Coppa Catania Liveblog: Ambien Disguised As Calcio

By: chris | May 8th, 2008

Roma Through. Hooray.

Catania 1 (1) v Roma 1 (2)

GAME

89′ Another foul on Espo. Somebody needs to check that stat. He gets fouled at least 2-3 times every game he comes on.

88′ Curci catching crosses like he’s shagging flies before a baseball game.

87′ Antunes fires one wide. He did quite well today for what was required of him. Itchy trigger finger, too.

86′ Cross. Curci pulls it down. Somebody end this please.

Somebody on for somebody here. Iannelli, actually on.

84′ Mescara hot blocked. Yay.

82′ I’d be shocked to see another goal here. t-10+ mins.

80′ Uhhhh….Mancini on for DDR? Good thing he was hydrating heavily before he came on.

78. Catania possession results in…..are you shitting me? The p-b-p guy just called Catania’s lone striker in the box “the lone pepperoni in the pie”. Come on, guy.

77′ I think Espo is by far the #1 player on Roma in the category “fouls suffered per minute played”.

76′ iTunes playing some sweet D. Max on for Simone.

75′ Catania being way too casual with the ball in their box. Vuci, after running through the D, nearly took the ball back at the spot for a +1.

74′ I’ve seen more scintillating old timer tribute games.

73′ Espo puts a gimme somewhere not near the goal. Nice. Domizzi, anyone?

Best part of this game is the play-by-play announcer making jokes and having them bomb.

71′ Possession….possession…..possession………blah.

69′ Sloppy sloppy.

68′ Roma in possession….possession….possession….long ball cleared out.

67′ Nice work from the boys, lazy cross in by Cicinho.

Ah shit. Cassetti pushed Pia down right outside the box. Seriously, he looks deathly ill or something. Something is not right with him tonight. Free kick off the mark, goal kick Roma.

64′ I’m bored again. We need a streaker or something.

63′ Cicinho poked in the eye. Espo on for Ludovicious. Decent game from him. Not a huge impact.

62′ Curci makes his first real save of the night when Antunes (or someone) nearly heads a back pass out for a corner. Well done, lad.

61′ Nice chip by KA, just short. Catania offside. If not, he was to goal off a long pass.

Gazzola on for, umm, who cares.

58′ GORGEOUS cross by Cicinho into a waiting Perrotta, Simone heads it off the crossbar.

57′ Antunes throws in a nice cross just a bit in front of Vuci.

Vuci offside. 5 now? 6? Baiocco on for Biagianti.

55′ Counter by Catania but nobody comes along with the streaker. Crossed back

54′ Great ball by Lulu to an, again, offside Vuci. Pippo Vucinic today.

53′ Antunes has an absolute howitzer. Just uncorked one just over the bar.

52′ Gorgeous work for the Giallorossi. Nice ball in by Brighi, dummied by Simone, flicked over to the top back to Simone who fires off of the keeper for a corner which is headed out.

Cicinho walking to the sidelines. Coming back on.

50′ Espo getting ready….uh oh shot deflects into the arms of Curci. Cicinho’s down.

If Catania had a bit of patience instead of pulling the trigger ASAP they might accomplish something.

49′ Absolute rocket hit wide of Gilu by Mascara…Cicinho taken off the ball in a tough area for that chance.

48′ Sloppy passing to start off the half. Nice ball to Lulu crosses to Aqui, places in low and a decent save. Could’ve put that in.

47′ Jabbing….nothin’ doing, really. Cicinho taken own.

No Roman subs

KICKOFF

One question: What the hell is “Extra Mega Prostamax” and why would ANYONE want to take something with a name like that.

Half-time: Ugly. That’s all. Ugly.

And I’m going to have nightmares about this back line. This is the same one that bled 3 versus Torino, right? Yikes.

(Checked: It was Cicinho, Ferrari, Cassetti, Antunes. A little worse.)

Simone’s back on. Whistle.

45′ Free kick Catania in a fairly dangerous position. OMR bum rushed Mascara.

Delay, Simone is down. Brozzi (I think) motioning for Spal to hold off on the sub. Curci saves the free kick.

44′ Wow. Rare error from DDR, let’s two defenders by and Mascara fires one well wide. Dangerous chance there.

43′ Some nice defensive work by iTunes, stuffs a cross. Well done, young lad. Clears the ball out.

DDR gets into the act and stuffs another for a Catania corner….foul Elephants.

41′ Vuci beats his defender, lofts a cross to Lulu and one times a bullet just wide. That would’ve been a fantastic goal.

40′ Hudson thinks Vuci should have been sent off. Neh.

39′ Vuci looked to be tripped, ref gives nothing. He’s on a yellow so he’s gotta watch out for any thespian work.

38′ This back line looks firing-squad nervous.

“For those to work doesn’t the defender have to be within a couple of yards of you.”

Crickets.

37′ Woof. Pia goes down in the box and he’s booked for a dive….good call by the ref.

36′ Play-by-play guy finally understands away goals concept. Curci has an easy save, boots one deep. Blah.

35′ Vuci offside on a clear break to goal.

34′ I’m wondering if the play-by-play guy understands the concept of away goals. I don’t think so.

33′ God, Cassetti is getting eaten alive by crosses into the middle. Where’s Sammy K when you need him. Dangerous times in the Roman box.

31′ Wonder if Cassetti is hurt. Looked to be in a good deal of pain earlier and he’s not having a good game at all. (Of course, he’s not a CB either.) Middle of the pitch nothingness right now.

30′ Curci, Buffon, Zoff….none of them had a shot at that goal.

