63: Bangers No Mash

Kvarats Helje with the ball in, Ossimen and still! It's then two again! Kvarats Helje the provider and Ossimen with one of the goals of the season! Hello and welcome to Serie A Spotlight Season 2 Episode 23. We're your hosts Matt and Jake, ready to run you guys through Matchday 20, along with all the banging goals that we're blessed to witness. Yes, there were many a great strike this matchday bro.

Our number one was of course Victor Ossimen's opener against Roma, where his time playing Germany's as a kid came to good use. We picked that goal particularly because of the stage as well, like the audacity to attempt chest control, juggle shot, and a big game like that. A very unique and iconic strike, he has a habit of doing that against Roma. We saw the one he had in the earlier fixture against them at the Olympica, that was a masterclass as well.

Two true bro, there were also goals by Razvan Maron, he had an incredible strike that could have made top spot very easily without a doubt. Origi had a good goal and the trashing that Milan got against Oswolo. Nico Gonzalez had an amazing goal, Danny Mota had an amazing goal, Lukman's goal was amazing and of course Boulay Eddia had a fantastic strike as well against Lettre.

Honestly guys, if you haven't seen those goals, head over to YouTube and check them out because my oh my, we were blessed this weekend, absolutely blessed and I could watch them all all day. True bro, we put a bet and if you saw our Instagram post at Seaspotlick, this was my idea, this one we were arguing, had we listened to Matthew we would have won the bet. I don't want to say much because we've lost before because of me, while we're having arguments.

But now it has to be said bro, I'm going to leave the next bet to you. Your suggestion is going to be priority right now because I feel like you deserve it now. Thank you. I basically suggested putting under, well I pushed, I pushed for under three goals in the Empoli-Torino game and Inter win against Cremonese and now Inter beat Cremonese, okay, despite going down 1-0 to an early Ocarica wonder goal, also another candidate for goal of the week. Oh my god, we forgot to include.

Yeah, we forgot to mention that. Empoli-Torino was a banger of a game. It turned out that two sides who, one side that never scores Empoli, they never score more than one goal, two goals maximum and Torino don't have a striker. Exactly, Torino are in the exact same ship as Empoli. And that could have been five, six goals easily in this game.

Yeah, towards the end it's true especially when Torino started picking up, when they started bringing on their big boys, they could have totally destroyed them. In case you're wondering guys, my suggestion was to do Verona draw or win against Odinese and the odds for that were fantastic, obviously with Verona being away from home and Odinese being so good on their day, it was a bit of a risky one, but I had a good feeling. You also suggested, if I'm not mistaken, the Lazio-Furentina game.

Oh, I said Lazio draw or win. Lazio win or draw, yeah. But I think the odds weren't that good, right? But along with the interwin, they were excellent. They were a bit worse than the bet that we placed, but not by much, man, not by much. Guys, by the way, new thing that we're doing, if you are a listener of the podcast, follow us on Instagram and DM us with the words close friends.

And we will add you to our close friend stories where we'll be posting behind the scenes content of our podcast for you on our Instagram stories. It'll give you a bit more insight as to who we are, what we're like when we're not talking about football. We want to do this more on our normal stories as well on Instagram. However, we will save the close friend stories for the slightly naughtier content where you get to see us in our element, essentially. This is our only fans.

This is essentially our only fans. This is our free Patreon for you guys. There we go. A bit of behind the scenes of the podcast. We're an incredibly low budget podcast. So you get to see how simple the arrangement is and how easy and how all of you could do it, essentially. So that would be quite cool. Low budget. That's because you don't know how much the fucking soffit in the studio game, bro. Yeah, that's something that's happening, by the way, guys.

Drake is moving out. He bought a place and we'll have a studio in there. So that'll up our quality a little bit and our content. It's going to be cool. It's going to be a whole room dedicated to just Serious. There are going to be kids everywhere. Serious is going to hate it. Serious is going to hate that room. How long until you have sex in that room? What do you mean how long, bro? Congratulations.

Anyway, yes, follow us at Serious Spotlight on TikTok, on Instagram, on Twitter, anywhere you get podcasts. Give us a rating. Yeah, it helps a lot, guys. Yeah. So before we get into the games, essentially reading out all the games, I did want to point out that Matchday 20 was a little bit different because Serious started testing the semi-automated off-site technology that was used in the World Cup.

This has optical tracking cameras from Hawkeye Views and Hawkeye Innovations for precise player positioning, essentially. Now, this normally does come with a tracking sensor on the ball or inside the ball. Not too sure how it works. That hasn't been introduced yet, but it will be introduced as of 2023. Well, sometime this year, it will probably be introduced. Now, as a result of this, you'll see that there are a lot of close off-site calls this week, but it also guarantees consistency.

It's the finest of margins, but it's the only way they can be consistent. I'm not against it. Why not? Neither am I. It's one of those things that's either black or white. There's no subjectivity to it. So this is good. Yeah. So let's get into Matchday 20 a little bit, guys. So we're going to start off with Napoli 2, Roma 1. Napoli have increased the gap at the top of the table to 13 points. Roma still battling for top four. Milan 2, Sassuolo 5. Milan winless in five games.

Now they concede 2 against Lecce, 3 against Inter, 4 against Lazio, and now 5 against Sassuolo. Lazio coming off a 4-0 victory against Milan, where then held at home 1-1 against Fiorentina. Inter travel to Cremonaese and came out the victors, winning 2-1 and heading up to second. The mid-table battle between Juve and Monza ended in a Monza victory 2-0 away from home at the Allianz. Impressive stuff there by Monza.

Disappointing stuff, obviously, for Juve. Atalanta dismantled Sampdoria with the score of 2-0. Odinese won, Verona won. Bologna, no surprise there as they beat Spezia 2-0. It was a thriller between Napoli and Torino as it ended 2-2. Torino coming back from behind and almost finding a winner late on as well. And then in the relegation battle, it was Lecce 1-0, Salernitana 2-0, a victory for Davide Nicola on his return. What a week, what a week, what a week, brother. It was mental, bro.

These games were amazing to watch, the goals were superb. What a week of football. What a weekend of football. Blessed. B to the L to the E to the S to the S to the E to the D. Off we go to the Diego Armando Maradona Stadium for Napoli 2-1. Napoli lined up with a 4-3-3 formation with Meret in goal. Mario Rui on the left, DeLorenzo on the right, Ming-Jae Kim and Rahmani as a centre-back duo. With Zelinski, Lobotka and Anguissa in the middle.

Gavratskelia on the left, Lozano on the right and Ossimen up front. Like get an injury, you know what I mean? Exactly, full team every week. But even when they're not, one of the strongest points in their unity. Of course, they had Ossimen out for so long, I'm just here chatting shit. So 3-4-2-1 for Jose Mourinho's Roma with Rui Patricio in goal. If you can prove that to me. I don't see the guy pulling off saves, I have to be honest with you, ever. It's interesting man, it's very interesting.

I think they could do with a better goalie. But anyway, Mangini, Smolling and Ibanez were at the back with Zelinski on the right, Spinazzola on the left, Matich and Cristante in the middle with Debal and Pellegrini playing behind. The on-form Tammy Abraham is playing quite well. So it all started in the 11th minute.

It was almost a disastrous start for Napoli as Kim and Meret failed to communicate efficiently and both went for a loose aerial ball and ended up with Kim heading past his own goalkeeper only to brush outside the post. Would have been a totally different game had that happened man. True, with the way Mourinho's team's sit back after getting an early lead. Exactly. That could have been it. In the 16th minute, Gvarackelia crossed the ball into Ossimen.

He was played through amazingly by Mario Rui over here. Ossimen chested the ball, knocked it up with his thigh and volleyed into the roof of the net from close range. One of the goals of the season, our goal of the week for sure, rips off his mask adrenaline and everyone at the Maradona is going mental. What a goal, what a goal, what a goal. These guys are fucking cruising at this point bro. Yeah, it goes back to our point of everything they try.

Every audacious attempt that they go for, they pull it off and it could be their form. But I think it is a very positive mindset that they have in the camp that allows them to express themselves in this manner. So true bro. 74th minute, Roma got one back. Zalefsky's cross to the far post was met by El Sharawi who knocked the ball in with the outside of his extended boot. 1-1. Rolling back the ears El Sharawi for his third goal of the Serie A campaign.

Yep. In the 85th minute, Napoli got a late winner. Simeone received the ball just inside the area with his back towards goal. He controlled the ball on the turn with his right and fired into the top corner with his left. Another important goal for the impact sub to Napoli and the game ended there. The best thing about the Simeone goal bro, the most underrated thing was how he destroyed Smalling simply with a hand gesture.

He pointed in the opposite direction where he received the pass sending Smalling running to cover that channel. Zalefsky played him the ball and he had a little bit of space because of it. He turned around, shot and just beat the goalkeeper. It was amazing. What a goal. Yeah, it was one second he has his back towards goal. Literally a second later the ball is in the back of the net and it flies into the top corner. Rui Patricio had impeded vision because of Smalling.

But the way he just turned with one leg shot with the other in the matter of a second, it was a gorgeous strike. And Simeone is good at doing this. He's a very good player to bring on when you need a goal. And he's also a very good player to bring on when you can't conceal a goal when you're holding possession. True. The Gjallarossi bro, this game came out with their heads held high. Mourinho was applauding them, he even made them take a team photo.

After the game, I don't know if you saw that, Mourinho has his fist clenched. He's proud of the performance, but the players around him look totally demotivated and demoralized because of the late winner. It's a hilarious photo. I think it's Volpato in the photo that looks like he's crying. It's everyone, bro. Everyone looks miserable. It's quite the picture. They got close, bro. They scored in the 74th.

They would have thought by Roma's standards that they'll be able to hold on for those 16 minutes until the final whistle. Yeah, they played to Napoli's level. You know, Napoli granted dominated the possession as they usually do. They had 57 percent, but then you look at the shots, it was 11-11. And then shots on target, Napoli had six, Roma had three. Roma played with a high line. They were pressing. They were compact. They were really good this game.

But Napoli, of course, too much to handle with their mentality at the moment and their confidence. They just have this self-belief and they have so many different avenues that goals can come from. They seem unplayable at the moment, one of the top teams in Europe, and they can really do some damage in the Champions League as well, in my opinion. I can't wait to see them in the Champions League, man. I think for Serie A standards, they're very, very fast.

They're very fast, especially in their transition to play and even as individuals. I mean, having Chucky Lozan or Poletan on one side, Cavara on the other and Osida on the middle. Those are very fast players. But aside from that, it's just the way they shift as a team. Every shift that they make, you see the 11 players on the pitch shifting with the flow of the ball, whether they're on the ball or whether they're off the ball.

