Sansone, easily away from Luka. Sansone, that's a lovely ball in and brilliantly buried by Roberto Piccoli. It's his first let's-it goal, it's the equaliser here. And Udinese just can't get over the line when it comes to this first victory. Hello and welcome to Serie A Spotlight episode 97. I'm your host Jake, riding solo for this one as Matt has had to catch a flight to Australia to deal with a family emergency.
He might have to stay there for a few weeks and I'll try to keep this show afloat without his very capable hands. I might have to actually call in some reinforcements to keep this show afloat. Feel free to send me your best wishes guys, I'm sure he'll be very happy to hear from you. But until then... That's right, fuck you Matt, this is my show now. My rules, goal of the week, Piccoli assisted by Sansone, what a fantastic dribble and cross that was by the substitute Sansone.
I believe it was Luka who he beat, whipped the ball in and Piccoli just playing the off-site trap perfectly off the shoulder of the defender over their extensive foot and scores. Brilliant goal, that's my goal of the week. So the weekend is over guys, meaning that matchday nine has come to a conclusion. A very exciting weekend of football and I enjoyed watching many of the games.
Now that the 12-30 games have started, the games are more spread out and we have more of an opportunity to keep an eye out on these teams, you know, without teams playing at the exact same times. It's more enjoyable like this in my opinion. But yeah, there weren't any crazy goals this weekend in my opinion. I'll put a poll down on Spotify so you can vote for your favorite goal this weekend. I'm sure Guvara Tskelja's will probably take the cake.
It was a good goal, nothing crazy in my opinion, I was more impressed by Piccoli's goal and the substitutes linking up. But anyway, I think we should get into the action. The weekly rundown, Matt normally kills this, let's see how I do. Juventus beat Milan 1-0 at San Siro thanks to a deflected goal by Manuel Locatelli after Chau's red card early on in the game. Inter had to wait till late to beat Torino 3-0 away from home.
Napoli smashed Helas Verona 3-1 away from home while Roma left it till late to beat Monza 1-0 at the Olympics. Atalanta weren't having any of that Genoa are good stuff and beat them 2-0 at home. Fiorentina and Empoli faced off on a Tuscan derby which saw Empoli beating Fiorentina with a score of 2 goals to nil.
Sasuolo continue to demonstrate how absolutely terrible their defenses as they lost 2-0 to Lazio at home, Bologna beat Frosinone 2-1 at home, with Deneza and Letria 4-1 to a 1-1 draw while Salentan and Caleri also 4-2 a dramatic 2-2 draw. Well anyway guys we can kick things off of the Sun-0 where Juva beat Milan with a score of 1 goal to nil to hop to 3rd place in the table.
This was heavily influenced by a Malik Chau red card which occurred in the 40th minute as he was in a 50-50 with Moise Keen which saw Keen to be honest who's really improved recently outmisling Chau dropping him to the floor essentially and Chau slipped really. And as Keen was breaking away Chau panicked and that's in that split second I'm not sure if he had realized that he was the last man but he pulled his shirt resulting in a very clear red card.
But before we do get into the events of the game I want to go through the lineups for Milan it was a 4-2-3-1 formation with Miranda in goal for following the suspension of Manjane and the last minute injury of Sportiello, Florencia as the left back following the suspension of Teo Hernandez, Tomorri Chau and Calabria forming the back 4. As for the midfield 3 this consisted of Moosa, Adley and Reinders.
Of course this can be seen as quite a makeshift midfield 3 considering that it consists of two new signings and a player who didn't feel charitable last season. This is all because of Kronich who was not fit enough to start following his injury, Benasser still out injured, Ruben Loftus-Triek was still out injured so purely didn't really have many options over there. Rafael Leaud was out on the left while Pulisic was out on the right with Giroud playing as the lone striker.
It is also worth noting that Cio Cuesa picked up a last minute injury as well and was not able to feature for Milan this game. For Maxa Legri's Juventus it was a 3-5-2 formation with Cesney in goal, Gatti Bremer and Rugani at the back with Wehr out on the right, Costich out on the left, Robbio Locatelian-Mikenni in the middle with a striking partnership of Keene and Millic.
You'll notice the absence of Danilo who was injured as well as the absence of Vlaovic and Keazza who were on the bench for this game as they've just returned from injury and were not quite fit enough to start.
Now the game kicked off with Milan playing on the upper hand, front foot, taking the game to Juventus and really pushing for a goal and we did see an instance of sexy champagne football where Leaud kept stretching the game out wide, one-viewed, one-ing, Gatti basically and beating him pretty much every time early on. He had one moment where he took the ball down, knocked it all the way to the edge of the area, chopped back, Gatti is Leaud's dog and he's being walked at this point.
Then Leaud just whips in a perfect ball to Giroud who controls it perfectly and strikes it but there was a massive, incredible fingertip save by Cesney over there to deny the Frenchman. Now after this of course there weren't really any clear cut chances but in the 40th minute was when Chow did get sent off as I described earlier. Now do I blame Chow? Yes, yes, sure, I do blame Chow. Does this change my perspective of him as a player?
No, it doesn't to be honest with you and we've mentioned on this podcast before that Malik Chow for those people who watched him in Germany back in the day did have this kind of reputation to him. Massive talent, incredible defender, has mistakes in him and that's what he gets with young defenders, that's what he gets. It's part of the package deal.
These guys don't have the experience to deal with situations like this well, that could have been the first time he ever faced a situation like that in a game. Next time he'll know better. I'm not gonna really slate him for it, it just sucks that Milan seem to be rotating their best players and seem to always be missing one of their big players in each game with all the yellow cards and red cards that they've got this season.
They really do have a disciplinary issue right now and I think they lead the red card stats right now. They have three red cards, that's the most in the league. But anyway the game continued, Milan continued to press and to play on the front foot to be honest despite being a man down. They had Juventus pinned back and they were really attacking them and going for their throat.
But in the 63rd minute former Milan youth player Manuel Locatelli struck the ball from a distance, deflected off Radicronica's foot and ended up in the back of the net. A very unfortunate goal for Milan at that point, especially you know, solving the wounds seeing Manuel Locatelli who had scored a very similar goal in 2016. Now get this guys. In 2016 Milan were very bad and came against a very good Juventus side.