29′ Wow. Catania guy (Silvestri) being marked by the ghost of Christmas future heads a fuckin’ gimme into the back of the net. Well, they need two more now.

28′ Catania get right back to work, dangerous cross headed out. Perrotta gets a yellow. Shit, he grabbed a red to start off with. Wrong card. Wow. That would’ve been deadly.

That was a serene ball into the lower right hand corner.

King Alberto……..GOALLLLLLLLLLLLL.

PENALTY!!! Vucinic clipped big time in the box. Easy call.

26′ This is getting Premiership sloppy.

23′ Whoa. Great ball by Vuci, collision between Catania keeper and defender. That was nearly an away goal and all she wrote.

22′ Edusei hammers one just over the woodwork. Sloppy defending by the Giallorossi.

21′ Beautiful ball by Cicinho, Vuci just offside. Or not just, by a Pippo mile.

20′ iTunes fires a cross off Silvestre’s testicles. Ray is now getting a hard-on for the referee.

19′ iTunes hasn’t really been tested defensively much, but the boy can surely get forward and do some things.

17′ Roma basically finding no way to get good chances in the final third thus far.

16′ Curci barely snags a cross in the box. That has “Doni” written all over it. Ray is now salivating over Gilu’s “muscularity”.

15′ Cross by Cicinho, cleared out, Ludovicious kicks a field goal. Three points.

14′ Giuly swoops one in, Aquilani puts in an inch perfect ball back to Ludovicious. God it’s great to see him play.

13′ Simone with a nice touch on a beautiful left footed cross by iTunes. Jesus, who needs a LB?

12′ Kinda boring. Real boring, actually. Hudson likes the playing surface, though. Like a “pool table”.

10′ Aqui heads a corner down in the box, cleared out.

9′ iTunes sends a cross to nobody. Everybody listening to the announcers talk about Soros? Hudson would know, he coached under him.

8′ Catania manages a chance, Pia taken off the ball in the box. Roma starting to push forward en masse.

6′ OMR just misses a goal on a header through a corner….whaddya know?

5′ Fantastic ball by Cicinho, Vuci mistimes the touch. Nice ballwork and he wins a corner.

4′ Little bit of back and forth so far….two early offsides for Catania. Little too eager on the ball here for Roma.

3′ Whoa, Perrotta just got hipchecked big time. Cassetti is limping…nice.

2′ Nice overlap by Cicinho, cross headed out.

1′ Looks like Simone is on the left. Catania is quite feisty to start off with.

KICKOFF.

Vuci is sans beard.

TIM Cup sounds sooooooo NASCAR.

——————————————————————————

The first leg was the very definition of a sleeper. Or maybe it could be described as a “coma in motion”. Whatever it was, it wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t really all that effective and it wasn’t fun to watch. Bad news? It’s probably going to be the same thing all over again. Good news? I’d bet everything currently in my pockets that Roma goes through (Swiss Army knife, Orbitz, HTC and $7 plus change).

Said it yesterday, but Catania is in trooooooouble. They’ve got Juve at calcio’s Chateau d’If and they’re hosting Roma on the final giornata. Quite frankly, they can’t worry about this game. Well, they can, but it’d be mighty foolish of them. And the who’s who of Catania isn’t on their call list, it’s on the non-convocati variety:

Non convocati: Ioime, Lasagna, Martinez (squalificato), Morimoto, Polito, Sciacca, Spinesi, Stovini, Tedesco (squalificato), Vargas.

A couple of sizable DQ’s in Martinez an Tedesco also (for them, at least).

Spal’s call-up list is standard, with a few kiddies thrown in:

ANTUNES Gabriel
AQUILANI Alberto
BERTAGNOLI J. Sergio
BRIGHI Matteo
BROSCO Riccardo (prenderà il numero 40)
CASSETTI Marco
CICINHO
CURCI Gianluca
DE ROSSI Daniele
ESPOSITO Mauro
GIULY Ludovic
MANCINI Alessandro
PANUCCI Christian
PERROTTA Simone
PIZARRO David
TONETTO Max
UNAL Daniel
VUCINIC Mirko
ZOTTI Carlo

So the only area which might be an issue is the defense, where it’s gonna look somethin’ like this:

Cicinho, Cassetti, OMR, Max.

Who loves fullbacks?

Could it be the day we’ve all been looking forward to – the DDR at CB experiment? Perhaps. We shall see.

Streaming is aplenty, but may I make a suggestion. GolTV is available, which means Ray Hudson will be available. Some people love him, some people hate him. In fact, he’s very much, like scotch and Patrick Vieira’s face, an acquired taste (the latter, of course, being nearly impossible to acquire). However, the man’s a Roma fan, and thus you must love he of greatly exaggerated metaphors and superfluous superfluousness.

Projected XI:

Curci;
Cicinho, Cassetti, Panucci, Tonetto;
DDR, KA;
Ludovicious, Brighi, Mancini;
Vuci.

I haven’t a clue here.

Whoa, lineups out…4 central mids:

Curci, Cicinho, Panucci, Cassetti, Antunes, De Rossi, Brighi, Giuly, Perrotta, Aquilani, Vucinic

A disposizione: Bertagnoli, Pizarro, Esposito, Tonetto, Mancini, Unal, Brosco

Interesting…

We all know Simone can play out wide, but it may be King Berto on the flanks. Or could DDR be in the back and Cassetti out wide……

Oh, plus Unal AND Bosco on the bench? Nice.

GolTV is replaying Giuly’s cracker versus Milan in the CL a few years back right now. I’m feeling a goal from him tonight.

Who the hell is De Rossa? Because according do the GolTV guy, he’s playing in the midfield for Roma.

Liveblog up at the top now.