria will have to enjoy him while he's still at Juve. While he's still fit as well. Yeah, while he's still fit as well. Because I highly, highly, highly, highly doubt he will be

there next season. He's kind of one of those players that comes for one year and is at that point in his career. Now he's old, there's a little turmoil in the club. I highly doubt he'll stay. What a fucking performance. This guy's a big game player by definition. I think that DeMaria is still one of the best players in the world at this moment in time. I don't think there's any reason to think that he's not. Maybe the injuries that keep him out of the

game for lengthy periods every now and then. But when he's on the pitch and when he's put on the big stage, there are few players I would rather want on my team than DeMaria. Yeah, that's totally true. And you know, the fact that he has played three finals in a row and scored in all three of them. It just goes to show the mentality on this skinny alien looking fella. And as well, down the middle, bro. He's so good down the wing. He's so good down the middle. He's versatile, man. He's

intelligent. His passing is, he's so sneaky with his passing. Those no-look passes and those hidden passes are gorgeous. The way he angles himself as though he's going to the left. The entire defense shifts to that area and then he plays someone in on the right. He's so good at that man down the middle. And as much as Milleke has been great because he has been fucking phenomenal Milleke for Juve, I can't wait to see Vláovic up front with DeMaria just behind him, Chiezo on one side,

Kostič on the other. It's going to be exciting, man. Totally, bro. Juve are currently sitting 10th, bro. They have 23 points. They asked Allegri, yo, what the fuck's going on? Are you going to make Champions League? And he said, and this is a quote, I don't know if we can do it. I think at 71 points, you will probably get into the Champions League. It's tough, but we have Serie A, the Coppa Italia and the Europa League. So we take it one step at a time. It's impossible to think that far

into the future. He is right because tides can turn very quickly in football. In fact, I wouldn't even confidently put money on Apoli winning the league at this point. You never know what's going to happen, especially with all these lawyers on the case and investigations going on. But yes, bro, do you think right now, as it stands, Juve can make Champions League? Right now, I don't think so. Right now, you look at the teams that are ahead of Juve that are picking up the pace. So we look at

the Lazio's, the Roma's, the Atalanta's. Let's not talk about the Milan teams for now, for obvious reasons. And I don't see them dropping that many points that will allow Juve back in. Juve will do everything right, man, and they'll get fucking close. But I don't think these teams drive and their passion would allow them to drop so many points, I think. Yeah, I mean, what are the odds?

Okay, so Napoli, we can guarantee no Champions League. Let's say that Napoli have qualified in Champions League, even though obviously in football, you can never make these assumptions, but we're going to do it anyway. So that leaves Milan, Lazio, Inter, Roma, Atalanta. That's five teams and top four. I highly doubt that two of these guys, three of these guys need to slip up for Juve to slip in there. I highly doubt the three of them are going to. Bro, there's Milan,

Lazio, Inter, Roma, Atalanta. Yeah, like this is, of course, it's Atalanta with Gasparini playing without pressure once a week, you know, doing bits. You have Roma under Mourinho, once again, doing bits, winning games so much. You have Inter and Milan, who are Inter and Milan, despite the fact that they're going to. Yeah, they fit a rough patch right now, but they're still so far ahead of Juve as it stands. Lazio are the ones that I think can dip, but even them, they're deep into a Sarri

philosophy now. They're approaching what, year three of Sarri, year two of Sarri? Year two, is it? Last season was their first season. Year two of Sarri, so good things to come for them as well. Very difficult for Juve as it stands. European spots are not impossible, as I believe they're only five points away from a Conference League spot as it stands. So yeah, we'll see, game by game, as Alnigri said. Yeah, they would have been on 38 points right now, one second had they not

been docked 15, so very unfortunate for them. They'd be on 40 if they hadn't been robbed against Salernitana as well. That's true, that's true, and obviously we haven't addressed the Napoli situation yet and the potential docking of points over there, but I said maybe we'll get into it when

we cover Napoli. But we might as well, to be honest. It's as simple as during the Victor Ozyman operation, 20 million of those funds were made up of three youth players and one veteran goalkeeper who didn't have much experience and these guys were valued at 20 million. Now these guys went to Lille, apparently. They interviewed these youths that went the opposite direction and they said that they have never stepped foot in Lille and that Napoli ruined

their careers. You look at where they are right now, these guys, one of them plays in Serie A, the other one's unemployed, the other one plays in Serie D. So there was a little bit of the same thing. They're now involved in the Ozymandil. So we'll see what happens over there. Inter are also a little bit nervous, but their cases aren't as obvious because the players have since established themselves quite well in my opinion. There are the likes of Mbaie, there was Pinamonte, Puskas,

Sadorante, Van Guitzen, Burgio, Merola. These are all basically names like whoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo. And it's bang, three million, five million, two million, two million, five million. You know what I mean? So these things will obviously be investigated. Apparently according to the body that's taking care of all this, eight teams remain to be investigated. So we'll see what the fuck happens. Maybe everyone gets docked points and the top four battle becomes a relegation battle.

Potentially, potentially. Well, that's a good segue on to our next match. But before that, Atalanta are in sixth on 35 points and Juve are in tenth on 23 points. But the next game we're going to be covering is Salernitana nil Napoli two. So before we get into this, obviously, last episode we spoke about Salernitana wrongfully sacking Davide Nicola because of their eight-two loss to Atalanta. I always said it was absurd and that they should have never gotten rid of him and

that he's a miracle maker at Salernitana. A couple days later, they re-signed him after he had a meeting with the board. So it turns out Serious Spotlight was right again. But Salernitana nil Napoli two, Salernitana lined up in a 4-5-1 formation with Ochoa Ngole on the back line of Brotherich, Pirola, Gyomber and Danilolic. Dia was out on the left, Kanjeva out on the right, and the midfield three of Vilena, Kavillia and Kulibaly with Piontek up front as the lone striker.