Their young midfielder who had just scored his first ever goal in Serie A the previous week against Sassuolo scored the winner of that game, Manuel Locatelli. Fast forward to 2023 and now it's a bad Juve side, some are calling this Juve side the worst that they've seen in their lifetime or since the del Neri days. Yeah, against a very good Milan side who made it to the Champions League semi-final who won this cadet not too long ago and Manuel Locatelli scores the winning goal.
Sometimes these things just align. Now there are a few things I would like to point out about this game, the first one being of course so okay. You're a man down. Imagine this, you're a man down and you've got this Milan team and you're looking at this Milan team and you're thinking to yourself okay, we're a man down.
We're going to continue to attack them, we're going to continue to play our football, we're going to try to bring this result home because we are better with 10 men than they are with 11 men. Okay, fair enough, fair enough, go for it, go for it. But why are you keeping on Jiru in that case, in that situation? Guys, I don't want to be the guy that's always like hating on Jiru but you can't be a man down. You have to run twice the amount and you keep Jiru, your 37 year old striker on the pitch.
It doesn't make any sense. And then who do you take out? Pulisic, who a few moments before had pressed like three men after losing the ball in a row and looked pretty much unfazed but the amount of running here had just done. He just doesn't make any sense taking out Pulisic and leaving Jiru on only to bring on Jovic later because he has the same characteristics as Jiru apparently according to Piolli. But that's the wrong decision.
You've got Chouquette as a suspended, you've got Okofar not at his best, you're admitting Okofar is not at his best so you can't play right now. The guy who scored three goals. So who exactly is going to run for you over here? Who's going to run? You know, I mean Jovic, sure, he inserted himself in these 50-50s, he attacked the ball, okay, enough, yes, bring him on later on. But it was Jiru who had to go, I think.
Now I don't know if Piolli's idea was, you know, try to get a knockdown on to layout, try to flick the ball off of Jiru on to layout to break away but there was too much pressure on layout to create without Pulisic on the pitch over there and I think that was a big mistake by Piolli personally. I mean, if you look at the timestamps of the match, it really paints a picture for you.
So 40th minute, Chow, red card, 43rd minute, Pulisic out for Kalulu and then in the 60th minute it took out Jiru and brought on Jovic, only for the 79th minute to come and Piolli would be like, wow, we really need someone to run at them, we really need someone to offer some width and to try to stretch the game and he ended up bringing on the teenager Luca Romero. Like sure, okay, bring on Romero at the end but that could have been Pulisic the entire time, yeah, whatever.
So another thing I want to discuss is how dramatic people have been about this fixture being a poor ad for Seria or whatever, like first of all, dude, who cares, dude, this is one game, one game that wasn't beautiful, like, are you sure, yeah, it's Juventus at the end of the day, okay, you have Juventus playing against a 10 man Milan, this is the ad you want to pick for Seria, what about Fiorinti and Anopoli, which was the best game of football I've seen all season, for example.
There have been so many good games this season, there have been so many good games in Seria recently in general, like, and so many good performances from Italian teams who had Atalanta and the Champions League smashing, lots of scoring with their goalkeeper at the end of the Champions League match demonstrating a good ad, last season, two Italian teams and the Champions League semi-final, like why is everyone worried about this ad for Seria just because of a poor match?
Okay, granted, these sides are both title contenders, but they came into this game with many missing important pieces. You have a team, Juventus always set up very pragmatically, they're known for setting up pragmatically, Atletico set up pragmatically as well in the league, does that mean that they're a bad ad for the league? No, they demonstrate something different and unique about the league, they show you both sides, right?
You've got your Real Madrid, you've got your Barcelona, you've got your Atletico Madrid, you know? Seria is full of entertaining teams, you don't need to fucking look at this game as an ad. If you want an ad, look at Frosinona who've just come up and are playing beautiful, positive, offensive football and sit halfway up the table in the first season since they were back from Seria without any experienced players in their team.
It's totally reactionary, totally dramatic and totally uncalled for in my opinion. Not anyway, I would like to praise Juventus who despite their futile starting 11, put up a very solid defensive display.
It's never easy playing against the likes of Lea Ojuru, Polisik, no matter, even though it was only for 40 minutes they held their own very well and they do say that great defense is kind of in your leagues and Juve definitely do have a great defense as they only conceded six goals this season so far. So remember they play once a week, they are definitely title contenders.
I do respect the style that Juve went for over here, Allegri thought to himself these guys have got more firepower than us, let's sit back, let's absorb and let's hit them on the counter, we'll exploit them the second an opportunity comes and that's exactly what they did. I know Juve fans are often frustrated with Allegri especially when he does this against the smaller teams he should probably be beating, comfortably that is.
But yeah I thought he approached this game very well and it was absolutely hilarious seeing him at the end of the game when Juve were trying to play the ball in tight channels I believe it was Miretti, he got so pissed off that he removed his tie, he unbuttoned his shirt, he started getting naked dude. This is the exact same thing that Kevin Prince Boateng said recently in an interview that Deserby does, they worked together at Sa Swolo.
Apparently Deserby would get so frustrated in training that they would just rip his pants off and I have no idea, I would love to speak to someone who studies the human mind and ask them why is it that when some people get pissed off especially Mediterranean people why do they start removing clothes, what's the connection over there please, if someone knows please do tell me, but yeah later on in an interview Allegri said they were a man
down, we were risking it, we should have been playing like we were at the airport instead of playing in a very tight space with Leao ready to run in behind and punish us and he's absolutely right, yes and his tantrum worked because they definitely didn't concede the goal after that they had to come all three points as Juve are currently sitting third with 20 points while Milan sit in second with 21 points behind Inter who are first with 22 points.
Speaking of Inter, we should probably talk about their game against Torino away from home which resulted in a 3-0 victory against Ivan Urić's men who have not had a great time recently as they suffered their fourth consecutive game without scoring a single goal and their third defeat in the last four matches.
Vlasić did try something new this game he lined up with 4-2-3-1 formation and when he usually plays 3 at the back formation this time he lined up with Vanja and Goud, Ricardo Rodriguez, Tamesi, Schuers and Bellanova at the back with Ritji and Linetti as a double pivot and Sek Vlasić and Lazaro playing behind Pellegri up front.
For Inter it was business as usual with Summer in goal, Archeri B. Devry and Pavard at the back with Darmian out on the right, DeMarco on the left, Mikitaari in Shalanoglou and Barrella in the middle with a striking partnership of Lautaro Martinez and Thuram. The game started off with Inter looking pretty surprised at Urić's setup and they simply couldn't crack them early on.