And from defence into attack with the fluidity of that midfield three of Zielinski, Lobotka and Anguissa. Anguissa is just getting more fluid as time goes by. When he started out with Napoli, he was probably their slowest player in transition. But now literally he's one of the more efficient ones, man.

The way defence turns into attack for this Napoli team and the way it goes to the wings, the way it can go down the middle and the damage each one of those front three could do by themselves is ridiculous. Napoli, absolutely unplayable. Roma did well as well as they could have. I think it's interesting because they didn't take a very similar approach to what Inter did when they handed Napoli

their only loss of this campaign. Inter were slightly more conservative, they were slightly more defensive. They played on the low block and every time one of their front three got the ball, they had a sea of defenders ahead of them and they couldn't do anything. Roma pressed a bit higher. Roma were a bit more proactive. Roma were trying to put pressure on Napoli, which did allow Napoli to showcase their speed and to break into the spaces.

They forced a couple of errors from Napoli as well. They did. Had they taken them better, you know, it could have been a different story. They did put them under pressure a couple of times. Yeah, I mean, Napoli did a fantastic job in nullifying the ball up Pellegrini and Abraham. You know, the best avenue of attack for Roma, I think, came through Zalewski this game. Agreed. And for me, of course, just I can't highlight a single poor performance from an Napoli player, bro.

I mean, how can you man? Seems to be the case this season. They're just they're all pulling their weight. And you look at players who historically from my time watching Serie A have been a bit of a meme. Mario Rui used to be a meme. He was a joke. People used to make fun of him all the time. Di Lorenzo used to be compared to like, you know, there was a whole debate of is Calabria better than Di Lorenzo? Nowadays, it's not even a big comparable.

Everyone just stepped up, Spalletti came in, gave everyone the confidence that they needed. It's going really well for Napoli right now. Yeah, man, I think I think they have reached their final form. Napoli, I don't see Napoli getting any better than they are now. If they get any better than they are now, the whole world is in trouble, man. Yeah. And you see Di Lorenzo in traffic at the end of the game, just getting barraged by fans, you know, and he's all hyped in the car as well.

You have to love it, man. You have to love it. You can't not. You have to love it. This is a team, guys, that have been struggling. So before the Maradona days, obviously, we all know what Maradona went in and did at Napoli. Winning Scudetto's with virtually, you know, an OK team. He single handedly carried the team to Scudetto glory. And ever since then, they haven't won that. They were a team that had played in Serie C, then they got promoted to Serie B under De Laurentiis.

Then De Laurentiis took them to A, and then they became a Europa League team. And then they were that iconic team with Hamzik, Lefezzi, Cavani, so on, so forth. And here we are today. They're almost a consistent Champions League team and consistent contenders for the Scudetto. They were contenders last year as well. And all this after being heavily criticised after the Mercato.

Everyone's saying that they weakened, that they go to the top players in every department in Serie A, front left, Fabio Andruiz in the middle left, Koulibaly at the back left, you know, all these star players from each position. And suddenly they're much better. Like, wow. And to think the amount they spent with these players. You could go so far to say that they improved in every position. The only kind of question mark would be Koulibaly to Minjay.

But you look at Koulibaly's performances nowadays at Chelsea and you see Minjay's performances nowadays at Napoli. You know, you can't help but think that Napoli got the upper hand with here and also some young blood into the team. Their scouting is ridiculous, man. Speaking of Roma, they just conceded a penalty against Cremona and the Coppa. And Rui Patricio got a yellow and De Cés is now stepping up to take the penalty. I just wanted to point that out.

That's crazy. Cremona seem to be a one trick pony and they're one trick being a knockout competition. God of it. But anyway, speaking of the Coppa Italia, Inter knocked out Atalanta with a score of 1-0. Coming through Darmion who played as a centre back man, played as a centre back and had one of the games of his life. Fiorentina knocked out Torino with a score of 2-1. Jovo Trandecone is scoring for Fiorentina and the late goal through Karamoh for Torino.

Yeah, so yeah, the Coppa Italia has been fun. Very fun. Tomorrow we're going to watch Lazio Juve, which is going to be another exciting one. And we'll keep you guys updated on Roma Cremona. Napoli are currently first with 53 points, 13 points clear of Inter. Their dominance can be seen as a result. It's true of their positive performances, but it must be said that the teams, their competition has not been too standard this season. Milan, Inter, you know, not up to standard.

Juventus, of course, weren't up to standard and then got docked 15 points. So nowadays it's just second to sixth is where the action is. Exactly. And you get to see Roma, who are currently in sixth with 37 points, trying to climb their way into the Champions League spot. And you'd have to be foolish to write Mourinho out of this one. Absolutely, man, absolutely. Although they did just concede the penalty, De Ceres fires it into the top corner.

And for some reason, he's just got a yellow card, probably for over celebrating and for causing a bit of a stir. But anyway, Mancini got one too, obviously. Yeah, of course. This is Serie A spotlight, not the Coppa spotlight. So we will move on to the next match that we're going to be covering quite an emotional one. Milan 2, Sassuolo 5 at the San Siro. Third place, well, at the time, third place Milan against 17th place Sassuolo. Things are a little bit different now.

So Milan started in a 4-2-3-1 formation, as if they don't learn. Tatarosanu in goal and the back line of Theo Hernandez, Gabia, Calullo and Calabria. A double pivot of Tonali and Rade Krunic. Rebic out on the left, Salamakker is out on the right. The Keitelare in the middle with Giroud up front. For Sassuolo, it was also a 4-2-3-1. Concilie back and in goal. A back line of Rogério, Erlich, Rouan and Markitza. It was a double pivot of Frattesi and Aubiang.

Berardi out on the right, Lauriente out on the left. Trauer in the attacking midfield role with Defrel up front. Now, Milan thought they got off to a flying start after Giroud. Put the ball into the back of the net with a karate kick after Theo's cross. But the Frenchman's shoulder was marginally offside. When I say marginally, I say it was very, very, very close. The goal was initially given. Giroud did the whole celebration. Theo did the whole celebration. But it was ruled offside.

So the score remained 0-0. Moments later in the 18th, Sassuolo had their first attack. And obviously that did lead to the first goal of the game. It was Defrel that scored. Berardi's cross shot was tapped in by Defrel after some miserable Milan defending. Theo was nowhere to be seen and Kalulu was running out of position to stop the cross leaving. Defrel totally unmarked. Three minutes later, Sassuolo had their second attack of the match. And Frattesi scored this time.

It was more miserable defending by Milan as Mimmo played the ball to Frattesi who rounded Gabia and finished into Tata's near post, making it 2-0. Two minutes later, this time it was Milan who scored. And this time it stood. It was Calabria's cross that was headed in magnificently by the leaping Giroud, leaving Consiglie totally static, bringing one back for Milan. Seven minutes later, Tarras corner to the near post was headed in by Berardi who was in a sea of red shirts.

I don't know how he managed to get his head to that. The header was central and it went in as though it was an open goal. To be honest, Tata was there, but he wasn't. There were two rows of Milan players between Berardi and Tata Rossano. I don't know how that goes in, but anyway, we'll get into it. It was 3-1 heading into half time, purely gave them the chat of their lives. Come on guys, we need to fucking go out there. Show them something.

Two minutes later, after the restart, Sasuolo were awarded a penalty after Lorienta totally beat Calabria in a foot race. And Calabria ended up dropping him in the box after a few pulls and shoves turned into an entanglement. Tata guessed right, but Lorienta's penalty was well placed into the bottom corner for one Sasuolo. In the 55th minute, what seemed to be a legitimate volleyed goal by Rebic was disallowed by the referee after the Croatian was found to be in an offside position.

However, it was Objang that played him through, but the goal still didn't stand as Rebic was offside before Objang made contact with the ball. Now correct me if I'm wrong. They're two different phases of play. They're completely two different phases of play. It's a bad back pass. Honestly, if it weren't for the nature of the loss, this would have been a very frustrating one. But Milan conceded five goals. Fuck it.

If a defender turns around and passes it to a striker who's in an offside position, it doesn't fucking matter where the defender got it from. I don't get how that was disallowed. It's more just confusing than it is annoying because the game was well and truly done at that point. But yeah, I just really want to know. VAR looked at it for a while and then they decided that it was meant to be called off. But anyway, whatever. Seventy-eighth minute, Henrique scored for Sassuolo.

He plays the ball to the bottom corner from just inside the area after Theo was dispossessed by Berardi in a dangerous area. Very silly play by one of the best left backs in the world. It's Sassuolo five, Milan one at that time. In the eightieth minute, a sensual curling strike from outside the area flew in off the crossbar to contribute to Divock Origi's highlight reel, making it Milan to Sassuolo five.

At that point, Drake and I, after the Origi goal, just looked at each other and burst out laughing. Then half time we were saying, imagine it's just one of those where we get a mad comeback. Origi comes on and scores as he breaks out and he becomes a great striker this Serie A season. And we're getting a little bit romantic. We're getting a little bit hopeful. They made it five one and then he did it in the eightieth minute. So it was just like, ah, cheers Divock. Really.

Here we go with the comebacks on. Yeah. Thanks a lot, man. Thanks a lot. Best thing since Istanbul, right? Yeah. But anyway, where do we start? I'm going to start off by berating Theo Hernandez. Okay. Pathetic. A horrible performance. Pathetic. Horrible performance. I'm not going to be said everyone was shit, but fucking hell, Theo Hernandez was not only was he shit, he was fucking lazy, bro. Terrible. Lazy, lazy, not tracking back, not pressing. One of the best things about Theo Hernandez.

Now people say he's not defensively sound, which isn't true. He's okay defensively. He's not one of the best defensive players in the world, but he's good defensively. The best quality he has is when he loses the ball or when he's dribbled, his recovery speed is top notch. He can get back to it and challenge the defender again. This game, he didn't do that at all.

Every time he lost the ball, he jogged back, forcing Kalouliu Tonali to run back, like he tried out of position, just putting his teammates under a lot of stress and a lot of pressure while he seemed to not give a fuck about anything. And this is a guy who's just extended his contract with Milan, playing like this, very worrying, very worrying stuff. And his task in this matchday would be, we all know about Berardi's history against Milan. Berardi is a fantastic player.

He's a world class player against Milan. Whenever he plays Milan, he falls under legendary status. He's a fucking monster against Milan. Theo would have had one job, keeping quiet, neutralize him. The guy got a goal and three assists, man. A goal and three assists. You see their player ratings, Berardi on a nine, Theo on a five. And the five is generous. A five is very generous, man. I would say that it says that obviously there is one mistake leading to a goal for Theo.