Napoli lined up in their 4-3-3 formation with Maret in goal, a back line of Dilorenzo, Rahmani, Minje and Rui, and with Salobot-Kanzielinski in the midfield with Lozano, Ossimen and Elmas up front. So in the 33rd minute, Dilorenzo lobbed the ball through to Ossimen with a wonderful touch and Ossimen smashed the ball to the near post, but the Nigerian was marginally offside, so therefore

the goal was cancelled. In the 47th minute, still in the first half, Dilorenzo scored and Gwissa played a lovely 1-2 with Mario Rui, before playing the ball low from the byline to Dilorenzo, who smashed the ball in off the crossbar to make it 1-0. At the start of the second half in the 48th minute, Ossimen scored, Elmas's long-ranged curling effort hit the post and landed to Ossimen,

who rebounded the ball into the back of the net, making it 2-0. In the 58th minute, Ochoa got down well to the Nyan Ossimen header with a very strong hand, and in the 82nd minute, Piontek was clean through on goal after a defensive error by Napoli, but Maret once again provided the heroics, pushing the hard shot onto the post. What an improvement there by Maret.

So yep, this was obviously a campagna derby between Salernitana and Napoli. Napoli pretty much dominated over here, the possession was 75-25, the shots were 9-5, just like us bro. Just like us bro, 9-5 everyday baby the grind. Shots on goal was 4 for Napoli and 2 for Salernitana. However, Salernitana never look bad when they

play Napoli. They never look bad, they do play up to the occasion, and in fact they don't often look bad Salernitana in general under Nicola apart from that freak game that Lervolino, the president by the women's hilarious name Lervolina, Danilo Lervolino, like come on there's no way that's her name Danilo Lervolino. He called him, sacked him, apparently Nicola called him back after he had been on the phone. Lervolina called Rafa Benitez asking him like can you come and coach

my team. It's hilarious the people that they call, they're like can you come coach my team please Salernitana is really nice. Google it quickly, google it, google it, look at the view. He's like no man I'm old, I'm done man, I have to learn Italian like fuck that. You know I served Rafa Benitez's wife room service at Gleneagles. Nice, was he there? He wasn't, he wasn't, no I believe he was managing Newcastle, no. So that was the season 2016-2017 I believe that was the season that he had just

gotten sacked from Real. Real replaced him with Zidane and the rest is history but I think that was the season so he wasn't there he was probably in Spain at the time or you know being sacked and depressed and his wife was at the Gleneagles hotel and I was serving her some vegan fucking roll in her room and they let me do it because I'm a football fan and no one else in room service was a football fan because it was me and two girls so. Was she pleasant? She was very pleasant, very

polite, very nice. Yeah she put her phone down to speak to me and I told her I love what her husband did with Liverpool. Little does she know that in 2005 he broke my fucking heart but whatever man. Yes guys so that's my brother a compulsive liar. But yes but he was of course his plan A but apparently after plan A there was no plan B right so they just rehired Davide and Nicola and to be honest fair enough. Yeah yeah but maybe they

should have established that plan before they took action. Yes definitely definitely but yes bro Napoli proved to be way too much for the Salernitana side as they dominated possession and looked like they were going to score from the get-go to be honest with 75% possession for Napoli they had nine shots to Salernitana's five four shots on target to Salernitana's two shots on target they scored at the best time possible both best times possible to be honest they got a goal towards the

end of the first half and then they got a goal early on in the second half which was best time

to score they killed the game boom they move. Exactly exactly it's tough to see Napoli not running away with it now they're ahead by 12 points in first place they have so many outlets they have so many options in their team Capocannoniere in Victorosimen when he's not fit they've got Raspadori they've got Simeone out wide when Gvaradona isn't fit they've got Elmas on the other side with Poletano isn't fit they've got Chucky Lozano in the midfield they have abundance

of talent as well so yeah it's just tough to see Napoli falling off I think the only way any other team stands a chance is if that Victorosimen signing does really get investigated and there really is a case of you know a scandal over there I think as far as that is concerned that's the only way that they can dip this season. Salernitano on the other hand are in 16th place on 18 points level of points with Spezia and one point ahead of Sassuolo. Yes bro I'm gonna move on to the next

game Inter nil and Poli won. Crazy crazy another crazy game over here yeah Inter lined up with their 3-5-2 formation with Onana and goal Bastoni, Devry and Scrinia are at the back they mark on the left Darmian on the right with Mkhitaryan, Inshallah Noghlam, Baral on the middle with Brozovich still

injured the striking partnership this game was Correa and Martinez. For Empoli it was their 4-3-1-2 formation with Vicarrio in goal, Ebwehi on the right, Winter and Luperto at the back with Parnisi on the left, Akba Akbro in the middle with Henderson and Bandinelli with Bayrami in the

track wide disaposition Kambiani and Caputo up front. Now the 25th minute Scrinia got a yellow card and his argue was like all right there are these memes about me and that I always substitute people when they get a yellow card I'm not gonna do it all right I'm gonna show them that I trust my players 40th minute Scrinia second yellow red card kicks Caputo on the head there was fucking just after telling his agent to find him a way out of Milan.

Massive tension between Inter and the Scrinia's agent as PSNG have come in guns blazing for Slovak international and they're apparently they've offered a signing bonus of 25 million so just from signing the contract Scrinia gets 25 million euros and he'll be making over 9 million euros a season over there as well so that's wow that's crazy okay this might be the last season we see Scrinia in Italy yeah um yes and then halftime came along and Zaghi brought on

Bellanova for Correa to make up for the missing defender and then the 65th minute in just two minutes after being introduced Baldanzi scored a goal on a counter striking the ball low and hard past Anana from just inside the area in the 71st minute Serbian Inter had Lukaku, Dzeko and Lautaro all on the pitch they had three strikers on the pitch they had two fullbacks they only had two midfielders operating over there as they desperately tried to get a goal back but it was all in vain.

Bro I think Inter started this game really lethargically Empoli looked way sharper the duels the one-on-ones they were just beating them all in every area of the pitch what do you think?