Torino showed resilience and they controlled the flanks and Inter had to rely on Summer actually to make two fantastic saves before Schuers, the centre back for Torino, suffered a terrible injury and was stretched off the pitch in tears.
It turns out that he has done his cruciate ligament and will be out for a very long time so I do wish him a speedy recovery, he was playing absolutely phenomenally, the tackles he was pulling off were amazing and his awareness was just next level, he was having a very very good game Schuers, it's a shame that we won't be seeing him for a while and Torino will most certainly miss him.
So this injury proved to be a turning point as this is when the goals came flying in, Inter made substitutions, they brought on Fratesi, Carlos Augusto and D'Amfri to exploit Torino's moment of defensive disorganisation with the injury and they broke the deadlock immediately as D'Amfri provided an assist for Thuram who scored his third Serie A goal.
Lautaro Martinez then later on scored a goal from a corner, he has now scored 11 goals in the league so far along with one assist, that's absolutely mental considering the second highest score is Victor Rosimian with 6 goals so far. And the party did not stop there as a late challenge in the dying moments of the game led to a penalty for Inter which was converted by Hakka and Chala Noglu.
Now you've got to give it to Inter, Torino by no means an easy opponent and they do tend to be Inter's kryptonite. In Zaghi, similarly to Allegri in the first game, exploited a moment of chaos, a moment of disorganisation for Torino's, they were trying to go put an injury, it just took nine minutes for them to score after Schuers was stretched off in tears.
It is worth noting some talking points I have from the game, Nico Barella seems distracted lately, he doesn't quite seem himself, he's complaining even more than usual, he's constantly shouting at his teammates, his arms are fliggling I'm surprised he doesn't have massive biceps and triceps at this point because he's been waving his arms around like crazy, I'm not quite sure what's going on, Barella right now but he could definitely, definitely, definitely
chill out and I'm sure his teammates would appreciate that because he must be an absolute nightmare to have as a teammate. Another point I would like to make is how effortlessly Pavard has just slipped into that back three, I guess a player of his quality and his experience wouldn't struggle in an organised side, he has good footballing IQ and he clearly understands the system and plays very, very well for them.
Thuram might just be the signing of the season in Serie A so far, I think Pulisic, thank you for my shout as well considering he scored four goals but Thuram has really done it in big moments for Inter so far this season and he's linking up perfectly and he's proving to be a really good Lukaku replacement. So kudos to him, let's see if we can keep this up for the rest of the season.
As for Torino, now we know that Eurydice is very disappointed, he was crying after a game recently because he hasn't quite got things to tick for Torino which is a real shame because he does care and he's clearly willing to experiment with the starting eleven and to get things ticking but the side is organised, right?
Look at the team, it's organised, defensively it's sound, the passengers of play are good, the transition from defence to midfield is good, the problem is getting the ball in the box, the problem is creating goalscoring opportunities and this has been a problem with Torino for quite a while now.
Duvan Zapata's injury of course does not help having to start with Pelé Agri up front who's never had a prolific season yet, doesn't give them much confidence and it was always going to take a moment of magic for Torino to score against Inter, especially looking at the players over here, maybe Vlasic could have done something. I think Dembasek got very close as well with the curling effort here.
But anyway, going forward Eurydice really is struggling, I don't know if sacking him would be smart personally because I do think he's a fantastic coach and Torino have definitely improved by miles since he's taken over.
But there is something missing and you can't look at this team anymore and say that it's not, there isn't potential, you know, because the team is very good, nowadays there's a lot of young talent, granted there aren't many prolific stars but he does have two strikers in Sanabria and Duvan Zapata who you should be able to get goals out of now granted, they're both injured.
I believe Sanabria has just recovered and he came on this game in fact in the, let's just check that 74th minute so he's slowly slowly making his way back. I would give Eurydice the season, see how Torino finish and if there isn't any significant progress maybe yes it would be time to move on to someone else, especially with all the young talent that there is at the Torino side, you look at the likes of Riptree for example, you look at Bon Giorno, you look at Shure's, these guys are all amazing.
So yeah, it would be smart to try to keep the trajectory upwards. As we mentioned, Inter sit in first place with 22 points while Torino sit down in 14th with 9 points. And on that note we can move on to the current champions of Italy, Napoli who took on Helas Verona at the Bentegodi Stadium. Now Verona historically are a tough nut the crack for Napoli, there were many tough fixtures and many bogey teams for the big seven this weekend. The score of this one was 3-1 sorry to Napoli away from home.
Verona lined up with Montipo in goal, Amione, Davidovic and Manjani at the back in a 3-4-2-1 formation, Dujgan Faroni out on the flanks with Serdar and Hongla in the middle, Folloroun Shaw and Engaunsch playing behind Jurec. You might be wondering who is this Serdar guy? Well Suat Serdar is a German 26 year old midfielder who has previously played for Hertha Berlin, Schalke and Mainz in Germany.
As for Napoli it was their 4-3-3 formation with Meret in goal, Dealerin out on the right, Rahmani and Natan forming the center back duo with Mario Rui out on the left, Caustelo Botka and Zelinski in the middle with Politan out on the right, Kvartoskely out on the left and Raspadori replacing the injured Victor Ozimann up front. Now before we get into the game you might be wondering, is Garcia still the Napoli coach?
Jake, last week you and Matt discussed the fact that he might be sacked and that they were looking at the likes of Gian Paolo. I think Dealerin just realized how stupid that is and how stupid that would have been bringing in Gian Paolo at this point in the season because of totally fucked them. I think moving forward with Garcia is the smartest thing to do right now, Dealerin just made his bed and now he's got to sleep in it. It was only ever going to be a downgrade.
You were never going to hire a coach for a cheap price at least who was going to replicate Spalletti season last season. You had a great manager over there, you didn't invest in him and you lost him. You proved to be difficult, your ego proved to be too big and you lost a great manager.
You've replaced him with a manager of a similar style, he plays the same formation quite frankly but quite differently when it comes to the details and now he's criticizing this manager that he's brought in for playing differently to the manager that he sacked himself. I think that this is the clownery of the highest level by ADL and he is the definition of a narcissist to be honest. Now the game actually started off with Hellas Verona on the front foot.