But I would say that the first goal, the first goal in the 18th minute by Defrel, that was Theo's fault as well. It came down his side and he wasn't there. Yeah. That's why he was calling for it, screaming for it. And he was just watching him jogging in the opposite direction. That's why Calulo came across to try to stop the cross because Gabia couldn't because he was flat footed. He's not quick enough. Calulo had to come across. He left the Defrel exposed. Calabria's, I don't know, not there.

And yeah, they made it one nil. And I would say that Theo and Tata were the worst players on the pitch by a landslide. Taterzano, of course, is not too standard for a goalkeeper. How many mistakes do you think, how many mistakes, how many of the five goals do you think Tata could have kept out or another goalkeeper would have kept out? It's hard to say. I mean, the goals he concedes aren't obvious mistakes. They're just weak. Weak, man. Weak goalkeeping. He doesn't command his area.

He doesn't come out in time. I don't know how many would be his fault specifically. To be honest, I've repressed half the goals. But yes, I wouldn't solely put the blame on Tata or Tata. You know, I mean, looking at the way Theo Hernandez played, that's way more concerning than the way Tata or Tata has been playing. There is an interesting stat, though. Let me find it very quickly. Is it how many goals were scored out of the shots on target? Yes, you have it.

Yeah, it was Milan have conceded 12 goals from the last 15 shots on target. There we go. There we go. So that is concerning. Incredibly concerning. The fact that Milan have brought in a 25 year old goalkeeper from the Chilean, Chilean league, I believe, Vasquez and Piole saying he's not much ready yet. Why do we sign him? Why do Milan sign him? He's not a 25 year old goalkeeper. Why? He's not ready to play. What are you doing? What are you doing?

You have a goalkeeper that's letting in every shot that comes his way. He only makes a save if it's right at him and he still falls to the ground and fumbles it. His eyesight is, for a fact, horrible. He can't do shit. He can't control his box. He can't control the line of defense. Man, just bring in a goalkeeper. We're seeing Cranio, I don't know, rotting on the ground. I don't know, rotting on the bench for Monza, putting a bit for him, for example. I'd take Pepereyna at this point, bro.

Honestly, I might take any starting goalkeeper in Italy for sure. And most of the second goalkeepers ahead of him as well. How bad is Mirante? Abishri isn't even being consistent. Man, this is another one. I'm going to go ahead and say out of the starting goalkeepers in Italy, Tatarasano is number 20. He's the worst one. Out of all the starting goalkeepers in Italy, Tatarasano was the worst one. Yes, you're definitely right there. It's a shame. Sassuolo hadn't won a game since mid-October, bro.

In all their games since then, they hadn't scored more than one goal. This game against Milan, they scored five. Milan are on a five-game win streak. Now, history seems to be repeating itself for Milan, bro. In 1998, 1999, Milan won a shock Scudetto with a manager who had never won it before, Alberto Zaccheroni, and then suffered disappointing seasons thereafter. Do you think this is going to be the case or do you think that this is merely a negative spell and Milan will bounce back?

It's interesting because we do see Milan going through negative spells. We've seen it on there purely when they won the league and the season before when they got champions. Zigen finished second. We do see these spells. The thing is, we've never seen one as embarrassing. We've seen one with the same number of losses, the same number of draws. We've seen that. Now, we've seen Milan recover from that. But to concede how many goals in the last three games, was it 13?

It was three, four, and five. 12. That's 12 goals conceded in the last three games. They can't pass the ball. They can't attack. They can't defend. They can't defend. And this is the worst Milan side. They were better under Gattuso than the Milan right this second within this run of form. I think it's judging by how history has played out for Milan, they can bounce back from it. And it's not the time. I like that the curve are still singing for the fans.

They're still singing Piole's On Fire. They deserve the support for what Milan gave the fans last year. Obviously, it's a mutualistic relationship, but Milan should stick behind the players, stick behind the fans. The pressure should be made on the big men who fail to give Maldini and Co the right investments. Yes. That's where the blame is. For sure. I mean, Nessa said it recently. He said that Milan should have focused the summer on strengthening the bench and splashing on a striker.

That was the way to do it. But yes, bro, regarding your point about the Curva singing, fine. The game against Salernitana, the game against Roma, you sing. The 3-0 against Inter, you sing. Sure. Salernitana, Milan won 3-1 in that game, no? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Sorry. I meant the lecture game. You concede four goals to Lazio, you sing, whatever. OK, incredible fans. You lose to Sassuolo 5-2. They put five passes. They hadn't scored more than one goal a game since October.

They hadn't won a game since October. I think it's about time you start booing these guys. I'm all for supporting the team, but there needs to be a time where you show your displeasure to them. 80,000 people show up to the stadium and you play like that. You don't even track back. You know what I mean. You boo them. You boo the guys. You put some pressure on them. It can't be. How long are you going to keep singing for?

At this point, it's just like, yeah, keep wasting my time. I love you. You love me. Shut the fuck up. I get where you're coming from 100%. Clearly, that's not motivating the players. No, not at all. It's actually making them complacent. They're like, we can fucking lose five to Sassuolo and they'll still love us. It's like marrying a woman who still loves you if you cheat on her. You're just going to go out and cheat on her all the time. What the fuck do you have to lose?

Now for Milan, it's a game against Inter. Do you think it's solely down to that? Do you think it is that Milan are demotivated, demoralized? It seemed to have started from that Roma game where Milan dominated 80 minutes of that game. Then they slipped up and it seems like ever since then, everything's gone to shit. Knocked out of the Coppa against Torino, losing 3-0 in the Super Cup final against Inter, losing 4-0 to Lazio,

losing fucking 5-2 against 16th place Sassuolo. Sassuolo, we've been fucking talking shit about them. For 23 episodes we've been talking shit about them. How can they score five in the San Siro? 70,000 fans in attendance. They score five against Milan with the same Milan that last year. Another clean sheet, 1-0, another clean sheet, 1-0. Getting all these clean sheets, best defense in the league, one of the best defenses in Europe, Mike Manean in goal.

Everything is perfect, everything is amazing. Is it only the morale? I think it's a number of things. I think it's the morale, yes. I think it's an element of things can't go our way. Goals being disallowed, injuries left, right and center. They almost feel defeated by the misfortune. They don't trust their goalkeeper. Everyone's shouting at Tatarisano all the time. You see before the Sassuolo game during the warm up the goalkeeping coach just casually shot the ball from outside the area.

Barely put any fucking spin on it, nothing, no power. And it just goes into the top corner and Tatarisano doesn't move. You see the goalkeeping coach literally waving his arms like what the fuck. Not even the goalkeeping coach is impressed by Tatarisano. No one man at the moment. He's not an idiot. I'm sure he realizes. God knows the pressure on this guy. I don't know how he sleeps at night. His teammates are constantly shouting at him.

The media is constantly shitting on him. The fans think he's rubbish. He must be in a very bad place right now. Massive respect that he even shows up to every game. Massive respect. He must be in hell. He must be in hell. I feel bad for him. Maybe Milan do deserve better. And then you look at Tomori's injury. Calhulu seems to be in his own head as well. He made a couple of mistakes and now he seems to have lost that belief he had.

And he said that youth players, before they make a big mistake, they feel unstoppable. They feel fearless. When they make a couple of mistakes, they start getting criticized. And suddenly they're in their shell a bit and they start to hesitate. And that's something that he has to beat. He has to overcome. But Calabria has just come back and he's not having a good time at all. It doesn't help that he's typically playing with Messi. He also doesn't track back that much.

Safe to say he was playing with Salahamakas this time. Didn't help that much either. Teo Hernandez probably thinks I am a little bit too good for this at the moment. Decay Tellar is just trying to overcome this fucking spell that he has. All the pressure and all that. And instead purely just shocking him out at half time. Like why? Why are you taking him out at half time? Give him a bit of time, man. Give this guy some time to play. He's trying to turn the game around at that point.

But there's Rebic who wasn't great either. He was worse than Decay Tellar. Take him out. Why do you take the 32 million signing? Wonder kid. Why didn't Leo start? That's another thing. Complacency maybe, poor attitude. It's just fucked right now. There's that situation with Leo right now. His lawyers just came out and said stop talking shit. The guy wants to extend that Milan. He loves Milan. But you know how many goals are we going to concede? It might change his mind.

The spell couldn't have come at the worst time. Talk to me about Piolli. So the whole Piolli out thing, I am not on that train. No, fuck that train. Piolli out is extremely reactionary. It's fucking... How can you... What are we, man? Okay, okay, okay. So the results have been terrible and if Piolli hadn't won the league, perhaps yes, it would be justifiable to sack him. But this guy won a league he shouldn't have won. In no way.

With a team that was not good enough to win the league, quite frankly. Yes, this is a bad spell, but the way these guys approach the game, the way they play, the effort they put in, the distance covered charts, Milan in the bottom three, we can week out lately. That's not fucking Piolli's fault. I think Piolli gets the sack if Milan don't qualify for Champions League or if this dip continues to the point that there's like an eight point gap between Milan and the Champions League.

If Milan don't get Champions League, then I guess it is the natural next thing to do. And it would be heartbreaking, but I wouldn't necessarily disagree with it. But then that being said, it's also not his fault. I was speaking about the investment side of it. I was hearing Pep Guardiola in an interview with Rio Ferdinand. And Rio Ferdinand told him how the hell do you win five Premier League titles, I believe. How do you keep winning so many Premier League titles?

And Guardiola asked Ferdinand, how many have you won for United? And he said five. And he said, did you have the same players for those five seasons? And Ferdinand is like, no, he's like, you have to shake. You have to move. You get figured out. The game develops. Every season the game changes. You need to get new players, you need to change your system, you need to shake things up a little bit. One season you play with a false nine, then you play with a target man.

One season you play with inverted wingers. The next season you have wingers that play out wide. The next season no wingers maybe. Milan have to be more creative with their signings and with what they're doing. All they did was they attempted to get two replacements. They relied on the Loneys coming back. Pabella got to replace Kessy. Adli is now an option in attacking midfield. What else? Origi coming in for depth or to be the star striker. To rotate with Juru.

The K-telaria to rotate with with Ibrahim Diaz. It's just a loser mentality. Loser mentality. Piolli, we have to change something mentally and tactically. Our squadetto will be to reach the Champions League. This will be our goal. This is what you said last week, bro. You said that Milan have shifted their goal from the squadetto to the top four. I'm absolutely right. Piolli agrees. It's just the way it is right now. This team don't deserve to win the league.

And they're not going to win the league. Not of the top six. They look the worst. A funny tweet I saw from Siafollahi on Twitter, bro, the Inter fan. He said that Konte won a squadetto with a goalkeeper performing like this. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Handanovic stopped shoting. Stopped shoting. His shot stopping is way better than Tatarsanu's. And the only thing that Handanovic had was that he wouldn't dive when balls went to the corners. That's it.