So I think initially um firstly I just have to say this probably comes from a bit of a a biased perspective but I hate it when teams win something like the Super Cup and they show up to a game with with this fucking gold font on their kit with with this Arabic text on their kit and they have the trophy on display in the pitch and they're walking out like they're bigger than this game because they just won this fucking Super Cup at trophies but they went in I don't know if it

was lethargically or overconfident it seemed like there wasn't any grinta from Inter's game from the get-go it was almost like ah the goal is gonna come the goal is gonna come there was no urgency for it Empoli even when the game was 11 v 11 Empoli were very good they were very active they were breaking down Inter's play they were pressing Inter's play and they constantly had 11 men behind the ball

what they did brilliantly Empoli is the second Inter got that red card which screen you are getting the yellow card second yellow card very stupidly by the way it was a ridiculously stupid challenge Caputo was leading with his head forward he's like yep I'm gonna try kick the ball here my fucking foot might go through Caputo's head who by the way has a massive bandage on his head as if that's not gonna be even worse like but whatever but the second they went a man down

Empoli increased their press so much and they just pressed and attacked and pressed and attacked and Inter just couldn't cope with that so from then on as soon as that happened Inter had the game lost pretty much yes man Empoli's first victory against Inter since 2006 and their first back-to-back victory since December 2021 a very hard fought battle I couldn't help but notice that Inter seemed to be missing a technical leader in this team you know a reference point and I feel like

that was cured essentially when Zerko came on I think Zerko up front is their technical leader I feel like he brings them confidence I feel like he is a reference point for them and they can play through him and rely on him to hold up the play to finish off chances to to do everything to be honest I really think that when he came on they looked sharper and they got the majority of their chances towards the end of the game yes the statistic here to show you how dominant Empoli were they were at

51 percent ball possession okay not dominant but they had eight shots on target to Inter's one shot on target yeah and you know Inter did have 16 shots but the majority of those came when they were trying to find that equalizer and towards the end when they had those three strikers up front as well man in Lukaku, Lautaro and Zerko out of those Zerko looks decent to be honest Lautaro's shooting boots are

off simply so often and he goes through this once a season and sometimes twice a season but otherwise he's a fantastic striker Lukaku is I mean he still hasn't recovered absolutely still hasn't recovered and yeah so like he says too nervous bro but Barella needs to take a chill pill sometimes I feel he's always clustered he's always flustered and and at a point I remember looking at when I was watching his game looking at the tv Barella screaming, no glutes flailing his arms around

and in Zaghi in Zaghi the like be cool bro like be cool the guy is screaming he has veins popping out his hair is a fucking mess the guy doesn't give a shit what he looks like when he's upset he looks mental bro he looks minted you know when you get really angry and like your teeth come out and your nose is like your nose crunches up and you look ridiculous that's in Zaghi all the time like plus bro he's like one of those slim guys at the double chin thing it's like no matter no matter what

he does it's gonna be there like you can chew all the gummy but when inter are faced with a top situation when they're one down down to ten men they should use that anger to channel them and to to use it as motivation but they just seem to get flustered man and it's kind of all over the place when they get to that level yes bro um for me DeMarco remains an amazing player I'm really envious of inter that they have DeMarco thankfully Milan have Theo Hernandez that I can

you know that I it's not too bad because it's Theo but anyway um yes bro inter really really really missed an opportunity over here to capitalize on Milan's terrible form as they seem to dip back into a little bit of a spell themselves yeah they currently sit in fourth with 37 points while Empoli have climbed to ninth with 25 points leapfrogging Juventus before we move on I just want to highlight a few of the Empoli players um Satriano a couple of weeks ago I said I'm not

too sure what this guy is good at what he is good at is being a very mature striker and he's great with his back towards goal he's great at holding up play when Empoli were one nil up he did a fantastic job at that I have to give a shout out as well to the goal scorer in Baldanzi he came on and he was fucking magical and absolutely brilliant performance by him and that does that back four that back four of Empoli is so young and so talented Ebwe, De Winter,

Luperto and Parisi that is a very very very good back four and I'm super impressed by De Winter I hadn't seen that much of him he's 20 years old he had a fantastic performance and if they break if they break through those there's Vicarion on goal plus not to mention that in this game Empoli were missing Marin yeah their metronome their guy and they started with Akpra Akpro Henderson and Bandinelli in the midfield and still they were capable of doing that against Inter

says a lot about Inter's performance but it definitely says a lot about Empoli and the team that formed over here yes bro I really like the way they attacked I really like the way Henderson moved into the channel Caputo drifted out wide and Kambiaghi attacked from the right hand side it was amazing they play some very good football we've been raving about Zanetti since his Venezia days where he had the worst squad but they were playing attractive football without the

results thankfully now he has found the team and the place where he can develop and you know play the football that he wants to play last year my second favorite team in Serie A was Sassuolo when it came to play style and the year before that it was Hellas Verona that was my favorite my second favorite team in Serie A this year it's Empoli yeah 100% they're sick bro they play really well moving on to the next game guys it's Spezia nil Roma 2 so Spezia lined up in a 3-4-2-1 with

Dragovskiingol the backline of Amian Caldara and Hristov Reckout on the left homeout on the right with Ampadu and Borabi and the midfield Giassi and Verde on the left and right and Agudelo up front for Roma it was Rupertis in goal with a backline of Mancini, Smalling and Ibanez Celic out on the right, Zalewski out on the left midfield two of Cristante and Matej scary with Debala and El-Sharawi behind Tammy Abraham I don't mean scary in a talented sense

but I mean scary from a physical aspect those two like I would not want to step on their shoes at footloose let's just put it that way in the 45th minute just as the first half was coming to an end El-Sharawi played Debala through who returned the favor by squaring the ball to the Egyptian who finished into an empty net making it 1-0 this is Debala's world and we're all just living in it at the restart and end of the 49th minute Debala once again assisted to Tammy Abraham so Abraham

received the ball from Debala but still had so much to do he used his turn of pace very well placed the ball between the legs of the last defender before finishing through the legs of Dragovski what a goal by Tammy my first question is is he back? Yes he is back slowly slowly he started to build up his confidence you know his footwork has looked really tidy for a man who's six foot five he looks way more confident and way sharper in front and goal Debala sticking and they're linking

up nicely I do think that Tammy Abraham is back. Does Tammy owe this success to Debala? Tammy owes this success to Syria spotlight for publicly humiliating him on TikTok with a video that got 927 000 views saying that if Tammy Abraham had shot John Lennon, John Lennon would have been 85

