Tuppe Tuppe Mariscia news*

By: Joe | November 14th, 2007

Long time no blog, eh? I was studying for an IIBA certification exam which cost me $450 and the test was over in three hours. Chances are I probably failed the damn thing anyway. There’s no use recapping the Palermo match as Martha and Steven covered the events quite nicely. Queen of the South, Steven? We’ll see at the end of the season. I hold these truths to be self-evident: Juventus and any French national team are the bane of my existence, the World Cup is the most exciting month of football, my kids will always interrupt any nap I may take and the table does not lie. We’ll see we’re at in late March.

The call-ups:
Gyorgy Garics (Austria), Marek Hamsik (Slovakia) & Walter Gargano (Uruguay) were all called up for the upcoming FIFA break. Austria will play two friendlies against England and Tunisia. Although they’re already eliminated from Euro 2008, Slovakia play against the Czech Republic and San Marino. Uruguay continue qualifying for South Africa as they’ll take on Chile and Brazil. Uruguay rank fourth in CONMEBOL standings and the match against Chile will be critical to their World Cup aspirations. There is a chance Mighty Mouse may come back to Napoli and not make the cross-Atlantic trip as he appears to have aggravated his right leg.

Injury updates:
* Part time underwear model and general ass-kicker Manuele Blasi may return to the starting lineup against Catania. He will get back to training no earlier than Monday. Blasi injured his left knee in the Juventus match and the play in central midfield since his absence has secured my faith in Pier Paolo Marino’s judgment. Of course, Reja could just as easily replace like for like and have inserted Samuele Dalla Bona in the lineup but…

* Matteo Contini continues to recover from a knock on his right leg sufferred against Palermo. Seeing Ruben Maldonado’s horrible, and I mean flat-out pub side bad, play against Palermo, methinks we might be in the market for some defensive depth in January.

As the partenopei turns:
Emmanuele Calaio and Napoli can’t seem to put the drama behind them. Ever since Marcelo Zalayeta was picked up from Juventus, coach Edy Reja has chosen to only bring in Calaio off the bench late in the match. While Calaio hasn’t said much of anything publicly, it has to be a blow to the pride of the Palermo-born striker who led Napoli in scoring the last two seasons. Things got downright ugly after his penalty kick miss against Reggina. There was all the drama around the circumstances of the kick and then this week we learned Calaio was fined 3,000 euro for breaking team rules. For a squad that is having a hard time putting the ball in the back of the net do you really want a valuable striker feeling like he is paying a fine for missing a pk?

I’d love to make Gianluca Grava pay me for everytime I had to see his slow ass out on the pitch or get some reparations from Francesco Montervino for all the times I saw him lose the ball last year and watch precious points slip away. It just doesn’t work that way though… Zalayeta picking up an injury may be the only way Calaio gets more playing time, otherwise I think he might be gone in January.

* one of my favorite Napoletano songs by the incomparable Maria Paris