Incomparable. Incomparable. I'm not even going to debate that. It's so absurd that someone would say something like that. But anyway, shall we move on, bro? Yes, bro. Let's move on before I fucking slit my wrist. So Milan are in fifth with 38 points. While Sassuolo are in 16th with 20 points. Seven points clear of relegation. Yeah, you do that. You just take the... Like that I should have read Milan are in fifth and Sassuolo are in 16th. But sometimes you take them for me.

Yeah, I do that, bro. Sometimes I take your shit. Yeah, fuck it. I take your clothes all the time. It's Milan are level on points with Lazio in third, Atalanta in fourth, and they're one point ahead of Roma in sixth. The top four is spicy, man. Well, the top four, Napoli are... They're gone. They have a goal difference of plus 33. The next best one is Lazio with plus 20. At this point, Napoli don't even breathe the same air that they were at. No, no, no. They're Aquamen-like.

The next game we're going to be covering is Lazio 1 Fiorentina, one at the Olympico. Lazio lined up with their 4-3-3 formation, the classic Sarri formation. Providel was in goal. Hisa on the left with Marisic on the right with Romagnoli and Ciasale at the back. Luis Alberto Cataldi and Milenkovic-Savage formed the midfield trident with Zaccani on the left wing, Pedra on the right wing, and Philipp Anderson as the false nine yet again.

For Fiorentina, it was the exact same formation, 4-3-3 like for like. Terracciano was in goal with Dodo on the right, Biragi on the left, Ranieri and Milenkovic as the centre-back duo with Bonaventura, Amrabat and Barac in the middle, Nico Gonzalez on the right, Quame on the left, and Jovic up front.

In the seventh minute, Luis Alberto's corner in a dangerous area was not dealt with by Milenkovic, and Ciasale hit the ball into the back of the net with his outstep, leaving everyone rooted to the spot. This was Ciasale's first-ever Serie A goal. In the 48th minute, Nico Gonzalez scored the goal, the man who had previously been declared as mentally unavailable by coach Italiano.

He scored an impressive goal as he carried the ball inwards from the wing, exchanged play with Bonaventura and hit a rocket into the corner on the turn from outside the area. Wow. Brilliant goal. And I must say Bonaventura has been playing really well lately. He has, ever since he's worn that mask. It's true. He thinks he's awesome. In the 94th minute, there was a brilliant opportunity for La Viola to get the victory, but it was squandered by Milenkovic.

The corner came in from Nico, it was headed down by Barac into the pot of Milenkovic, who smacked the crossbar on the half volley with the keeper, just the keeper to beat. He could have won that. Milenkovic has been dipping. Since the days he was rumored to be one of the big teams and Fiorentina wouldn't let go, that was about three seasons ago now. He's just getting worse and worse. In fact, recently we posted that TikTok of Basquirotto, strongest man in the league.

Someone commented and they were like, where do you see him if he had to move to a big team? And I was like, to be honest, he isn't quite ready for one of those top four teams, in my opinion. Simply because he wouldn't start and not starting for him right now would be... it does make sense for him to go somewhere and just not start. He's not even that young. Now, I think he would do very well at Fiorentina. Agreed, man.

And then someone said, but they have Martina Squarta, who's been playing really well. Sure, but I'm not talking about to replace Martina Squarta. I'm talking about to replace fucking Milenkovic. Yeah, yeah. He has been bad, even in the World Cup. It's no secret that he's been struggling recently, which is interesting because two seasons ago, three seasons ago, he was up there with some of the best center backs in the league.

But you often see this in football. If you have a bad drawn of form, you need to be mentally, you need to be a beast mentally to get through it and to find your form again and to be a consistent player again. And it just seems like he's struggling with that. I think Fiorentina have been struggling and as a result, Milenkovic has been being exposed more and he's been struggling more as a result of Fiorentina struggling.

But like even last season, Fiorentina were doing bits and Milenkovic wasn't as good as he used to be, man. True, bro. I don't think it's a systemic problem. I think it's just simply him. It's getting worse. Some players progress, some players regress. He's regressing. He's at that age, I guess. But anyway, perhaps he's been in the same place for too long. That could also be a factor. Maybe he needs a change of environment.

But yes, it has to be said, Fiorentina have been playing better. Well, they did play better this game against Lazio. And I would even go as far as saying is they deserve to maybe win this game. You look at the possession stats, it was 55% possession to Fiorentina. They outshot Lazio 17 to 13. Lazio only had one shot on target and that was the goal, while Fiorentina had six shots on target.

Italiano after the game said after the goal reacted well. We tried to put it back right away and we succeeded in the second half with Nico. Then in the end with Milenkovic, we could have won. But in the meantime, we found the game again and this is important. So he does think as well that there's been an improvement. Yeah, I mean, and there has been significantly ever since they came back from the winter break.

You can't recognize the Fiorentina that played before that and the Fiorentina that we have now. They have been way more fluid. They've been way more creative. They struggled mainly from a creative standpoint and they had all these wingers and they were failing to utilize them and Coame was carrying at some point. But it's also good to mention that players like Nico Gonzalez are second half of the season players. Yes, that's true.

And we're already starting to see that from Nico and it's like they signed a new player. It's like they signed a new player and they have signed a new player for next season as well. No, on that note, no. Abdul Hamid Sabiri, my friend. That is a signing from Sampdoria, the talisman and midfielder, the Moroccan gem. That is a sign. The free kick in the World Cup as well. Fucking good player. Exciting stuff for Fiorentina fans.

They should be pushing up higher in the table, of course. They're in 12th place and this isn't the segway to closing this game, but they're in 12th place. Fiorentina last season finished in seventh. Conference League spot. Exactly. And they got the Conference League spot. Do you think they could get anywhere close to Europe this season? They're four points off of seventh place. So I'm sure that's still the target.

I'm sure they can do it. There's Udinese in that spot right now. Above them there are Monza, Empoli, Bologna, Torino and Udinese. Now you look at those teams, they're not the most consistent teams in the world. So Fiorentina can most definitely do it, bro. Yeah, I agree. Sarri was asked, are you worried about games like this where you don't win, where you should be putting in a better performance? And he was like, worried. This is an actual quote, bro, I'm not making it up.

Worried. If I should be worried, then the other coaches should kill themselves. Oh my Jesus. Yes, that's what he said. And he's obviously referring to Inzaghi, to Allegri, to Pioli, who right now have way more stress than Sarri does. And yes, good point. Very eloquently put Maurizio. You're the man, dude, as transparent as ever. Yeah, really good, man. I mean, you know, a man who says that is also a man who snots rockets when the camera's on him, right? And that's the type of man he is.

Sniffing a pack of cigs like on the bench. He also blamed the Italian system. We had three days less of recovery than Fiorentina. That must make a difference. The guy had a team in the Prem. He knows what the schedules are like over there. And they're much worse than they are in Italy. Yeah, in Italy, what you get, though, is every game on a Wednesday during the day when everyone's at work. That's the type of shit you get. Thanks a lot, Sarri.

Saponara had one of the most fucking hilarious penalty dives I've ever seen in my life. Our girlfriends were on the couch and they usually kind of half-watch the games. And there was a slow-mo replay of Saponara diving and screaming with his, like, eyebrows super expressive. And they both just burst out laughing. It's like something funny happened on Love Island, the way they reacted to that, man. They were so engaged. That was great. But yes, a very entertaining game, which ended 1-1.

Lazio currently sit in third with 38 points, while Fiorentina sit in 12th with 24 points. The next game we're going to be covering is Cremonaizer 1-2. For Cremonaizer, it was a 3-5-2 formation with Carnesecchi in goal, a backline of Vasquez, Kirikas and Bianchetti. Valeri out on the left, Ser Nicola out on the right. Castagnetti, Mete and Benassi in the middle with Okereke and Shofani up front. This was Benassi's debut, as he's joined from Fiorentina.

Correct. For Inter, it was also a 3-5-2 formation with Onana in goal, a backline of Darmian, Acerbi and Bastoni. Dampries out on the right, De Marco out on the left, Cialanoglu, Galliardini and Mkhitaryan in the middle, with Zéco and Lautaro Martinez up front. In the 10th minute, Okereke opened the scoring, the Nigerian curled the ball in off the crossbar from outside the area, in a tight angle, a sensational strike, very similar to Origi's if you saw that, but probably even better.

That's his second goal against Inter this season, and he made it 1-0. 10 minutes later, in the 20th minute, Karnisekis saved Zéco's volley from a corner, but Lautaro managed to net in the rebound to make it 1-1, and then deep into the second half in the 64th minute, Zéco played the ball through to Lautaro, whose shot took a bubble off Vasquez and into the back of the net, making it 2-1.

Obviously before the final whistle went, Vlad the Mad, Kirikiri Krim, Kirikes, almost turned the ball into his own net by being in the wrong place at the wrong time once again, but he was saved by the crossbar. It's always hilarious, the camera angles, they get off his face. Oh my, he can never believe it. It's brilliant, man. He's like, not again. Do you remember the Kirikiri Krim trees we used to eat as children? I don't remember the Kirikiri Krim trees. I'm going to Google it though.

They're the ones you could put like the, it comes with chocolate chips sometimes and you can put it in into the cream cheese and it also comes with crackers. Oh my god, I remember this. This was a spread, wasn't it? Well, I didn't used to eat it as though it was a spread. So you just pick it up and eat it? I mean, that's what people do, they dip like crackers into it and shit. No, it even comes with crackers, no? The Kirikiri Krim cheese, baby. I just remember the white block.

You remember the those cracker sticks that used to come with that cream cheese and the wrapping of it had a red bull on it. Bro, man, sometimes I wonder if we've lived the same lives. I don't remember that. Carnesecchi had a good game with a double save on DiMarco and Lautaro and a brave save on DiMarco's shot cross where he clattered onto the post.

This was a very good performance by the Italian young goalkeeper and it even earned him a match rating of eight, something we barely see when a goalkeeper concedes two goals. So shout out to him. What did you make of this game, bro? So Inter played really well. They created chances, their transition play has improved. Granted, they didn't get off to a flying start as Okereke scored an early goal, but to be honest, there was nothing they could do about that type of goal.

It was a sort of wonder goal that just happens and you have to recover and recover. They did. Cremonezza didn't really get many opportunities after that. Inter dominated 65% possession. They had 30 shots to Cremonezza's 12, they had 10 shots on target to Cremonezza's 4. As we said, yes, Carnesecchi is a very, very, very good goalkeeper. Yeah, it seems like Cremonezza have some flow about them nowadays. We always talk about how they put in good performances and they never get away with anything.