today. I can't believe that we have 99.9k likes on that video we haven't hit a hundred so we've hit a million views on one of our videos on Instagram of Kim Minjae but we've never hit 100k likes the most that we have on TikTok is this video with 99.9k we need to do something do us a favor guys head over to our TikTok and spam that like button send it to your friends send it to Tammy send it

to anyone you know and help us get to 100k. Tammy was like I don't even like the Beatles you know he starts fucking lifting weights juggling close fucking you have to you have to hand it to Tammy because you see so many Mourinho victims they call them Mourinho victims right that just don't manage to pick it up and have their confidence bruised and their ego hurt by what Mourinho says about them to the public what he says to them face to face and they just

fall off for example Casillas and and this goes on and on Casillas might be one of the more vanilla examples I can give him but Tammy he was Luke Shaw but he fucking he he did the same thing as Tammy they work their socks off they get back and they become great again this is what Tammy is doing that's what Luke Shaw did and credit to Tammy man credit to Tammy Englishman and say yeah Mourinho giving him shit talking about him to the public and he just gets back and he's he's

fucking ticking now man yeah and apparently they might be getting um Riyad Mares. Roma might be getting no sorry not Mares it was Ziak Hakim Ziak they might be getting Ziak and that would be amazing for Roma and wouldn't that be the most Milan thing to buy Zaniolo for 25 million and to let Ziak go for like 12 million to Roma I mean I wonder which I prefer they're both very injury prone the difference is one is much younger than the other hell take Zaniolo man to be honest

I think I might prefer Ziak here just because he's you know the Ziak is so us here he's he's so technically gifted he'd be one of the one of the best players in league yeah he has like Di Maria style of play really close ball control very skillful his touch and his pass is ridiculous imagine the ball's over the top to lay out on the other side but um yes bro Roma once again a very

mature display over here destroying Spezia. Spezia are not having a fun time especially at the BACA because they have just sold Kiwi or the Polish international for 21 million pounds to Arsenal Serie A losing another gem along with another one to add to the symmetry quite frankly of Papu Gomes Rodrigo de Paul, Seco Fofana, Aaron Hickey, Tommy Aso these guys were all poached for relatively cheap and they were yeah very good in Serie A and during this game Christophe went down injured as

well so they've just lost two centre backs and for a team that plays with three at the back that's going to be very tough for them going forward solutions are definitely going to be necessary yeah I mean we spoke about this last time as well Spezia do look very improved they look like a unit we called them a pack of wolves and we started howling in the last episode they still are exactly that is just they have a tough couple of fixtures now so obviously they just played Atalanta and

the Coppa and now they play Roma now they play Bologna and then Napoli then after Empoli they have Juve and then they have Odinese so obviously quite a tough time for Spezia and with all those injuries it's going to be very very difficult to see them make make it out of there alive and with you know Verona winning all these matches with Sampdoria finding some form again it's very very interesting to see what can happen over here we're starting to see Verona bridge the gap between

Sassuolo Salernitana and Spezia more and more as time goes on man so that relegation battle is about to get juicy it's true bro they did miss Enzoal at this game as well oh it has to be said it has to be said they currently sit Spezia in 15th with 18 points while Roma are in 5th with 37 points as they continue their great start to 2023 shout out to Cesco respect Cesc the next game we're going to be covering is Sampdoria nil Odinese 1 Sampdoria lined up with their

3412 formation with Emil Laudero in goal Bram Nuitink Omar Colli and Amione at the back I don't know Amione's first name Augelo was on the left Neris was on the right Jiricic and Winx were in the middle with Sabiri in the Jack Ortiz Sarote Lammers and Gabbiadini up front Odinese played a 3-5-2 formation with Silvestri in goal Becow Bijole and Perez at the back Ezebuy you can do it you can do it Ezebuy on the right yeah Udojgu on the left Arslan Wallace and Samardzic

in the middle with Beto and Isaac Sincces up front wait till you see who scored bro I know bro I know so in the ninth minute the jury skimmed the post clean through on goal so unlucky for him in the 60th minute Ronaldo Viera didn't play like Ronaldo he didn't play like Viera his guy had a great opportunity with the ball on the bounce totally unmarked just in front of the keeper it has to be highlighted that this guy has been one of the reasons that Sampdoria haven't been getting

any points because he has been terrible yeah terrible he's been really bad poor guy in the 88th minute the winner came forward with Odinese through Ezebuy it was scrappy but Ezebuy turned the ball and after Sampdoria's defense failed to deal with a one sloped pass this was Ezebuy's first goal in Serie A congratulations Ezebuy yes congratulations um Sampdoria I like the way they've been playing I like them under Stankovic I like the way they've been playing they're looking much much better than

they were they looked disastrous but now they have a bit of identity they have a bit of groove I really like the signings they made I'm just gonna say that again and at least now Stankovic has a more curated squad to deal with a squad that is more to his likings we also saw Harry Winks coming back into the team and playing a little bit so Stankovic has something to work with now they're still not in a great position they still need to pick up points and they have to start doing it now

but it's looking way more promising than it was before yeah it is and ironically enough they've never been this close to last place they're on nine points Cremona is around eight points in last to escape the relegation pool they would have to jump Sasuolova on 17 points not impossible but definitely gonna be a tough ask for Stankovic and his men but as you said many pros about this team they are playing fluid football and they are unlucky not to get the point over here

can I just say they play Atalanta next they play Monza after that they play Inter after that they play Bologna after that they play Lazio after that then after they play Salernetano they play Juve then after they play Verona they play Roma so it doesn't look like they're gonna be racking up points anytime soon they'll have to get a couple of upsets to do that but you know they might play up to the occasion you know to let the counter or something but we'll definitely see they dominated

this game when it comes to possession they have 54 percent possession against Udineza granted Udineza had they outshot them you know 14 shots to 9 Udineza had five shots on target Sampdoria only had one on target um interesting earlier this season Udineza were killing everyone in front of them right we highlighted their unity their humility their relentlessness and their main strength that didn't last very long as the results seemed to stop going their way and players seemed to