They even forced Meret into two saves off of two corners in quick succession. I believe it was Davidovic and Mannyani who tested twice within a minute. Now starting with Raspadori up front was quite interesting as a choice for Rudy Garcia because it forced them to play the ball low and that is what they did under Spalletti and in fact there were many shades of Spalletti's influence at Napoli in this game.
Because you know with Azimeni you can go long, you can play the ball over the top but with Raspadori you forced to play the ball low and to call for him to come for it essentially. You're not going to play him in behind, he's not the type of player who's going to be played in behind. He will come to you and play off the wingers. Raspadori went on to force Montipo into a diving save as well as lobbed the ball into the path of Poletano who volleyed it home to open up the scoring.
Just before half time Poletano broke free on the break and played the ball to Gvarratskelia who shimmyed past Mannyani and guided him to the bottom corner with absolute ease and it only took to the 55th minute for him to do something similar again as he broke free once again and just guided it calmly past Montipo. Please note it was Poletano to play him through once again. Shimmy, what a player Gvarratskelia is.
Helos Verona did get one back in the 60th minute as a ball over the top was completely misjudged by Rahmani who's just come back from injury. He went ahead the ball, missed it and ended up deflecting off the Lorenzo and falling into the path of Lazovic who just shot it into the back of the net.
Maret was forced into some good saves after that and a bit of clumsy defending by Napoli did put them in danger at times but of course they had quite the safety net with the three goals they scored prior plus the fact that these goals didn't actually go in proved to be an easy victory for Napoli as the second tier stars rise above and prove that they can actually put in a shift and by second tier stars of course I mean not a Victor Rosiman
because it's been all about Victor Rosiman in recent days, in recent months to be honest. Gvarratskelia seems to be at his best, he got married that week and scored two goals. What a week, what a week for him, must be must be great. Paulitano proved that he's a very good player still and that he might even deserve a spot in the starting 11 of the Italian national team because the way he plays when he's on is jaw dropping to be honest with you. Lobotko of course was very good for them Pivotal
and the middle Caustes growing into it. Mario Rui, I prefer Mario Rui to Volevera even though he wasn't particularly brilliant this game, I still much prefer him. For Helas Verona, their team leaves quite a bit to be desired to be honest with you, especially in the offensive department. I think Jury which is a nice reference point is the players behind them not too sold on. Folloruncio is in fact owned by Napoli and has been out
on alone for like six years and I think there's a reason for that to be honest. He is clearly talented but he hasn't made, he hasn't been a difference maker yet and I believe in his best
season so far he scored about eight goals. In Gondjus also a player who's quite streaky on and off and yeah, Dujgan Faroni out wide to be honest that's probably their strength over there behind the defense because the defense is very very good especially when Heian is fit because Heian is a proper defender and he compliments Davidovic very well and I really enjoy watching Manjani Davidovic and Heian because they are all defenders with very different qualities making them just
very entertaining to watch. I almost got to the end of this game without mentioning Gvarlat Skelya's new celebration of course it's like a rapid fire traditional bow and arrow kind of thing where he just I mean I think it's cool kind of overdone to be honest Zakanyi had the celebration for a while
so please be more original come up with something better you know you can do better. This victory takes Napoli up to fourth place with 17 points while Helas Verona sit in 16th place with eight points and on that note we can move on to Roma one Monza Nyl a game that combines two elements from two games that we've already discussed one being a red card and one being a crazy manager let's get
into it. So for Morinio's Roma it was a 3-5-2 formation with Rui Patricio and Goul a back three of Indica, Cristante and Mancini with Spinazol out on the left and Carrsdorp out on the right and a midfield three of Auer, Paredes and Bove Bellotti and Lukaku formed a striking duo up front.
For Raphaele Palodino's Monza it was a 3-4-2-1 formation with DiGregorio and Goul, Calderola, Mari and D'Ambrosia at the back with Pereira out on the right, Kiryacopoulos out on the left, Pesina and Galleradini in the middle with Colpani and Maschine playing off the shoulders of Colombo. Now the game got off to a slow start pace wise mostly because of the heat it was a very hot day when the game was being played and Monza actually dominated the first half 54% ball possession
even though they never really managed to create any danger for Roma. Roma were in their own half for pretty much the entire first half and even received a few jeers and whistles because of their laxie-daisical attitude. It was very interesting to see the way that Monza set up, because Monza liked to play man to man so he had the likes of Colombo and Cristante,
Colpani and Paredes, Maschine on Mancini. The only player who was always free funnily enough was Indica, the new arrival and that's mostly because he's probably the worst at build up play from the lot so they would leave him free, cover everyone else and then press looking to force an error. Danilo D'Ambrosio really had an effect on the game for all the wrong reasons as he was booked in
the 23rd minute and then booked again in the 41st minute. D'Ambrosio has had a new lease of life since leaving Inter and has felt like an important part of a project for probably the first time since joining Inter because he was a fringe player over there. But yeah, he looked over eager and he was injured so he must have been frustrated wanting to come back and really cement
his place in this Monza team and really make a difference and help them out. But that over eager I think does come across sometimes as naive and overly aggressive because Bellotti knew exactly what he was doing when he put himself between D'Ambrosio and the ball in the 41st minute
to get him that second yellow card. In the second half Roma pinned Monza back and we're trying to get a goal and we all know how uncomfortable Roma can be when they have to play on the front foot but Maurinho does have a clear philosophy when a team goes a man down you attack them and that is what they did they attacked them. However it was actually Monza who got close to scoring as Paladino brought on two fresh wingers in Carbone and Birindelli and used them as an outlet on the
counter attack. The game became very tense, Lukaku hit the post, Azmune hit the post and then eventually in the 90th minute there was a scrap in the box and during the scramble Elshara who comes up and scores as the olympico erupts. Maurinho falls to his knees in celebration, gets up, starts yappayappayappan with his hand looking at Paladino who apparently had taunted