But it seems like ever since that night against Napoli that they got that victory. We've seen a bit more confidence in them. Yes, it's not only that plays a massive part for sure. The Napoli victory, but they are also on their new management, of course, with Ballardini. Yeah, and they have looked more sound defensively. In fact, they have quite a few veterans at the back. They've got Vasquez. We mentioned this, I think, last episode. Vasquez is an ex-Eugenoa player.

Kiriakas is an ex-Sasuolo player. They have Bonaiuto, they have Bianchetti. These guys are also used to playing in Serie A. With the Ballardini system, these guys can be quite a tight unit at the back. I'm judging Kiriakas doesn't have one of his moments. Lautaro, after the World Cup, has really found his form. He has moved up to third in the goalscoring charts. He's two behind Ozymen and one behind Lukmen.

Why do you think some players play so poorly on the international stage and then so good at club level? We're talking about the likes of Gonzalo Higuain, Chiro Móbala. Why do these things happen to these people? I think they're systematic players. I think they're players that fit a system really well. You see players, the players that you mentioned, for example, Higuain from the Spanish game moved to the Italian game. The Italian game is very unique. It's very tactical.

And then you go play for Argentina where you have so many skillful, technical, fast players. And it's just difficult to adapt to that kind of system. But then you could tell me, OK, so why does Chiro Móbala not perform well for Italy? In that case, everyone around him is essentially a Serie A player. Why the fuck doesn't he perform well? He's one of Serie A's leading all time top goalscorers. And the answer is who the fuck knows, man? Who the fuck knows?

Who the fuck knows? Why doesn't Móbala play well for Italy? Is it a mental block? I think it has to be something mental. But it must be like Lautaro not playing well for Argentina, I get. Because it's a very different system, a very, very different system. But Móbala in a 4-3-3 for Italy. I think it has to be seen as like, you know, when you for I'm going to use FIFA as an example, but not to not in the dumb way.

You know, when you, you know, weekend league, have you ever done the weekend league? So weekend league is a tournament you can qualify for when you play FIFA, right? You have to play a couple of games and you qualify, basically. During the games that you play that you win, you don't have much pressure and you just win them. No, no problem. You don't even think about it. Then you qualify for the weekend league where every win matters.

And all of a sudden you're overthinking it. You're in your own head. Maybe it's the same thing for this guy. Domestically, Giro Móbala knows that he has for Gonzalo Higuain, Lautaro Martinez, he has 38 games to get shit done. He has 38 games to score. He has 38 games to prove himself. It's a long season. When it comes to the international stage, usually you have a two week break. You have a one month long tournament.

So perhaps it comes so quickly and the pressure, you know, it doesn't give them any time to ease into the team, to get to know the team, to gel with the team, to build confidence, to build belief. You know, you just have to go in and have a positive impact. And some players just don't manage to do that. And I guess they get into the head. Exactly. And like you said, man, you have more time in a season over 38 games to recover from bad spells of form. Yeah.

It's as simple as that. We've seen Lautaro struggle. We've seen him struggle recently for Inter. I mean, last week we were saying that he was struggling and the week before we were saying that he's struggling. Now he finds two goals against Cremonaese because you have matches against Cremonaese in this area. It's not always against the best 20 teams in the world or the best 10 teams in South America or whatever. And you can find your form. You have time to find your form.

Exactly. Three games without a goal in the league is normal. Three games without a goal in a World Cup qualifying campaign. Is a failed campaign. It's a worrying thing. You get a lot of backlash. People start saying, oh, should we start Scamacca? Exactly. So yeah. Scriniar, bro. Scriniar, 20 million off the PSG. Signed his contract. He's leaving in the summer. He's going to be making 9 million in wages a year.

It's the 20 million sign-off fee is crazy. It's by putting pen to paper. He makes 20 million this guy. Yeah, I would just sign the paper and break my legs. Not a bad idea. Maybe Scriniar is a bit more ambitious than you. Inter fans, I want to hear something from you. I want to hear are you livid that he is still wearing the captain's arm band? As Milan fans, we didn't like it when Romagnoli did it.

And we didn't like it when Donnarumma did it. And Kessy. And when Kessy, fuck me. And Decilio. We've had it rough. Decilio wearing the captain's arm. I really like Juventus. Inter apparently, they were interested. I don't know if they'll remain interested in Harry Maguire. I don't know if they had a drink that day and they were like, fuck it. This guy, this guy, we're bringing him in. I don't get it. I'm sure. But that was the Sun, no, that reported it.

It was the Sun. It was the Sun, I believe. But who the hell knows? Sometimes Inter do sign random Premier League players. The Ashley Youngs, the Moses. You know what I mean? Moses was a content player. In fact, it didn't quite work out. And fucking Noggin, what's his name? Maguire will be an Enzague player. Bro, I thought you dropped the racial slur. Oh my God. No, definitely not guys. No racial slur there.

Now I have two points to make about Inter. Despite this game being better than the previous ones, they still kind of look a bit nervous. They play risky passes instead of the safe ones. They rush. The same thing as Milan, to be honest. It's way more organized. Also, why doesn't Zaghi play Gagliardini, whose contract expires in five months and might be working out on a free, when you have a supposed future protagonist in Aslani? Why don't you just play Aslani, dude?

It is interesting, man. Maybe he doesn't believe that Aslani is ready yet. No. I think I'm kind of ready for a game against Cremona as well. Because Aslani plays in the Brozovic position, right? So that would allow you to play Cialanoglu in his actual position as a Metzala. Exactly. Or higher up, basically, instead of as a regista. I think it comes down to the balance that Simone and Zaghi is after in that three-man midfield man.

I think he enjoys having someone more attacking like Mkhitaryan and then Cialanoglu playing as a regista at the moment. And then Gagliardini for the physicality. And I don't think you can drop Cialanoglu as a regista right now. I think he's grown into the role. Very big shoes to fill with Brozovic still being out. And I think they should. I think he's doing the right thing in consistently utilising the same player rather than reshuffling and reshuffling and reshuffling.

Fair enough, bro. Cremona has made it two. Cereca played the ball to Charles Piquel, who slotted in home as Cielic tried to deflect it off the line, but ended up basically scoring an over. But to kind of work off of what you said, Inter aren't at 100% right now. No, they're not. They will beat Milan. Yes, this weekend. They will beat Milan this weekend. But they do say that form doesn't matter in a derby. But is it form when every shot goes in, when you let every shot go in? I don't know, man.

Yeah, I don't think Milan have a chance this derby. You just look at the way things have gone. It would have to take a miraculous turn around. The only thing that might change it is Zlatan's presence. In my opinion, because Zlatan has been if you notice, he's not he hasn't been on the bench. No, he's been filming fucking Asterix and Dobelix. You know the movie. Come on, the show. Asterix and Dobelix. Asterix and what?

Obelix. It might not even be Asterix. What the hell is Obelix? Yes, Asterix and Dobelix. These guys. Let me see. Oh, I used to have stickers of those. I think we had stickers of those guys when we were younger. We did. Zlatan is in a movie. No. And he's playing, I guess, as one of them. I don't know. He's in body armor and stuff. And he's been recording. This is the San Remo of the season. Literally the San Remo of the season.

And you know, Zlatan's out and Milan concede a million goals. Exactly. So if he comes back, hopefully, you know, he can. He's like a father figure. It's as cliche as it is. It's totally true. Milan lost 5-0 to Atalanta. He came in and it took until he wasn't there again to concede five goals. So, yeah, hopefully there can be a mental shift before the intergame. Everyone can calm the fuck down and we'll get to see a balanced game. That's what I want to see. A balanced game.

Yeah, just not a shambolic performance. Just let it be a decent one. Inter sit in second place on 40 points. They're 13 behind Napoli and just two ahead of Lazio, Atalanta and Milan. Whereas Cremonaese are in 20th, still just on eight points and still haven't won a single game all season. Juventus nil Monza 2. The second win for Monza over Juventus this season. It's almost like the reward, bro, for beating Juventus.

It's almost like the president and the management of the team incentivize victories against clubs of a certain nature by rewarding them with some kind of gift. Yeah, it's almost like the president of Monza publicly stated that the Monza players would be receiving some kind of service if they manage to beat Juventus this season. I believe the quantity of the service, give or take, was around a busload. Yes, give or take. And the nature of the gift inside this bus. They were whores!

Berlusconi is a genius. You promised Pullman Detroit and apparently you beat Juventus twice in a season. Those who don't know, those who haven't been listening, those who haven't been reading the news. Berlusconi publicly said that if the Monza players give the people of Monza a beautiful victory against Juventus, he will get them a bus full of whores. And perhaps that's what incentivizes these people. Boys will be boys with their toys.

Now, you've lined up with a 3-5-2 formation with Cesny in goal, Danilo, Bremer and Gatti at the back, Kostasic on the left and Desilio on the right with Rabio, Paredes and Falcioli in the middle, Di Maria and Moisquin up front. For Monza it was a 3-4-2-1 formation with Di Gregorio in goal. The fantastic, formidable, bombastic Di Gregorio, bro. What a fucking player. How much could he cost? You know he's your age. He was born in 1997. What? Probably a couple of months older than him.

Yeah. Goalkeepers tend to be born towards the beginning of the year. This isn't a horoscope thing. Simply because... If you're an Aquarius, you're probably a goalkeeper. What, bro? Bro, it's true. Because players, children born at the beginning of the year develop faster physically than others. Therefore, at school during PE, during sports... They take wanks in the showers.

These guys would be bigger. When you're a kid, these fucking growth spurts happen so suddenly, bro. And a couple of months difference can mean that you are fucking 5'10", while your classmates are 5'4". And they'll put you in goal. They'll put you center back. You look at these athletes, they were almost as if they were born at the beginning of the year. It's crazy. But anyway... We should run a survey. Do it, bro. With keepers. Now we do it. Next episode. They're all born in December.

Di Gregorio was in goal. Itzo, Mari and Caldi Rolla were at the back, with Churi on the right and Carlos Augusto on the left. Rovella and Moshin were in the middle. Danny Mota was up front with Pesina and Caprari playing behind them. Who did you say Rovella was Moshin? That was brilliant. Thank you. Monza thought they took an early lead through a very clean strike by Caprari, but VAR deemed the Italian to be offside.

Close call there for Juve, but then in the 17th minute, a beautiful run of the ball behind the defense by Churia was met by Moshin's through ball, and the Italian hit the ball into the roof of the net over Cesny. Churia goal, Moshin assist. Now I've been big on Moshin for a while, and I was really worried that due to the investments that Monza made, he would be forced out and get little game time.