start and get they seem to start getting frustrated no a lot of flailing around we often speak about this their best players um not being team players quite frankly and now it seems that Deo Lefeo has been transfer listed um or is being sold rather i don't know if that's still the case as he was brought on towards the end of this game and went off into the due because he was injured yes they typically when a player is being rumored to move teams don't play him to protect him so he

doesn't fall injured so they brought him on in the last 15 minutes to prove it to avoid a potential injury and still managed to get injured so um they also sold a leader in Bram Noythink i'm sure he's a figure that he wouldn't want to lose yeah in the locker room played against them in this match with Sampdoria and Pereira didn't even play this game where's he been where's he been but it's good to see that they managed to get a victory without three main guys yeah i mean it had

it had been a while since their last victory um let me just see when that was because it feels like it has been ages like they had been on 25 points for a while so they had lost to Bologna they had lost to Juventus they drew to Empoli last time they won was on the 29th of December away to Cremona there holy quacker dog yeah so in the new year they hadn't gotten three points as soon as the first three points they play Verona next to Orino after that's a swallow after that

so hopefully they can start picking up the momentum again yes they currently sit in a conference league spot out in Eze so they're still not doing too badly like european football is still on the cards for them um 28 points in seventh while Sampdoria are still struggling 19 points 19th place with nine points the next game we're going to be covering is Fiorentina nil Torino one it was Torino's first win ever at the Stadio Artemio Franci so Fiorentina lined up in a

four two three one formation with Terra Ciano on goal Biragi on the left Venuti on the right with Milenkovich and Igor as the two centre backs Duncan and Amrabat in the double pivot with Saponara out wide and Saponara and Decona out wide rather Bonaventura and the Jack Wartister role with Kwame up front for Torino it was a three four to one formation with Vania on goal a back line of Gigi Bonjorno and Rodriguez, Singo on the right, Voivoda on the left Ricci and Adopo in the

midfield, Sec up front being flanked by Mironcuk and Vlasic so in the 21st minute Sec smashed the crossbar from a tough angle he did really well to even get the shot away as he was surrounded in purple shirts it's quite refreshing seeing such an active striker like that playing for Torino and he's a right winger he's a right winger he's a mid-shift striker for them he did really well this game he had a good game he had a good game it's interesting to see if he'll start getting

goals now in the 29th minute there was a brilliant save by Vania on Kwame at the near post the keeper got down so well to deny Kwame on the half volley in the 33rd minute Torino managed to make it one little through Mironcuk who curled the ball into the far net from just inside the area it was found very cleverly by Voivoda but both players were given way too much space by Fiorentina yeah and it was Amrabat who played a long ball that was intercepted by Voivoda a very very very

rare mistake by Amrabat who had a bit of a shocker in his head yeah correct in the 89th minute with Vania grounded after denying Kwame Jović had to finish the ball into an empty net but Zima produced a heroic toe poke challenge to deny him the opportunity brilliant and resilient defending by the check the game would have gone totally differently if it weren't for him in that situation and then in the 91st minute Vania denied Barak with a leg save in the final moments of the

match with another spectacular save by him Torino fought hard to maintain this one nil victory did

they deserve it bro? Did they deserve it? Um yes I would say they did deserve it um Fiorentina were unlucky not to get a point from this um if those if that Barak opportunity had gone in you know if it had been a completely different story and they did concede because of an individual mistake at the end of the day but yes I feel like many of Fiorentina's players didn't show up whereas Torino played as a solid unit they were compact they suffered well together as a team

they took their chances they created you know they had a makeshift striker who looked really good over there um and I think they they got the job done very maturely because if you look at this this Fiorentina team the the standout terrible performers for me were Ikona and Saponara were both ass yeah anytime Ikona was noticeable in this game he was doing something wrong and Saponara was a little bit flustered as well he wasn't his usual self um Um Rabat when things

aren't ticking for Um Rabat things aren't ticking for Fiorentina it's as simple as that and Milenkovic is always a step behind everyone nowadays yeah Milenkovic to be honest his decline has been very very prominent he was such a good defender for so many years being linked with Inter Juve Milan Roma the lot and whatever since then while he had he had a shocking World Cup and he's having a shocking season this year as well I would agree with you I would say that despite

the stats Torino did deserve to get away with the victory because they had the more mature display they weren't rushing play but they were choosing their opportunities and when they were choosing the opportunities they attacked pretty well now Fiorentina had 62 percent ball possession they had 19 shots and five of them were on target but you can't look at the hustle that Torino went through and say that they didn't deserve the three points over there maybe a draw would have been a

more accurate um result for the performances that went in but to me Torino should be happy with the three points and I think they're well deserved the man I felt very bad for on this Fiorentina team was um Jacobo Naventura who looked to do his absolute best to inspire his teammates he had a nosebleed what felt like the entirety of the first half and just kept fucking coming undone and blood whatever was really messy like and he would he was shouting at the opposition shouting

at his teammates screaming in the referee's face just trying to rile a few of his teammates up but they seemed to be indifferent now bro I don't think that this is a tactical issue that Fiorentina have I wouldn't blame Italiano for these results and for the underachieving because Italiano is creating an environment where these players are put in positions where they can score it isn't his fault however it is his job to motivate this group of players he has a deep relatively deep squad

um apart from the defense maybe and I feel like you know he needs to get them going you can't have the likes of Jovic not performing for example you have to do something about that you can't have Umraban dropping a game like this you know a guy who's rated so highly right now I have to keep him make sure he plays well you know so if you sell him at least you get the 50 million no exactly exactly yeah it it just feels like when I watch Fiorentina this season it's like 11 superstars

that have never played together before that's the way I see it to be honest even you know they have such a wide variety of players but seems like they haven't recovered since losing Vlachovic and they replace him with Luka Jovic um who on paper has a great signing for them but he still hasn't picked it up and if they don't have the finishing touch then they don't have anything then what what the hell are they playing for it's obviously not all down to him