him a while back saying that Maurinho's behavior is scandalous. Of course Maurinho never forgets and revenge is a dish best served freezing cold in Maurinho's case and yeah so first he told them basically you talk too much yappayappyapp and then he shushed him he sat down thinking that nothing was gonna happen the referee ran up to him and they gave him a red card to which Maurinho just
got up and left. He must be so used to getting sent off and I wonder has there ever been a game where Maurinho wasn't sent off because I can't even remember one of those points the guy is always in trouble always what a character what a character what a character so much fun to watch and this is what I mean about say being so so entertaining you know you've got the likes of Allegri and Maurinho they always put on a show so if the football is boring you just watch them you know
I'll never forget the first time I watched them Allegri properly live at the stadium I was at the olympic oh watching Juventus against Roma a game that I believe Roma won 3-1 if I remember correctly I remember I believe it was Lemina who scored for Juve I'm mistaken I think it was Lemina don't quote me on this however I'm pretty sure that Derossi scored for Roma as well as Nangolan and someone else I can't remember right now but anyway I remember looking over to Allegri and just
watching him I spent half the game I think watching Allegri because the guy is never happy with anything he's always pointing and complaining and flailing his arms and looking at his assistant and moaning and complaining you know man I honestly wonder is this a kind of persona he puts on at work or is this his actual personality I wonder the same thing about Barella like if these guys are playing a game of FIFA with their friends are they like are they like this the entire time
he's arguing with his wife this guy you see like this you know they're picking trying to pick a film on Netflix is Allegri just gonna be like we always watch this we never watch that like bro easy man relax relax the same with you more in your mind not everything needs to be a soap opera however it is absolutely entertaining and I wouldn't I wouldn't change it for the world thank you very much for being you guys it is worth noting that Elshara we broke down in tears after his goal and in an
interview he said that he was very upset when his name came out in the recent betting scandal as he feels clean and he has never actually taken part in any of these activities and he loves football so much and that moment made him appreciate how much he actually loves football and yeah he broke down crying Barella's name had even had come out as well and he had he had taken to Instagram to post and call out these journalists who have been naming players
so recklessly and power to him because it's absolutely ridiculous if these people aren't involved for their names to be dragged through the mud for some clicks absolutely absolutely shambolic there by the media but anyway to talk a little bit about this Monza performance I believe that they were playing very well I believe that the red card of course ruined their game and the approach after the red card was also admirable I'm always impressed when I see the likes of
Masrin and Mota when you think about the fact that these guys have been with Monza since they were in Serie A 3 that's third division football in Italy and they're still there and now they're playing in Serie A even starting some games to be honest I'm always impressed with Colpani absolutely brilliant player over there Kiri Akopolis very good these guys just play a brilliant brand of football and Paladino deserves all the respect in the world and all the praise in the world for
what he's done with this team as for Roma you know I mean they got it done they left it late and they got it done they didn't look particularly inspiring but of course this is the way Morinio likes to close out certain games you know they had their goals lost game now this game it was just a victory at the end of the day both games result in three points so yeah same weight as for the standings Roma currently sit in seventh with 14 points while Monza sit in 11th
with 12 points I must admit doing this podcast solo is absolutely exhausting I haven't stopped talking I feel like my girlfriend the only difference being is that I'm talking about football while she's talking about a whole lot of mundane nothing's that happened throughout the day very regular things that happened throughout the day she feels the need to mention every single one of them my Tommy growled at 12 o'clock today I felt a fart coming three o'clock but it never
actually happened I had a conversation with a person today I was hungry and then I had do you ever feel tired but not I don't need to worry about her hearing this she doesn't listen the next game we're gonna be discussing is at Alanta to Genoa nil at the Gawis stadium so for Gasperini's men it was a 3434 nation with carnessekian goals calvini Jim City Toloi at the back with rouggeri out on the left Zappacost out on the right with ederson and the rune in the middle
lookman and the decay telare playing off the shoulders of skamakka for gilardino's men it was a 352 formation with leali and goal dragosin bani and vaskas at the back with sabelli on the right hops on the left malinovsky friend Rupan thorsby in the middle with ecobon and goodman's in up front now the game started off with both teams looking quite cautious in the first half genoa were playing man for man and were defending brilliantly to be honest against at alanta I have never seen
malinovsky give so give so much defensively for his team vaskas was absolutely bullying the gay telare he looked like his usual Milan self the gay telare over there while the only channel that seemed to be viable for atalanta was the left side with rouggeri and lookman bani seemed to have skamakka on lockdown and the only time skamakka actually did get the ball in the box yet is back towards goal so yeah he had to turn and shoot each time or lay it off each time bani did a pretty
good job over there however things did eventually change as in the 68th minute the ball was played in by skamakka to lookman and sabelli who both attacked it at the same time sliding into the ball together however it was lookman who managed to swing while he was still on the ground and he hit the ball and directed it into the back of the net the goal was initially ruled out for a handball the referee ran to the var monitor it still looked like there were handballs over there more than
one potentially to be honest ujana will have been really hard done by the season when it comes to var and these handball calls first on policy and now this one um yeah controversial to say the least but atlanta lead one nil and then after this essentially took the 95th minute when atlanta were countering um pasalik played the ball to edderson while i forgot his name there was one particular jenoa player who was all over the place voliaccio voliaccio was all over the
place during this attack gm he's just going left right left right spinning in circles i'm surprised and like collapse with with dizziness he was so exposed over there um but yeah um this saw edderson scoring back-to-back goals for the first time in his career and so yeah um very happy for the brazilian he deserves that he's playing his best football since his salernetana days after a quiet season last year atlanta.