That seemed to be the trend at the beginning of the season, but I think he's just showing too much quality to be benched at this point. He's a very tidy midfielder and a massive reason as to why they're in promotion last year. True, yes, for sure. In the 38th minute, Mamma Mia, Carlos Augusto, the man dispossessed Di Maria, dribbled past Rabiot, held the ball until Mota was in an onside position, dribbled past Bremer, played the ball to Mota, Mota rounded Cesny and scored.

What a goal. Carlos Augusto was super. That was incredible by the left back man. Incredible, that whole move. Even Dani Mota, take nothing away from Mota, the way he rounded Cesny and finished cleanly over there with a player on the line. Beautiful goal by Monza. Bro, Monza can attack. They really can. They're so fluid.

Granted, they're playing against a Juventus team who are demoralized for off the pitch reasons. Right now, it has been publicly stated by Di Maria that they feel like they've been robbed, quite frankly, all their hard work and their valiant efforts in those fucking clean sheets and those narrow victories and those late winners. Everything robbed for some financial irregularities that the players had absolutely nothing to do with.

That must be so frustrating, so demoralizing. I can't help but empathize with these guys. I empathize with the players. They were robbed, however, by their president and by their owner. That's what they were robbed by.

Dani Mota, goal scorer of the second goal, was actually a Juventus player between 2019 and 2020. He has 20 appearances for the Juventus under 23s with seven goals, but he never made an appearance for the senior team and was loaned out to Monza where eventually he made his move permanent. He has played 75 games for Monza since scoring 20 goals. Yep. And here he is in Serie A again, this time getting playing time and scoring goals, man.

Yeah. In the 77th minute, Bremer headed in a rebound after a great Di Gregorio save, but he was clearly in an offside position. So the game ended 2-0. You look at the statistics over here, bro. Monza dominated the possession ever so slightly, 54%. Juventus had 22 shots to Monza's three shots on goal, eight for Juventus, Monza three shots on goal. Two of them resulted in goals. Efficiency.

Crazy, bro. And results like this occur. You know, I'm sure the management right now understand the situation and the complexity of it. They keep backing Allegri. There's a rumor at contract extension till 2027. I'm sure that the fact that Sackingham would be so expensive, that's probably a big reason as well. The fact that right now they need unity, they need stability, they need to rebuild their morale and their motivation.

They need to give these players something to fight for, quite frankly. They sit in 13th right now with 23 points. So the Champions League currently, you know, Atalanta have 38 points. It's very difficult for them. This loss was a massive setback for them. They still have a lot of games to go against teams in the top 10. This wasn't one of them as they faced Monza.

You know, any player with an understanding of the game would have bet on at least a Uwe Winner draw, speaking in betting terms. But a tunnel victory for Monza is massive for Monza. We know they have it in their locker room. We know they're pushing to be a top 10 team in their first season in Serie A. They've made the investments for it. They have a lot of local talent, local young talent that is hungry to be a part of this new project.

Even on the other side, you have maybe a mix of players that aren't too familiar with each other with a lot of injuries and just being docked 15 points because of financial irregularities. What are you playing for at this point? What's your goal? What's your ambition? Allegri's been there for a while. They don't play exciting and enticing football. They stick back and they murder the game.

So that's the difference between the two sides. It doesn't mean that Juve don't win any single game, but they simply came up against the polar opposites of themselves and they lost. They got exposed. They had an exegete of 0.30 in the first half and finished with an exegete of 1.82. Not a very good performance by Juventus over here.

Two wins for Monza against Juve, as I've already said. This is crazy. This is particularly crazy because Palladino hasn't even managed 15 Serie A games yet and he's already beaten Juve twice. Wow, that's pretty good. Keane, Mois Keane had 13 touches in the first half and Vlavic had eight touches off the bench. Welcome back, bro.

Eight saves for Di Gregorio, many of them high quality saves. I believe four of them were insane. Four of them were incredible saves, man. Incredible saves. Go look at the highlights, guys, if you haven't yet. This Bremer dip. I mean, I think the Kiri Kiri cream dip is better. No way is Kirikas better.

But I think it's Juve's defenses of form at the moment. Same way Milan's defenses of form at the moment. They got battered in that Napoli game where they conceded five goals and they simply haven't recovered from it yet. And I think they slightly figured out in the sense that if you want to get goals against Juve, you need to attack Juve and you need to attack them directly.

I think that's exactly what teams have been doing now and they're managing to do that. And I think they're starting to get exposed in the fact that Danilo isn't a natural center back. We saw Gatti coming in now. Still need some more experience over there. You know, Rabio Paredes and Fagioli, do they offer much stability in midfield to safeguard the defense?

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. The system is normally what saves Juve conceding so many goals with everyone sticking back a little bit, but just tactically somewhat all over the place at the moment. So as a result for that place, like Bremer are going to be the ones that struggle and they're going to be the ones exposed and they're going to be the ones fucking up at the end of the day.

You can't have a perfect performance when the system around you is flawed and everyone's fucking it up essentially. So I do sympathize for Bremer at the moment. It's not entirely his fault. Yeah, Juventus three games played, 10 goals allowed. Allegri's brand is currently his weakness. His brand is that he doesn't concede much and all of a sudden he can't stop conceding.

This is funny because Piolli's brand is also his weakness at the moment. Piolli's brand being that of motivating players, giving players courage, giving them the belief. That seems to be his weakness right now. So there's been a little bit of a shift over here. I need to call Sarah and ask her if Mercury is in retrograde. Shall we do that? I was about to make the same joke, but yes, please do it. Let's see. Let's call Sarah. That's what she's going to say.

Oh, she made Bochang La Violin. She's definitely not going to answer. Yeah. Hey, is Mercury in retrograde right now or like is something happening? I don't know. No, but I won't be good for the podium. You're on the podium. Bochang La Violin. Yeah, we thought so. We thought so. I thought you wouldn't answer in fact. So Mercury isn't in retrograde right now. I don't know. Okay. Do you know anyone we can ask so we need some serious answers like? If Mercury is in retrograde.

You don't know like some woman that wears a scarf on her head. Like crystals. Someone in charge. Is there crystals when there's a full moon? I don't know one, but you don't know her. So it would be a bit weird I think. No worry babe. Thank you very much and enjoy your show. Love you. Love you. Thank God she said it back on the podcast. It's only been 10 years. Say it back. I love her reaction. I don't know baby. So sweet. So sweet.

Now, yes, I mean, I feel bad for Juventini. I feel bad for the other players right now. Let's see what they can do. Let's see if Alec can motivate his boys to do better. Monza doing well right now aiming for a conference league spot as things stand. They can actually do it. You know, they have 25 points. Odinez have 28 currently in the conference. Odinez have 29. Perhaps I need to refresh. I fucking put screenshots on every single slide man with the league table for you.

Even before you said that someone is eight points behind Odinez and it was actually nine points. Oh, that's a swallow. We'll start from the beginning, bro. We need to start over. Use the screenshots. Monza have 25 points. Odinez in the conference league spot have 29 points. Exactly. So it's definitely an objective for Monza. 100%. They can do it, man. They can literally do it. The way they play, they definitely can. They have a good project going on over there.

The next game we're going to be covering is Atalanta 2 Sampdoria 0. So Atalanta lined up in their 3-4-2-1 formation with Musso on goal and the back three of Scalvini, Jim City and Toloi. Hattabur out on the right with Mele out on the left. Mitfield 2 of Kup Miners and De Ghone with Bogga out on the left, Luukman out on the right and Hoilund up front. For Sampdoria it was also a 3-4-2-1. A lot of the same formations going up against each other this week. Mercury is fucking up like for sure.

Audero on goal, a back line of Amione, Nuitink and Murru. Leris out on the right and Augel out on the left. Harry Winks and Thomas Rincon together in the midfield. I thought we would ever be saying that. Harry Winks and Rincon in a double pivot like... Gabiadini out on the right, Juricic out on the left and Lammers up front for Sampdoria. So there was a great double save by Musso and Gabiadini and Augel to get things going.

And then the 42nd minute Mele headed in after a hat-a-bur cross to make it 2 goals in 2 games. This came right after Luukman struck the post after his own header following a Bogga cross 1-0 to Atalanta. In the restart in the 57th minute Luukman scored again. Luukman is just on fire this season.

Another sensational goal in matchday 20 as Luukman made quick work of Murru, ran the ball into the box, gave a little cheeky feint to fuck Nuitink up and smashed the ball into the bottom corner through the legs of the defender. This was like he was bullying people. It's like you know when we used to go play football in the swings and we were like what 8 and 10? And some random 17 year old would come play with us and we're like this guy is among the best players in the world right now.

Because he's doing these x-step overs and he's really fast and he's got long legs and he's big. That's what it looked like. He feints, Nuitink opens his legs, just slots in between his legs and scores. Just taking the piss. There was a goal, Papu Gomez scored for Atalanta like that. Yeah, I remember it. At the moment Luukman is one of the best players in Serie A. I am petrified of the man and what an asset he is for Atalanta. Who had 62% ball possession in this game. They had 21 shots.

However, Sampdoria had 15 shots and they had the same amount of shots on target, each with 5. What does that tell us about the game? It tells us that Sampdoria continue to play well under Stankovic but do not get any results for it. It's a hard fixture list at the moment though. It's clear. I believe there was a newspaper that had a headline in Italian. It was Sampdoria good game, no goal. That sums them up pretty well right now. They're playing really well but they're not scoring.

It's looking a bit dire for them at the moment. They really need to get their shit together. What I'm interested in knowing is their fixtures towards the end of the season. You can check that. I'll point out Atalanta's advantage over the other teams in the top six. The fact being that they don't have any European football to worry about and they've actually got decent squad depth. Now they've crashed out of the Coppa Italia so they only have to think about playing once a week in the league.

That is a massive advantage when you look at the likes of Napoli, Inter, Lazio, Milan, Roma. These guys all have European competitions to play in. I was just saying that Sampdoria have had a tough fixture list but to be honest it really wasn't that bad. Atalanta, they had Udinese at home and I know Udinese are Udinese but they've been struggling recently. Away to Empoli, you could do something over there.

And then before that they had Napoli where they obviously lost and before that they had Sassuolo where they won. What's coming up for Sampdoria? What is coming up for Sampdoria? Monza away, Inter home, Bologna home, Lazio away, Salernetana home, Juve away, Verona home, Roma away. Can't help but feel like they're fucked. But then towards the end, so this is from in April, they play Cremona as a home, they play Lecce away, they play Spezia home, Fiorentina away, Torino home.

That's when things kind of look a bit easier but bro honestly prediction right now is Sampdoria go down. All it takes are three victories. These teams at the bottom don't win that much. Not really man because there's a massive gap between where they are right now in 19, nine points behind Spezia. And these teams will mostly lose points. I don't see, personally I don't see Sampdoria and Cremona making it out. They're still on single figures. Sampdoria are only one point ahead of Cremona.