the chemistry of the team seems a little bit off the creativity of the team seems a little bit off it's not even it's the execution it's the final bit especially because Jovic and Barak both had opportunities this game to to get something out of it and they both fumbled it you know granted Vanya is a god a god he's the the character from the barbarian that lives in the basement he's a beast dude he's a beast he's a monster he's a monster but yeah not Fiorentina's day perhaps

not Fiorentina's season either as they currently sit in 11th 23 points while Torino sit in eighth with 26 points correct the next game we're going to be covering is Bologna 1 Cremonesa 1 Cremonesa had just come off we haven't even spoken about this yet bro the penalty with victory the victory penalties against Napoli Cremonesa knocked Napoli out of the Coppa Italia which is a very frightening thing for Inter Milan fans who are still hoping for a league fight you know because at the end of

the day there's one less competition for Napoli to to play it we're counting Inter and Milan we can count Roma we can count Lazio we can count Atalanta everyone's in for the title race now guys but yes um Cremonesa under Ballardini played a very mature game against Napoli who perhaps underestimated their opponent of course that's the thing with the Coppa Italia the big teams rest players the small teams come with their big names um Napoli brought on their best players towards

Inter try together but Cremonesa remained compact they have three veteran defenders at the back over there and they have a coach who is amazing at defensive tactics you know Ballardini when it comes to setting up a 3-5-2 block five on the back when defending you know that field comes in deep he's a god at that ball he's he's very well suited for the Cremonesa team because what they needed is a little bit more stability to go with their to go their performances keep their shape because

they often get caught on the counter attack i think it'd be a good fit for them yeah and in fact this game they lined up with a 3-5-2 formation with the three veterans at the back they had Karneceky in goal of course amazing goalkeeper Ferrari, Kirikas and Vasquez now these guys have been around the block you know we have Ferrari ex Sampdoria, Kirikas ex Sassuolo, Vasquez ex Genni these guys all have Serie A experience you know ball bro thanks bro you have Ser Nikola on the right and

Valeri on the left Valeri scored the winning penalty against Napoli and demonstrated his high

levels of testosterone. Maitek, Castagnetti and Piquel were in the middle, Okerreque and Cioffani played up front for Bologna it was a 4-3-3 formation with Skorupski in goal, Liko Canis at left back, Posch at right back, Lukumi and Sao Mauro as the centre back duo, Dominguez, Mauro and Ferguson in the middle with Barrow on the left, Orsalini on the right and Satriano no Seriano up front sorry he run yes of course with Arnautovic still injured now what happened in the 48th minute

far quarter silly handball by Dominguez it really was a silly handball yeah now how many of these silly handballs do we have to see in Serie A all these penalties being given away by silly handballs he looked like he was creeping away with his arms here in at Erex position and the ball struck his hand what was that you remember that that video the lonely island of do the creep yeah exactly when you out there and you see a flag girl do the creep oh but yes um it was a silly handball by

Dominguez and the penalty was awarded to Cremonesa and it was converted by Okerreque who went down the middle and didn't do his chin celebration by the way he didn't do the finger wag he just did a strange dance with his teammates around him super disappointing but it's good to see the whole Cremonaise team getting involved in a little bit of a dance they won't be doing much of it this season so good to see them get the opportunity there fucking right and the 54th minute classic

Vlad Kiriakas over here now you know those of you who have been listening since season one know that i'm not a big fan of Vladimir Kiriakas despite his veteran status he scored an own goal and the 54th minute as Karnasek he produced a brilliant save but the ball was left in play Ferrari tried to clear but only managed to hit the ball after Kiriakas and it deflected into his own net unlucky but comical yeah comical to say the least those two have notoriously aged badly

Ferrari and and Vlad Kiriakas but but yeah well what could you do about that it's it's very very unlucky yes guys do not confuse Ferrari with Sassuolo's Ferrari of course this is a different Ferrari X Sampdoria they should both be called Fiat at this point excellent thank you but yes bro um in the 88th minute there was a brilliant save by Karnasek yet again but the ball me say it but the ball once again hit the fucking fridge that is Vlad which had Kiriakas

but this time Ferrari managed to clear it off the line now this ball was rolling into the net and you can see from Kiriakas space he was like oh my god another one you could you could see his expression you could see this disappointment taking over him completely as he was about to score his second own goal to give Kramaneze zero points but thankfully it was cleared off the line by Ferrari and Kramaneze get away with one point at the edge closer to Sampdoria in 19.

All Kiriakas needs to do to avoid these two situations that led to the own goal obviously they're not easy I'm gonna stand here and say that I wouldn't have scored own goals over there I probably would have scored three own goals in this match but be on your toes and be careful coming to you at any moment that's what you have to do the fact that the ball is capable of just hitting him and going goal words when he's in the box as the last defender is very very dangerous

for Kramaneze. It really is bro it really is they've got a few rare prom players at the back and mistakes have not been rare now when it comes to Bologna our friend Luca who supports Bologna is quite disappointed he sent us a question and said the following one second fan point of view Bologna got three points in three home games with the last three teams in the table lost against Empoli at home drew against Salernitana and we are still only five points away from seventh place

can you understand the frustration yes if they had racked up all the points and scored a goal against Bologna, if they had racked up a few more points their position in the table would actually be quite impressive and you know then they'd have a shot at maybe these european places in theory yeah I mean it's football and particularly this area is very unpredictable you can go on a run beating the top teams and then you can go on a run losing and drawing to smaller teams that's what

Bologna are going through I think it shows what a difference maker Arnautovic is because since they've lost Arnautovic they've been on a bit of a dry spell it's not only the fact that he can score goals but it's his leadership Zlatanesk mentality that he brings to the team and everyone plays to get the ball to Arnautovic it's very different having him up front to having Soriano up front and I think that is a massive component as to why they're struggling right now definitely

bro the thing I wonder is without Mihailović there the very popular loved character that was Sinisa Mihailović do Bologna still have the pull power do they still attract certain players?

