So what is it then, friendly fire?
First the banner (against the club), then the firecracker. Something a goalkeeper with a taste for theatrics (unlike the former Audero, gentlemanly and responsible) could have turned into a far bigger drama… but anyway, this is who we are.
The club and its lavish January transfer window (one day to go, who knows), the curva and its pathological, criminal games of Russian roulette (update: a lone wolf, now three fingers short? And what was he doing in the stands with a pipe bomb?).
Luckily, to quote the banner, there are the coach and the team, who are doing their best and keeping us up there, where the air is lighter even if the legs start to feel heavy.
This was the seventh consecutive away win: Verona, Pisa, Genoa, Atalanta, Parma, Udinese, Cremonese. Not just small sides, some traditionally tricky grounds in there.
A meaningful run that started after the defeat in Naples and that, step by step, tells us exactly what we’ve become: clinical.
After the firecracker, today the team basically stopped playing, taking a few risks at the end. Still, I’d sign a blank check for matches put in the freezer (it’s not so bad to be two goals up at halftime, is it?) and then managed on a budget. Almost total control, 70% possession: maximum outcome for a relative effort.
Now all that’s left is to wait a couple of days (!) to see what Milan do (in Bologna, against the most disastrous team of the past month and a half; their last spark, savasandìr, came against us in the Supercoppa). Then, with the Coppa Italia in between, it’s off to Sassuolo before Inter–Juve.
In this centrifuge of matches we’ve found a way to emerge, rather than to cave in under pressure and fatigue.
Chivu celebrates his first 50 matches on the bench with the calm of someone proving he gets the most out of what he has.
In Serie A, Lautaro has caught up with Spillo. Fifteen to go. Too many, but morale is high.