I know, I know, it's true. And then Sampdoria are the team with the most losses this season. Sampdoria have had 15 losses. That's three losses more than Cremona, two losses more than Verona. Definitely disappointing. It's going to be very, very, very tough for them. I'm curious to see though because sometimes these teams do put up a bit of a charge at the end of the season. Salernitana last year, we've seen Crotone do it as well. So yeah, we'll keep our eyes peeled.

Atalanta climb into the Champions League zone, Sampdoria's troubles continue. Yes sir. Atalanta are in fourth with 38 points, Sampdoria are in 19th with nine points. Thanks, King, for filling in over there. It's your turn now. Oh, is it? It is. Udineza won, Hellas Verona won. Now Verona have just lost their talisman Illich as he's off to Torino. They actually debuted for them. I was also surprised to find out that Ongla is out on loan at Real Valladolid. I had no idea.

He's a very good squad player and they're suddenly very thin in the center midfield region. True. They lined up with their three, four, two, one formation with Montepo, Angol, Mannyani, Hain and Cekarini at the back, and with Paoli on the right, Lazovic on the left, Suleymane and Tameze in the middle. I'm a big fan of the Suleymane guy. He's good, he's good, he's good. Young and aying guy. Lazania and Braff played behind the big man, Budgett Zlatan. Yeah. Juretsov, of course.

Braff stopped filming scrubs to come do this. Thank you very much. Who was it? Braff's... Zach Braff. JD. JD. JD. The Silvestri was in goal for Udinese as they lined up with their three, five, two formation. They had Perez, Bijol and Rodrigo Bacau at the back, Udodji on the left, Ezebue on the right, with Arslan, Wallace and Samardzic in the middle. Beato and Success played together up front.

In the fourth minute, Bacau attempted to block Lazovic's long-range strike with his head, but caused the ball to loop over a helpless Silvestri, and that's an own goal for Rodrigo Bacau. Yeah. In the first minute, it was Samardzic who scored as Beato received the ball in the box with his back towards goal, but managed to shield the ball impressively before laying it off to Samardzic, who slotted it neatly with a toe poke into the bottom corner.

Tell them what this did to your Fanta on the other one. Okay, so I have two Fanta cultures, Matthew resents one of them. Because he's not in it. I think it's silly to have two Fantas, I really think it is, man. I mean, it's fun, I'm sure it's fun, but how can you never happy like... I'm always happy, bro. You're always happy, but you're always sad. I'm always sad. So basically I was losing 4-2, and it was Monday, and you know, results come out on Tuesdays, the last game, Modena's over on...

We've been depressed this week, obviously, because of what happened on the weekend. And losing 4-2 on fancy football isn't good, and I'm in second place, and I really needed a point at least, you know, to keep up with the person who's first, who happens to be... No, it's not Mintov, actually, it's Kurt Sultana, shout out Kurt. Now, I had Samardzic playing, and he had Rodrigo Bacal. Rodrigo Bacal scored their own goal, his rating goes down to a 3.

Samardzic scores, his rating goes up to a 10, and suddenly we come 3-3, and I get a point. That's crazy, man. That's crazy. I sent him a voice note to taunt him. The guy who was against Lovic Lampied. Until you do, I have Lovic in my team, and Steve, who I was against, our resident Juve fan, you've heard from him before, he has Bacal, and initially it was a Lovic goal for me that made it 4-1, but instead it turned into a Bacal own goal, which made it 3-0 for me. So either way, very happy.

Yeah, this is what I sent. So he tagged me on the WhatsApp chat and said, no comment on what's happening, and I said... Bro, I don't want to fucking speak too soon and jinx everything, but I can't believe it. And he said, me neither, I want to cry, that's all. We came all the way here, we came all the way here, to see the Lord Beka. We have to say, Bacal scored an own goal with the same head that has made Milan fans cry on so many times, and that has made other people come in five seconds.

Guys, if you don't play Fanta culture, you should totally get into it. Find a few friends of yours who are passionate, who will actually do their team every weekend. It's so much fun, guys. For sure, man. For sure. It changes your weekend entirely. And when your team isn't performing well, at least you can look at your Fanta and that you could be performing well. Exactly. So, Udinese had 55% ball possession, they took 26 shots compared to Hellas Verona's 10.

Udinese had 8 shots on target, and Verona had 2 shots on target. I think Verona started the game quick, as they have been recently, as they were known for in the past. But obviously when they weren't performing well, they didn't have that trait to them, but they're managing to start games off fast. Again, I think Zaffaroni has reinstilled this kind of identity in them.

However, if there is then one place that Udinese kind of, where they're good essentially, is that they have 90 minutes of play in them. And this allowed them not only to get back into the game, but for the rest of the game, they were the better side, throughout the, after Verona scored really. Still, obviously they're missing certain key pieces within their team, with Pereira and Delafour out. Delafour out injured, requires surgery. Pereira, I think it's more of a precautionary kind of thing.

So I think once they get those back in and running, well, they won't be at full flow again, but they'll be much better and maybe they'll make quick work of a side like Verona. Yes, Verona have really tightened things up. They are the team in the bottom three who have got their shit together the most. Udinese came up against a tough opponent without two key pieces and they lost two valuable points over here. Verona are currently in 18th with 13 points, while Udinese are 7th with 29 points.

The next game we're going to be covering is Bologna 2, Spezia 0. It is my turn, right? I think so. Yes, it is. Bologna 2, Spezia 0. So Bologna lined up in their 4-2-3-1 formation with Skorupski in goal, Cambiasso as their left back, Posz as their right back and Lukumi and Saumauro as the two centre backs. Schouten and Morrow as the double pivot, Soriano out on the left or Solini out on the right, Ferguson in the attacking mid with Zergzei up front.

For Spezia it was a 3-4-1-2 formation with Drangowski in goal, a backline of Amian, Kaldara and Nikolaou. Holm out on the right and Drake out on the left with Ampadu, Borabja and Kovalenko in the middle, Agudelo up front alongside Emmanuel Giassi. So in the 36th minute Cambiasso's cross was controlled by Orsolini and hoofed into the roof of the net by Posz from close range.

Shout out to Zergzei for his good work out wide and the build up, really good close ball control over there, managing to contribute very well to this goal. Zergzei is a hot talent man and he's playing really well under Mota. Bologna are playing really well under Mota and they were by far the better team. I can't stress this point about Zergzei, he flows. He's silky, he's smooth, he's got good close ball control, does he have an eye for a goal?

That's the question and I guess we'll figure that out soon enough. He's a young player, tall, technical, very excited. He's got Bayern Munich on his resume as well. And he's got Mournoutov, who has his Mente, I can learn a lot from him. 100% Skorupski had a highlight reel double save as he got down well to deny Rekha's long range strike and threw himself between Jasi and the empty net to deny the Ghanaian a rare goal.

Brilliant save by Skorupski, I always say what a massive fan I am of him, it's no different over here. Orsolini thought he wrapped up the victory after tapping in Soriano's cross shot, but he was deemed to be in an offside position. However, then in the 77th minute he did manage to wrap up the game after a brilliant true ball by Dominguez from his own half, but Orsolini cleaned through on goal and the Italian finished brilliantly into the top corner.

Orsolini likes a finish into the roof of the net slash into the top corner, he rarely goes for those low ones, catches the keeper off guard. He scores as many as he misses, right? That's the thing with Orsolini. He also never passes. He never passes. But himself, Soriano and Dominguez have found some very good form, something that they each struggle with, especially Soriano and Orsolini. But they're ticking now, they're ticking under Mota and they're looking very good, man.

That assist by Dominguez for the second goal was sensational, sensational, man. They tore Spezia apart, Spezia looked to struggle, especially without Nzola. They have brought in Shomorodov from Roma, and that's an exciting signing. If you do play Fanta culture, you might want to pick him up over there. I can see Shomorodov doing quite well with the Spezia team. The guy is a decent striker, he needs a new environment to express himself and this might be the perfect place.

And you only need two things to play for Spezia, and that is not being the first choice in your team, but having a massive set of nuts. And that's exactly what Shomorodov does. The man from Uzbekistan, is it? I believe it is Uzbekistan. I mean, Bologna control this game over a struggling Spezia side, you know you have Bologna that are playing very good football at the moment and are finding themselves.

Whereas Spezia, you can't fault their efforts, but they're nowhere on the same level as Bologna, obviously at the moment. They're nowhere near the level of most teams in Serie A this season. In fact, they only managed to get six shots away, whereas Bologna managed to get 18 and Bologna controlled the position as well, 58 to 42. Verona continue to climb closer to Spezia to escape the relegation zone, as Spezia are currently on 18 points and Verona are currently on 13 points. Yep.

We'll see, we'll see. Spezia have survived three seasons in a row in Serie A, let's see if they can continue to do it. And let's see if they can rack things up. Let's see if Shomorodov can come in and make a difference over here. Yes, sir. On the other hand, Bologna are in ninth place on 26 points. They have something to play for over here. Bologna, it's very tight in their area. Odinese, who are seventh, are on 29 points. Torino, who are eighth, are on 27 points.

Bologna and Empoli are on 26. Monza just behind them on 25. Fiorentina on 24. Juve on 23. Salernetana on 21. Then let's dress as Wallo on 20. What a league, what a league, what a league. The next game we're going to be covering is Empoli 2, Torino 2, one of the most exciting games of the weekend. Empoli lined up with their 4-3-1-2 formation with Vicario on goal, Kakaccio on the left, Abuehi on the right,

with De Winter and Luperto at the back. Bandinelli, Márden and Akba Akpro were in the middle, with Baldanzi in the free roll and the trequartista position. Caputo and Satriano were the duo up front. For Torino it was their 3-4-1-2 formation with Milankovic-Salvic on goal, Schürr's Buongiorno and Riccardo Rodriguez at the back, with Bailleje and Voi on the wings, with Linetti and Ricci as the double pivot with Vlasic in front of them,

Demba sec up front alongside Radonjic. You will realise over here that Torino arrested some players for the Coppa Italia clash against Fiorentina, which they lost. Bellotti just got his first goal for Roma over here in the Coppa Italia. Nice, that's a little too late for them, it's like the 94th minute. Yeah, they've got one minute left of playing. So it all started off in the 37th minute when Luperto bagged his first ever Seia goal after heading in Márden's corner at the near post.