Not as much as they used to I think however I feel like Mata has quite a pull as well because especially for young players that want to grow in Serie A they must idolize Mata someone that learned from Jose Mourinho someone that was part of the treble winning team someone that is trying to re-identify the game of football because like back in his youth PSG days he was notorious for trying out some absurd formations and swapping player positions and swapping player roles and to

me this is the start of Mata's career as a manager I think he's up for bigger and better things than Bologna unfortunately but I think that does bring a bit of pull power. Yeah it must and as it stands right now you know as you said it's a young team playing attractive football and getting some impressive results here and there so yeah maybe we will see a few big players joining or if not maybe we can develop some of the guys that already did they have some promising talents over there.

Exactly. Man of any genre almost gave them the lead. He did. When he came on had he come on maybe if the chance came a little bit later he might have been able to take it but I think he had just

come on he panicked yeah he doesn't have that ball dancing DNA you know. No and he hasn't been getting as many minutes as perhaps he would have liked and as many minutes as we would have expected because last season this guy was Mourinho's golden boy down the left flank bringing him on he's scoring braces he's doing this he's doing that he moves to Cremo Nese permanently and you would think that he'd be one of their star players but he's coming on basically he's a rotation player

he's a substitute player and I think if they show a bit more faith in him and put him in the starting 11 more they'll start seeing a sharper version of Afena John and I think it would be a long-term investment for them. Yes bro I agree the thing is I think they prefer so they have Shofani who's kind of a physical striker and they have Ocarecke who is the more mobile of the two so I think they view Afena John as kind of a vice or Ocarecke as it stands and I much prefer that than playing him on

the wing out of possession quite frankly. Yeah yeah yeah no you're right over there. This was the first meeting between Bologna and Cremo Nese since 1989 the game back then ended in a 2-1 victory for Cremo Nese. Oh how time flies huh? How time flies bro I was merely a sperm in my dad's ballsack back then. So Cremo Nese are currently last with eighth points eight points sorry while Bologna are in 12th with 23 points. The next game we're going to be covering is the one-one draw between Monza and

Sosuolo. Monza lined up in a 3-4-1 formation very popular formation nowadays by the way they had the Gregorian goal and the back line of the fantastic Itso Caldi Rolla and Santos they had Carlos Augusto out on the left and Birindelli out on the right with a double pivot of Pessina and Maschin. Caprari out on the left Churi out on the right with Petania up front. Sosuolo still have the 41 year old Pegolo in goal with Tolian Ehrlich Ferrari and Rogeria at the back double

pivot of Frattesi and Objong. Berardi out on the right Lauriente out on the left Traore down the middle and Defrel up front. It was very interesting to see Frattesi kissing the badge the Sosuolo badge in front of their three fans at the start of the game so I wonder what that means if it's a goodbye or if it's a I'm here to stay I love the club. So in the 13th minute Ferrari scored wow who would have thought huh? Who would have thought bro honestly. It was a low corner by Traore

and it was Ronaldo flicked by Frattesi and into the pot of Ferrari who finished 12. You guys aren't exactly aware of what a Ronaldo flick is it's when a player seems to get a touch on the ball but doesn't but he might just claim it and that's exactly what happened over there so I

thought it was an assist for Frattesi but it was in fact a Traore assist. Moments later Lauriente smashed the woodwork after some good work by Berardi but then in the 59th minutes the inevitable Caprari scored the Italian curveball in of the post from a tight angle it was a fantastic goal to be honest that's a fucking shout as well for a goal of the week man. It is it is that was a great

goal by Caprari. I feel like every goal Caprari scores is a shout for a goal of the week. Yeah he's really good man he's a really good gem for these for these teams that are just above the

relegation pool like Caprari is a really good player for them. 100% in the 75th minute Pergola saved Kitkaer's shot and the rebound fell to Mota who had an open net but failed to make any significant contact on the ball and it was a very embarrassing miss he hit it like too much with the out step so it just ended up going straight up right it was really just poor I felt bad for him it was so embarrassing. Then the closing moments of the match Berardi had a good opportunity to

get a rare win for his side but struck the ball just wide much to Monza's pleasure. So Monza had 61% ball possession to Soswala's 39% the shots were quite even Monza had 14 Soswala had 13 Monza had 3 on target Soswala had 1 I think that draw was quite a fair result over here what do you think?

I wouldn't go as far as saying that Monza probably deserved to win it. Soswala got an early lead and didn't really do anything about it while Monza you know you see Palladino over here he tried about three different formations before they eventually got the equalizer including a triple whammy where he took out some veteran players over there early on in the second half these veteran players included you know he took out Marlon, Petania and Brindelli for Colpani, Marri and Danny Mota

this was all to change formation to try to adapt to Soswala's system and it worked you know it worked they managed to get their goal I do think that Monza deserved maybe a victory over here.

Interesting because I think that Soswala's chances were a bit more clear cut than Monza's and Barai they had a couple of opportunities Lauriente hit the post as well with quite an opportunity but obviously if you don't take those chances then you're not going to get the victory and I think that's a testament to both teams and to be honest that draw might have been a fair result over here. A couple of players to highlight in this performance I would say that Itso at the moment

is proving to be one of the best defenders in the league at the moment. He deserves a national team call-up if he keeps this up honestly like he was good at Torino but with Monza right now as it stands he doesn't put a foot wrong and you know they play him they play him the ball in a tight space like and he'll just like back heel it like to the winger you know just casually comfortably he's so good with the ball on his feet as well he hasn't put a foot wrong in a while Itso always would.

Agreed. Petania so despite not scoring and not being incredibly sharp in front of goal having Caprari and Turia behind him and him playing with his back towards goal really shows Petania's strong point which is playing with his back towards goal laying the ball off flicking the ball through to someone making the run and I think when we see Sensi on the pitch a little bit more and when we see Pessina maybe moving forward a little bit more that's when we see Petania at full flow he's

been playing spectacularly he's been playing better than he was. He's a very mature striker he's developing very well Petania nowadays he is 27 years old Petania I remember him as a youth product for Milan I remember Milan bringing in Maltrian stripping him out and him being in tears and he had that season at Atalanta where he did really well with Papogamos back then and he moved to Napoli where he didn't really hit the ground running at all scored a few goals

