Where’s my brioschi?

By: Joe | October 22nd, 2007

Years of wallowing against the likes of Modena, Catanzaro and Rimini make this past Saturday all the more thrilling. There’s a very real price to pay following a squad in the lower divisions. The coverage is scanty and more speculative than normal, statistics are hard to come by and television coverage? Not a chance. At the Stadio Olimpico, in front of 27,000 Roma season ticket holders, a bit of the debt of having to refresh your browser every 30 seconds to get an update on an away matches against the likes of Crotone was paid.

Going into the match, there was a sense that the match could either be extremely entertaining or simply an exercise for Roma to get out their frustrations after having recent results go against them. Any Napoli fan had to be leery of a talented Roma side with European and scudetto aspirations simply imposing their will on a Napoli side in turmoil. The memory of the Inter match was too fresh. But when David Pizarro didn’t clear a free kick in the opening moments of the match and it fell to Ezequiel Lavezzi unmarked in the box, Napoli jumped up top and you knew this was going to be interesting. El Pocho’s right-footed smash into the upper 90 of the far post was a brilliant display of how quickly this squad can strike.

Napoli withstood the pressure from Roma for nearly the next half hour. The Giallorossi had difficulty creating dangerous scoring opportunities, as Napoli were able to clam up and concentrate on the counter-attack. Francesco Totti won a free kick on the edge of the area with his solo run and the touched-on missile flashed across the face of goal. Soon after Gyorgy Garics had to perform a crucial intervention to turn Amantino Mancini’s header out for a corner. Although you never got the sense there’d only be one goal in this match, it took a lazy Paolo Cannavaro tackle in the box against Pizarro to give Roma the easy penalty kick (which Genarro Iezzo almost saved as he moved up the line before Totti’s blast to the lower left) and level matters once more.

Moments later Ludovic Giuly, just how short is he?, just failed to get his foot to a promising cutback in the box, while Pizarro, Philipe Mexes and Daniele De Rossi flashed efforts wide from distance. oma turned the game around completely before the break and my heart sank. Totti’s powerful shot was only parried by Iezzo into the path of Simone Perrotta who buried the go ahead goal and ran to the other end of the field to celebrate with goalkeeper Gianluca Curci, who just became a father.

At halftime I consoled myself by thinking if Napoli could play defense the way they had at the start of the match, they may just be able to get an equalizer. Shows what I know. The Giallorossi again took an early sucker punch from Napoli as they conceded a goal when the ball bounced around in the box and 20-year old Marek Hamsik blistered a shot past a stunned Curci. It was nearly 3-2 soon after, as Zalayeta again provided a great assist, feinting a shot before setting up Hamsik for a strike that flashed just wide.

However, it was Roma who netted their third out of nowhere. De Rossi unleashed a rocket from 25 metres and Iezzo was taken by surprise as it dipped, but he horribly fumbled the ball to let it squirm beneath him. Again, it felt as if all the air had been taken out of the game. Surely, coming back twice against Roma in the second half wasn’t going to happen?

Napoli got themselves level on 3-3 with another spectacular effort in this thoroughly entertaining game. Gargano found space well outside the area and cracked a right-foot screamer into the far top corner past Curci’s outstretched hand. It was the Uruguayan’s first Serie A goal and a memorable one at that. Gargano has played every minute of every match for Napoli and had just returned from South America where he sat on the bench for Uruguay. Does this guy ever tire? Less than a minute later it was almost 4-3 to Napoli. Lavezzi ran into the area and shrugged off three defenders before his half-volley thumped the underside of the crossbar. Hamsik was fortunate not to receive a second booking for tripping Marco Cassetti on the edge of the area. The resulting Pizarro free kick took a deflection off Garics’ heel and looped over Iezzo into the far top corner to restore Roma’s advantage. Again, my powers of squad selection are horrible as I’ve been pining for Garics to come off the bench and he looked shaky for most of the match.

Coach Edy Reja then threw on striker Emanuele Calaio’ for a late trident attack and it worked, as moments later Napoli made it 4-4! A corner kick found Zalayeta’s towering header between two defenders and De Rossi’s attempted goalline clearance was too late to keep it out.

Thanks to Elio and the fine folks at calcionapoli.it for contributing to this report. You can sign up for their updates by Yahoo! Groups and searching for CNI-English.

Rubentus is next! I’m not kidding, where is my brioschi?