jenoa do continue to impress me however it must be said that they do miss retegui um having retegui in the box frees up the likes of goodmanson and the likes of ecoban to attack a little bit more freely puskas is currently an option that's coming off the bench and he doesn't seem to cut it it feels like everything he did was annoying his teammates um this game it seems like everything he did was the wrong decision it was i believe it was ecoban who was giving him a real bullocking
until he was substituted and he must have been really relieved at that but that doesn't mean that his performance improved because more often than not he was ruining jenoa's link-up play
and attacks. there is one point in the game actually i want to highlight um when skamakka received the ball from miran chouk who had just come in instead of dequei telar and he instantly played this marvelous ball to skamakka who improvised brilliantly with a back heel flick forcing an incredible save by the jenoa goalkeeper leali um if you haven't seen that i do suggest you go and see it because it was a very close one for skamakka a very very nifty finish it would have been
the goal of the week for sure atalanta currently find themselves in sixth with 16 points while while jenoa sorry are in 15th with eight points the next game we're going to be covering is fiorintina nil ampoli two atus kinderby that caught everyone by surprise on a monday i do feel like mondays are different the year on a monday is different there are more there's more likely to be an upset on a monday than on a saturday for example i genuinely do believe that by the
way i'm a superstitious man for vincenzo ataliano's men it was a four two three one formation with terra chano and goaler as my girlfriend calls him terrell chino like he's a bloody starbucks order parisi was out on the left coyote out on the right with melenco vilcana martinez quarta at the back duncan and arthur where the midfield double pivot with brekola out on the left nico guanzales out on the right and banoventura playing behind in zolla for ampoli it was a four three two one formation
with barisha and golebo ahia out on the right kakace out on the left with luperto and valukovic at the back malek grassy and marin were in the middle with conchillir and cambia agi playing behind caputo interestingly enough the only player to have scored a goal for ampoli up until this moment was baldanzi and he was benched by andrea zoli who likes to remind us that he has a massive set of balls now before we do get into the events of the game i would like to point out
that martinez quarta is a center back okay for those of you who have tuned into fjernthina the season you may have noticed martinez quarta dribbling in midfield or attempting bicycle kicks in the boat in the box scoring goals smashing the crossbar the guy is a center back and he seems to need reminding now all jokes aside yes he did have a mistake for leading up the second goal especially um but he he has been absolutely amazing and i really like the way he joins the
attack it's a nice little offensive secret for italiano ampoli set up this game to defend fjernthina very tightly and press them and press them and press them with a lot of energy very high intensity pressing and they didn't leave any gaps and this was all thanks to the likes of cambia agi and marlin and grussie and male they all pressed so intensely and they they really suffocated fjernthina and fjernthina found it very difficult to build up play from the back as they like to do
to be honest that's the the defining principle it's italiano's entire approach to football you build play from the back you know and ampoli really made this difficult for them the first goal for ampoli came through uh walukovic threw ball to drussie who crossed it to caputo who tapped it in very intelligently kind of semi-chipping the rushing goalkeeper brilliant goal brilliant goal fjernthina did try to respond but they were quite wasteful to be honest with brekolo and
duncan and nico van zales and they were forced to shoot from a distance because ampoli kept it so tight and they were pressing so intensely that inzola was practically invisible for example and brekolo when he came on towards the end of the second half i think did more than inzola did in the entire game simply because he got the ball he got the ball and he was allowed to turn and shoot so so yeah that was um when ampoli were sitting a little bit deeper and pressing a little bit less
intently but ampoli in the second half did give fjernthina a false sense of security as they stopped pressing they eased off the pressing before all of a sudden coyote was pressed and he played a ball to i believe yes it was martinez quarta who took a poor touch a panic touch wasn't expecting the pass and he was dispossessed by kambiag who played the ball to jazi who had just come on who scored and shushed me personally because i am a person on this podcast who likes to make fun
of jazi and his lack of goals but the commentator was praising him it's always him he lives for these big moments and manuel jazi is there shushing me looking me straight in the eyes yeah i'm very happy for jazi though he deserved that goal and he looked absolutely ecstatic to get it um and what a victory for ampoli what a massive victory for ampoli i must say that coyote was exploited the fullback he's very young and it is difficult to play on the upper hand you know
fjernthina have high standards and they play for for the win more often than not so having a player like coyote who finds himself starting more often than not nowadays especially because of baragi's injury for example um yeah he he was kind of targeted on the press and he ends up playing with a lot of pressure um and is limited in expressing himself because when it comes to risk taking on that stage with that much pressure on you it's a little bit harder but yeah he's a
very promising fullback and i feel like he will improve in this environment and italiano is a good coach for him nonetheless it will be challenging but he will he will get through it but how can we conclude this match without talking about luperto luperto is a fantastic centerback fantastic what a game he had this game he plays like a veteran of the game he plays like a 34 year old despite being 27 years old um he was all over the place i don't think there was
a deal well he he lost he was brilliant really good reference point for the sam poli team offering them solidarity country larry as well country larry man had flashes of of brilliance and it shows that lots of saw something in him because he had moments of and certain touches and flicks where he really he looked really good and i hope he keeps this form up because there's no real in between between this and what he sometimes gives us if you know what i mean um marin grassy
maleh midfield three brilliant lots of pressing lots of panache um really enjoyed watching them and caputo getting a goal was also nice to see the veteran striker leading by example and a nice to see him and jossy doing the trademark beer drinking celebration together always fun to watch but alas furantina find themselves in fifth with 17 points they're gonna be disappointed because they could have shot themselves up to third ampoli on the other
hand have escaped the relegation pool they are currently in 17th with seven points one point above udinez who sit in 18th the next game i'm gonna be addressing and notice i did not say covering i said addressing because i refused to get into the details of this game until sasuolo improve their defense it is a massive waste of time and every week i'm saying the exact same things now concili was in goal for sasuolo um pederson was out on the left tolyan was out on
the right with ferrari and ruan tressoldi at the back ratchage and the boloka where the midfield double pivot with lauri and they on the left berardi on the right castillo on the whole and pinamonti up front for lazio it was a 4 3 3 with providelling goal lazzari on the right maricel from the left from an early and patrick in the middle as a center back duo with gwen duzy rovella and luce alberto as the three midfielders philly panderson was out on the right pedro was
out on the left and castellanos started up front it started off nice and early for for lazio as luce alberto had two chances early on and he failed to hit the target in both opportunities gwen duzy came close to scoring concili pulled off two miracles within 60 seconds to be honest first on philly panderson's shot and then on romaniole's header as well the romaniole since the ball bounced and hit the crossbar lazio did not lose heart and they continued to press despite