Palletti decided to keep him off that particularly important one but I think this is his level I think he should have stayed at this level for a little while in order to develop but you know 27 years old for a striker of his size and style he could still have another seven years left a hundred percent that's the point I was going to make is he might just be one of those strikers that peaks with maturity so the second he gets more experience in front of goal and finishing off chances and

being at in the right place at the right time with with his assets not being his pace and his speed and his acceleration so on so forth he might just find himself getting better with age we might see

him peaking at 32 33 years old I wouldn't be surprised at all if that's the case. For Sasuolo usual suspects Frattese had another great performance Objong is back and playing very well yeah he had a good performance over there as well and let's just say that Sasuolo's defense looked a bit better than it usually does in this game against a Monza team who have been spectacular going forward so credit where it's due their back line was much better than usual so Sasuolo

sit in 17th place on 17 points while Monza sit in 13th place on 22 points. The next game we're going to be covering is Verona 2-0 Verona lined up with their 3-4-2-1 formation with Montepo and Gold, Cecharini at the back with Hien and Davidovic, Duj on the left, De Pauli on the right with Tameze and Illich in the middle, Lazovic and Lasagna played off the shoulders the very broad shoulders

of Ivan Juric. Falcone was in goal for Lecce as they played a 4-3-3 formation, Gendre on the right, Gallo on the left with Umtiti and Vasquirotto at the back, Blin, Hülmend and Gonzales were in the middle with Stefetta on the right, De Francesco on the left and Colombo up front. In the 40th minute a brilliant cross by Doig from out wide fell perfectly to De Pauli who made no mistake scoring a fantastic header. In the 52nd minute Illich hit the cross bar with a long-ranged

strike before booking a short-ranged flight to Marseille. Now this is the thing he might be off to Marseille everything is agreed at the end of the season and he might he would in that case remain at Verona until the end of the season but Torino have stepped in and are trying to hijack the deal so we might still see Illich in Serie A. Apparently also Arsenal as well are interested.

In the 54th minute there was a gorgeous turn and pass by Illich to Spotlazovich who still had a lot of work to do but finished into the near corner so Illich had a fantastic game as Matthias a couple of weeks ago declared it to be Illich watch yeah and now he's off you know that that's

just the nature of players who play with these teams. I mean Matthias couldn't have been more bang on right he said he's gonna find his form and a lot of teams are gonna be interested in him so he really hit the nail on the head over there and it was just a spectacular performance by Illich who was always available to his teammates around him very very active over there had a crack at goal when he could brilliant assist for Lazovic's goal as well shout out to Lazovic as well man he's

really found his feet again really has and playing closer to goal was the key apparently yeah. Letchier this game dominated possession and they looked more dangerous for most of the game and I was watching it was all Letchier in fact but Verona once again stayed compact and they managed to get goals through individual moments and brilliance that Doik Kross was amazing and that Illich

maneuver was brilliant too. Yeah Verona have pretty much been that kind of side ever since they appointed Zaffaroni the Monza legend so to say they have been very more much more mature in their approach and a little bit more pragmatic and yet it's looking good for Verona their upcoming fixtures is what I'm interested in so I'm going to look them up right now in fact their next game is on a Monday night against Odinese away from home they then have Lazio at home then

Salernitana, Roma, Fiorentina, Spezia there are no easy fixtures Verona are going to want to turn it around they're going to need to keep doing exactly what they're doing but they're onto something here man they're definitely onto something. They definitely are bro two ex defenders Mbocchetti and Zaffaroni really tidying things up at the back for Verona and giving them a new lease of life. Yeah and obviously they didn't exactly face an easy side in Lecce the team that gave that gave

Milan a fucking run for their money as well too too. And they seemed early on Lecce were opening up Verona similarly to how they were opening up Milan but then something changed I feel like they got the midfield to drop deeper Verona and they adapted to Lecce's play style and they beat them to be honest with experience quite frankly yeah pretty much man pretty much. They currently so they I always say they who the fuck is they Verona currently sit in 18th with 12 points while Lecce

sit in 14th with 20. Coppa Italia round up. So Inter are playing against Atalanta in the quarter finals after Inter knocked out Parma and Atalanta knocked out Spezia Lazio knocked out Bologna and Juve knocked out Monza and they're facing each other and Napoli got knocked out by Cremonese who will face Roma who knocked out Genoa. Fiorentina are playing against Torino as they knocked out Sampdoria and Milan respectively. So yeah it's going to be an interesting one who wins the Coppa

Italia this year bro. Let's make a prediction. Who wins the Coppa Italia? I get a feeling it will be Juve not win the Coppa Italia. Interesting I am gonna say Atalanta wins the Coppa Italia. Shall we put something dirty on the line for that? Oh my god here we go. We'll discuss it and we'll get back to the audience but it's it's it's interesting. There are however other interesting things we could put something on the line for. There are indeed and we should probably start

thinking about this weekend's bet bro. We should so the biggest game this weekend is Napoli at home against Roma that is like cancel your plans. We're not touching that. No no absolutely not. Absolutely not. We don't know if it's going to be low scoring high scoring. There's lots of Fiorentina that's crazy as well like right before it. Oh my god look at this day look at our Sunday bro. Milan's a swole at 12 30 that has the potential to ruin our whole day. Literally. Juve are at

three o'clock six o'clock lots of Fiorentina 8 45 Napoli Roma and that's that's good. Don't we have the Dan Hood podcast on Sunday? We're gonna we're gonna arrange that don't worry. Saturday maybe yeah we'll see what we could do about that. But yeah have an exciting week of football. I'm personally leaning towards betting on like Atalanta Sampdoria. Maybe the odds will be decent for an Atalanta win since Sampdoria have been a bit better and maybe since Milan have been shit

and no way. No no we don't touch Milan anymore. I have a feeling that's why Milan suck because we better. But then as a Verona Verona winner draws quite interesting. It is it is that's a good one um or Verona winner draw. That's what I think will go down. I think Verona have the edge but anyway we'll see okay. Thank you very much for listening guys drop us a follow at say a spotlight on tiktok twitter instagram reach out to us send us a voice note we might even feature

you if you have a good opinion or a hot take. Like our Tami video. Don't bother with the Tami video guys it's a hassle. No please like the Tami video 100k baby. Thank you very much guys we love you all and have a good rest of your week.