What a goal that was. In the 59th minute, Richie's back heel volley struck the post after a Voi-Voda cross, denying the Italian a goal against his former team. He looked inspired, Richie, he wanted to do some damage over there. Really and truly, man. In the 68th minute, Márden scored thanks to a Caputo assist. Now this goal was sensational. It's not often that one leaves Van Jummelinkovic-Salvic rooted to the spot, but the stadium stood still as Márden fired the first-time knuckleball

into the fucking far-top corner from outside the area. Could have easily been goal of the week. Definitely, man, and one of the goals of the season thus far. Find a cleaner strike. I dare you. In the 81st minute, the Torino comeback started. They introduced a few of their starters, and after no shortage of trying, Richie finally managed to get a goal against his former team. Rangxuk's cross was controlled by Schuers and finished off by Richie, with Vicario almost managing to keep it out to one.

In the 85th minute, Sanabria, who had come on, managed to curl the ball into the bottom corner from just outside the area, as he was given a second of space. The Spaniard can be quite lethal. In the 89th minute, Torino thought they had completed the most dramatic of comebacks after Mironxuk's half volley hit the post. It would have been another sensational goal. What a game, brother. What a game. What a game.

One could say that this was a direct clash for Europe. Astorino are currently 8th with 26 points, and the Tascana are only one point away. Yes, and you look at how long a season is, and it's moments like this that could define the story of certain teams. It would obviously be premature to say that these teams are fighting for Europe, with it being so early on in the season. But had Empoli, for example, gotten a victory over here and got a good run of form to them, which they're currently on,

it could be a totally different story, man. The squad's mentality would be totally different. Do you think it was foolish of Torino to rest players for the Coppa Italia? I mean, yes, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean... You saw the damage they did when they brought on their starters. Exactly, exactly. And they got two goals in quick succession over there. That wasn't a coincidence, guys. It wasn't just a shift in form. It wasn't just a shift in momentum.

They did introduce players that they would normally start, the real game changers that they normally have available. But it just goes to show, you know, maybe Torino aren't really aspiring for Europe. Maybe they want to progress in the Coppa. Maybe they want some silverware. They know they're not going to get relegated. It's very unlikely that they do get relegated. So, yeah, it just shows you what the team's prioritising right now. Totally, bro. So Torino brought in Ilić. Yeah.

But one player who made the difference in this game was Lukic off the bench. He came on and he played amazingly, but unfortunately he's been sold to Fulham. Exactly. So we won't be seeing him anymore. Another good little player that leaves the league. I'm going to miss Sasha Lukic, man. I'm really going to miss him. I wish him the best of luck. Yeah, same. In his endeavours with Fulham. But yes, MPOLI continue to play their attractive brand of football that Zanetti promotes.

As I always say, we saw glimpses of this with Venezia with the worst team, but now that he actually has a decent team to manage, he's doing way better and his brand is really coming off. Torino, on the other hand, continue to be pretty hit and miss, perhaps a little bit naive over here, resting players. I think they could have taken all three points had they approached this game with their starters. I don't particularly like Baeyeh out wide. I don't think he's ready to be starting.

Sec is playing out of position up front. I think starting Sanabria would have been the way to go, of course. But whatever, they probably thought they could get the job done. Yeah, that's another point. Maybe they're not prioritising the Copa. Maybe it's just a lack of respect they had for their opponents over there as well. But it's very unlike a manager like Juric to underestimate a side. He's one of those coaches that overprepairs for every single fixture.

Yeah, but in this case, it was not the case. You look at the stats, Torino had 54% of ball possession as each team had four shots on target apiece. It was a very balanced game, a story of two halves, Empoli dominating the first one, Torino coming back with their starters in the second. That is what sums up the game perfectly. Torino are in eighth with 27 points, Empoli are in tenth with 26 points.

The next game we're going to be covering and the final game we're going to be covering is Lecce 1-Salernetana 2 relegation battle. Falcone in goal for Lecce as they start in their 4-3-3 formation with Petzell out on the left, Gendre out on the right and Umtiti and Basquirotta forming that formidable back two. Mahle, Hülmend and Blin in the midfield with Streffetza out on the left, Udin out on the right and Colombo up front.

For Salernetana it was also a 4-3-3 formation with Ochoa on goal and the back line of Sambia, Truste, Kong, Bron and Braderich. It was Koulibaly, Bohinen and Villena that formed their midfield three with Kandrev out on the right, DIA out on the left and Piontek up front. In the fourth minute DIA half-vollied the ball cleanly into the bottom corner from outside the area after a defensive header by Petzella.

It was an absolutely fantastic strike by DIA. It was in contention for our goal of the week as well, especially since it happened quite early on during the weekend. We were like, okay, that's our goal of the week sorted. Little did we know. Sambia forced Falcone into a good save after going for a free kick from some serious distance. A wall wasn't even set up. It reminded me of that goal that Chala Noglo had scored in Germany. Similar hit as well, just didn't get that bob to it.

And it was that far out. Exactly, and Falcone managed to save it. In the 19th minute Villena made it 2-4 Salernitana. Lecce were dispossessed in their own half and Umtiti would be disappointed after failing to deal with DIA's through ball as it fell to Villena who finished well. A rare error you would see by Umtiti over there as to be honest, he should have intercepted that. However, it was only four minutes later that Streffetza managed to pull one back.

Somehow he managed to control Petzella's hard driven ball and dive into a finish inside the area making it 2-1. In the 32nd minute, just nine minutes later, Sambia cleared the ball off the line to deny Heulman. The first half was very exciting, second half not so much and the game ends 2-1 to Salernitana giving Davide Nicola a victory upon his return. Bro, Salernitana were amazing with this game. They really really were man.

They dealt an early double blow just like an experienced Serie A side, they managed to hold onto it until the end. Particularly I thought that Salernitana dropping deep to cover the wings after the 2-0 was an amazing idea. They managed to shut out Bandan and Streffetza using their midfielders to double mark them. That left lots of space for Lecce's midfield to do some damage but that's when Christophe Piontek comes in bro. What a masterful defensive shift this guy put in, what a mature display.

He was all over those creative midfielders man. These are the sorts of performances that go under the radar. Piontek hasn't been scoring, Piontek is playing with Salernitana. He's putting in these massive displays and that won them the game over here. Salernitana nowadays do have some big names in their team. When I say big names I mean Piontek, DIA, Ochoa, some familiar faces, exactly, Candreva. But they're not a team of individuals, they are a team.

And this is what saved them from relegation last year. It's what Davide Nicola promoted and it's what they still have because of Davide Nicola and the team he's created over here. That's it, that's Salernitana for you. They've moved away, Davide Nicola has moved away from the 3-5-2 formation. He's gone for a 4-3-3. This 4-3-3 transforms to a 4-5-1 in the not in possession phase. DIA has been playing on the wing, he's been playing amazingly.

Trostekong has come in and he's playing like he's been there for ages quite frankly. And yes Salernitana can be proud of this display, they can hold their heads up high. Davide Nicola is back baby. Yes he is and Salernitana quite safe right now. They actually jumped Lecce because of this game. So Salernitana are now in 14th on 21 points, Lecce in 15th on 20 points. Both of them are still 7 and 8 points clear of Verona in relegation and they have Sassuola and Spezia behind them.

Whose Spezia situation is far more dire than both these teams. Especially when you see that Salernitana two seasons ago were in Serie A, Lecce were in Serie A last year. And we had the debate a couple of years ago bro of teams coming up to Serie A and just going back down instantly. And Mintov I remember had asked us a question, he had asked us what can the Serie A do to avoid this, to promote teams coming up from Serie A but doing better, should they be given funds to do better, so on so forth.

Should less teams get relegated, should less teams get promoted. But wow over the past two seasons we've really seen newly promoted teams putting in a shift. Projects, we've seen projects coming up and we've seen those not willing to invest get punished. We've seen the likes of Genoa and Sampdoria struggle, we've seen the likes of Verona struggle, Justice, Caliari and Parma are two big examples. Genoa. It's true yeah. I mean it's good to see to be honest.

You are rewarded for your positivity, you are punished for your negativity. Exactly. We forgot to mention, so wait let's say yes, okay you mentioned where they are on the table so we can move on to this point. We forgot to mention Zaniolo. Zaniolo bro was trying to force himself out of Roma by publicly stating that he wants to leave. Yes a very dangerous game when Mourinho is your man. There were the likes of Tottenham that seemed to be interested, there was Milan who were very interested.

Burnmouth. Burnmouth put in an offer of 30 million and Roma were just like you know what if no one matches that offer you're not going anywhere. Milan put in an offer I believe of like 23 million rejected by Roma. Now because Zaniolo didn't want to join Burnmouth, Roma were ready to let him go to go to Burnmouth. He's like no I want to go to Milan so Roma were just waiting for Milan to match the offer for someone to match the offer.

So after all this Zaniolo changed his mind and he was like you know what actually I'd rather not be frozen out of the squad for the rest of the season. Fine I'll join Burnmouth no problem but then Burnmouth couldn't actually put in an offer because they had signed Hamad Traore another gem leaving Serie A from Sassuolo. So Zaniolo is currently frozen out of the Roma squad and things aren't looking great for him.

But the positive thing is that Mourinho is his manager and Mourinho is so the type to you know if he needs him he'll just be like ah my boy you're back you know. Let's get back to it he's so the type to do that. Zaniolo even moved out of Rome to live in I believe correct me if I'm wrong it might be something crazy I'm saying to La Spezia. I don't know where Zaniolo is living. Well he's living out of Rome because the fans were giving him too much of a hard time. He was threatened in his own home.

Yes I saw the news article he was threatened in his own home so he's living in La Spezia. I don't know if it's La Spezia because I believe La Spezia is next to Cinque Terre and that's quite far from Rome. Yes okay I'm not sure. Well guys we just don't want to give away where Zaniolo is living we know. We know. We got you Zani we know you're going to be a Milan player next week. Bro. Cremonezza have eliminated Roma from the Coppa Italia with a score of 2-1.

The pelotigor was not enough to cancel out Charles Pickle and who else scored? Charles Pickle. From the penalty. Desers. Desers. Yeah good win for Cremonezza as they head to the semi-finals and they'll face either Juve or Lazio. Yes if Cremonezza or Fiorentina win the Coppa Italia sixth place goes to Conference League. Wow. Yeah. Wow sixth place goes to Conference League. Yes because winning the Coppa Italia guarantees you a Rappali qualification. Wow okay. Very exciting stuff.

Very exciting stuff. But guys it's been another great episode. We always enjoy doing this. We always look forward to it every week although so much work goes into it. Send us a DM. Close friends. Yes. We'll add you to our close friends so you can see a bit of behind the scenes guys. We're looking forward to this. Exactly. Exactly. And don't forget guys to follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, at Serial Spotlight. Give us a nice little rating wherever you're listening. We love you all.

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