all these missed opportunities the goal came in the 28th minute when ruan tresaldi made the mistake in front of his own box and luce alberto snatched the ball from him castellanos carried it forward and passed it to anderson who blasted it past concili the second goal came in the 35th minute this time it was boloca who made the mistake on anderson's cross and advertedly setting up luce alberto who delicately chipped the ball over concili sasvolo watched without being able to do
anything the second half was also golless there was one scare for lazio as providel was shown a red card but the decision was overturned by var lazio could have made the three nil at the end through vasino twice in actuality the first one was when he forced an excellent save from concili and the second one was when he inexplicably missed an open goal but yes sasvolo have a lot of work to do on the defense while lazio seemed to be gaining some momentum and climbing up the table
they currently find themselves in ninth with 13 points while sasvolo are in 13th with 10 points the next game we're going to be taking a look at is bolonia two frossinona one frossinona unfortunately left to the second half to get to really get a grip on the game and it was too late for that as bolonia had already put two past them it was korupski and golfer teago motta's men in a 4 2 3 1 formation with liko john is out on the left and silvestri desilvestri out on the right
calafiori and beo keama were at the back with alboucher and froyler as a double pivot salamakar is at his first start for bolonia out on the left with orcellini on the right fergusson as a trequartista and zerksi as the false nine for frossinona it was a 4 2 3 1 formation for osabio de francesco's men to rati was in gold with ojono as the right back marquitzas the left back okoli and roman yoli were the center back duo with matzitelli and berencea as the double pivot sulle was out on
the right garitano out on the left reiner was in the pocket playing behind kedira fergusson opened the scoring first and then desilvestri scored a second with a brilliant flying header after tirati punched the ball outwards in the second half for sonona for the back sulle converted the penalty and brought the score to 2 1 marquitzas had a missed opportunity to equalize for frossinona moments before the final whistle and matzitelli received the double
yellow card leaving frossinona with 10 men balonia managed to hold the lead securing their eighth consecutive positive result in a row now the last two games we're going to be discussing are actually quite quite action packed and they were both spectacles to be honest two of the games i enjoyed the most this weekend udenes one let's share one is the first one for andrea sotel who has since been sacked for the reappointment of choffee it's getting a little bit boring now with udenes
employing the same people to manage the club i do think that they are due a relegation because there are some clubs in syria b that have higher aspirations than udenes do at the moment and we look at the project at palermo and venezia and barry these are definitely more exciting than what's going on at udenes right now they've got a very young team and they've got they've got talented players you know and especially left-footed players and perera samard zid shatovan you know
they've got lukka who i enjoy watching a lot um they've got a good team but they just seem so uninspired and the management doesn't want to invest at all their best signing was perera who was essentially redeemed he wanted to leave as a free agent no offers came in so he ended up renewing with udenes but anyway it was silvestri and goal kaba sale biol and pares at the back with kamar out on the left perera out on the right perera wallis and samard ziksh in the middle with tovan
and success up front for roberta diversa's lecce roberto diversa sorry not roberta and that was a 4-3-3 formation with falcon angle genre and gallows the full backs with bascarott on pongratrice as the center back duo kaba ramadani and uden were the midfield three with angvis and strefetza playing out wide while christavich played up front the first goal came through a penalty in the 49th minute converted by florian thovon to get his first goal in seria the 2018 world cup winner
and in the 83rd minute our goal of the week nikola san sonne who had just come on um his name is actually nikola nikolo this time he dribbled lukka and crossed in a ball to find piccoli playing on the line who karate kicked the ball into the back of the net now um piccoli and christavich are players with two similar profiles um piccoli himself said that and he said that the difference being that christavich likes to come deep and collect the ball while piccoli likes to
play on the line as we saw over here and try to score these clutch goals he said that coming on and scoring goals is his 40 and yeah that's it's what he's good at and i totally agree he's known for this in fact he has scored his ninth goal for four different seria teams now san sonne um got that crazy assist on his 200th seria appearance while this referee um had his first appearance in seria and he's a yellow card happy referee by reputation and he showed because he
was giving out yellow cards left right and center at one point he booked pongratchage and basquerotto right after each other and there would have been a penalty in the 73rd minute um which is what led to the yellow card for pongratchage pulling perera on the counter and basquerotto for complaining um this was dropped but it was outside the box so vare actually couldn't intervene um and the word a free kick over there because it was not a penalty
infringement um i thought kabo was quite selfish throughout the game shooting when he had teammates wide open i think selfishness with these lower teams is quite abundant um with players looking to make headlines and looking to make names for themselves maybe they don't care much about the club where they view the club as a stepping stone but i can't i can't stand this um this approach dorgo versus ebosale was a very interesting battle and festi coming on for
sorry for ferreira um was an interesting substitution as festi brought a lot more pace and power to the game and was much more effective than the former now um i believe that our goal is in fact a fair result over here as no team really deserved to win this let's scoring their only shot on target and udinez approving that they are still quite a wasteful side udinez a sit in 18th with six points while let's sit in 10th with 13 points
the last game i'm going to be addressing is salernetana to caliari two um costil was in goal for salernetana in their 4 3 2 1 formation this was philipp poinsaghi's first game in charge fun fact about costil is that he looks exactly like olivier jiru especially in his goalkeeper kit um philipp poinsaghi said that it's a hard reset at salernetana right now since he's coming he every player is essentially equal and ochoa didn't start this game because
he arrived late from international duty and he had more of an opportunity to observe costil he played brother itch out on the left and matzaki out on the right with fosjuan gombar as the center back partnership with castanoss major and colibali as the midfield three cabral and kandreva playing behind boule idea for caliari claudio raniere opted for a 4 3 1 2 formation with scufa in goal natanandes as the right back out jello as the left back with dosenna and gold aniga at the
back makumbu prati and deola with midfield three with mancozou playing behind oristanio and louvombo the first goal came through zito louvombo in the 79th minute up until this moment salernetana were salernetana were quite sluggish and especially major i didn't quite like the way major i played i felt like it was not very effective and there were so many missed opportunities for salernetana and they failed to really adapt to this new tactical setup by claudio raniere and they
they really couldn't cope i think it's called them by surprise yeah but anyway major i seem to be playing a deep lying role castanos and quillibally were acting as box the box midfielders well cabral and kandreva were supporting the uh externally um they had a good first quarter of an hour especially down the right um major really seemed to slow play down and wasn't changing the dictating play sorry he wasn't dictating play as efficiently as he should have been
and the counter attack for calia is always going to be a dangerous one with louvombo speed as long as he's on the pitch we've seen them struggle without him um thankfully for salernetana for the majority of the game fadzio was excellent and the sardinians were actually quite inaccurate as well themselves um not taking advantage of their opportunities either um in zagi tried to bring some unpredictability into the midfield when he introduced marty johnny in an advanced central
position shifting to two deep playmakers but a technical error by marty ghani was actually what led to the first goal as he was dispossessed um the ball was played to louvombo by yakub yankto who did very well over here very very well um and louvombo scored as he always does louvombo zito i absolutely love this play it plays with so much flair um and he's slowly becoming a fan favorite over there um particularly with his performance in the in the playoffs of
seria b last season in zagi experimented after this even played with the three man defense at one point and eventually in the 86th minute he did get a goal through bulayedia after the senegal man was played through by ikumweze and he finished perfectly it's so sad that they no longer sing the bulayedia song at the stadium he is no longer a fan favorite they no longer celebrate him um because of course he tried to force his way out it actually saddens me to watch diascore and that stadium
not go absolutely ballistic because it was one of the best things in the league um yeah but anyway just two minutes after that nicole is viala scored one of our favorite players over here because he's he's so silky as a register he's so good um great great player nifty player um he scored in the 88th minute when shomorodov played him the ball and he finished with his head um brilliant celebration by
by nicole is viala i'm still trying to do that and i haven't quite understood how you get your hands through that thing um over your eyes it's like one of those things we used to do at school and you'd tell your friends like hey can you do this and the answer was always no i can't in the 94th minute salernetana had the penalty which was converted expertly by bulayedia leaving the goalkeeper with absolutely no hope of saving it and a draw here was once again a fair result as both teams
share the spoils now as to where they stand in the table salernetana sit in 19th with four points while kalyeri sit in 20th with three points this was the definition of a relegation six-pointer and that is why i put a bet on this game to finish in a draw as part of my bet slip which i won this weekend um but i must say leaving it to the 94th minute was not good for my chest but yeah i think it's time for our question segment welcome back to our question segment in order to drop a question
or a hot take you can find us on twitter and instagram at say a spotlight i've only just realized that i didn't plug any socials um tiktok instagram youtube you know where it is remember to rate us five stars and if you do enjoy our content you can support it on patreon the link is in our bio it's 399 a month just one tier um you get added to a whatsapp group so you can talk to us on a daily basis um and all we do is talk football so that's pretty much it you just be supporting
our content now the first question comes from genoa club toronto they ask refereeing and var mediocrity is it acceptable the answer is no it is not acceptable unfortunately we are fans of the italian league where var is not perfect yet but it's further ahead than what where it currently stands in england because some of the things that happen over there are shambolic remember that var is a year younger over there italy have actually had it for longer um genoa have suffered particularly
serious offenses when it comes to var i think they've suffered more than any other team in seya this season when it comes to the controversial court calls made against them um in the melon game on this weekend against atalanta yes i think there need to be more angles i think the referee needs to be helped a little bit more in certain situations um i don't think it should be too difficult to introduce new to introduce all the angles in certain games i think certain stadiums need
a a bit more work when it comes to the infrastructure and the camera setup because it can't be that the referee doesn't have access to any certain angles and if that really is the situation i do agree with the idea that they stick to the on field decision because i don't like the idea that they're winging it because it looks bad from a weird angle if you know what i mean the next question comes from luca argentina he is our fellow patron great memer and good friend at this point and he asks will
martinez stop scoring goals um at this rate i don't think so he seems to always have a dip earlier on in the season and my interfriends are always joking around saying he should save some for his dip because he's scoring left right and center at the moment i don't know phil itadraut he usually historically tends to but this season he just has an an aura about him he's got the this aura of a leader of a great player um i don't i don't think he'll stop scoring this season i
think he'll keep scoring pretty much relentlessly until the end of it he also asks does roma have a chance to be a top six contender this year i answer most definitely with jose morrinho at the helm they will definitely finish top six i would say um it's going to be tight but they do have the depth and the team is coming together and they're they're getting used to one another and the new boys are settling nicely and with roma lulu kaku in the form he's a new con right them off he also
asks will philippo and zahgid truly fix salernitana i don't know i don't know i don't personally think so however and zahgid said it best himself he said that um he said criticize me all you want it doesn't make a difference to me um they told me that i couldn't even control a ball and i went on to score 300 goals yeah that's put points agi for you um in syria b he did do some good work in syria he's never quite cut it let's see um what he can do with salernitana the next question comes
from a very good friend of mine steve calero shan abro he says 11 versus 11 between milan and uva who wins that game um milan can be quite wasteful and they do struggle to close out the game so i wouldn't confidently say that milan would have won that game if they were up if they had that extra man um however i do think that simply because of the nature of the substitutions that did put milan at a massive disadvantage i think 11 versus 11 milan would have just aged it maybe one nil
i think it could have been a one little victory um there to to milan the next question comes from basco dot bakiam excuse me if i've massacred your name i think it's actually basco dot byram byram i'm sorry about that he says will look aku rise to the occasion against inter or fuck it up um yeah i mean look how with the type of guy he is you can tell he's gonna be wearing a hoodie he's gonna be wearing boxing gloves on a treadmill in the dark at home listening to fucking weird tick
tock rap um boxing the air calling himself the king of rome probably nowadays i am pretty sure he's hyping himself up and i would bet that he scores against inter and i would bet that he fucking celebrates like crazy um especially because the fans don't really like him anymore quite frankly yes i'm curious to see how a lot our martinez reacts because he's publicly slated them in the media yeah i'd like to know what you guys think guys comment below um the next question
comes from our friend on tick tock leo messi of course that's his username bro you should tell me your real name i'd like to i'd like to give you a shout out he says am i the only one who feels that um motas bologna is the next factor for finishing top four um top four might be a little bit of a stretch but i do think they can push for a conference league spot the way things are things are going they really look like a side that have figured out their their strengths and
their weaknesses a mota has that group ticking very well and zergs he's in the form of his life yeah they're they're a pretty complete team at the moment he also asks where will udenes i finish at the end of the season and will you ventus win the scudetto um i think udenes i will finish between between 13th and 16th to be honest yes you're just outside the relegation pool i don't think they'll get relegated they have too much talent to get relegated i think they have many
players who can make the difference and even if they're not tactically sound um yeah so i think i think they'll definitely stay up can you go in the scudetto most definitely as they don't concede goals they play once a week i think they can definitely win the scudetto if they keep their best players healthy but yes guys thank you very much for listening i have been your host jake i am usually not alone if this is your first time listening i'm usually joined by my blood brother
matthew he's actually my biological brother he's two years younger than me um he's he happens to also be my best friend and my co-host and um yeah we miss him i miss him here i'm sure you guys will miss him too as i continue to blob on for the coming weeks but yes let me know what you think guys drop a comment down below make sure to vote on our polls below reach out we'd love to hear from you thank you very much and have a great week