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Italy: Serie A Review- Round 2 [Fri Sep 16th, 2005]
Juventus have continued their impressive burst out of the gate with a whopping 4-0 thrashing of newly-promoted Empoli.
Empoli was hoping for a repeat of the last time these two teams met in 2004 with a 3-3 draw, but these hopes quickly began to dwindle after just ten minutes, when David Trezeguet broke the deadlock after a neat defense-splitting pass by Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
That lead was doubled three minutes later with Patrick Vieira heading home a Pavel Nedved corner kick for Vieira’s first goal in Serie A. It was clear everything was going to be going right for Juve when two minutes after the second came Juve’s third goal in the opening fifteen minutes.
A Mauro Camoranesi long range effort took a bizarre high deflection passed Empoli keeper Gianluca Berti. The half ended without Empoli really posing a threat to the sturdy Juventus defence.
The second half started a bit slower, but to make sure Empoli were not getting too comfortable, Juve added a fourth again through Trezeguet, scoring his third Serie A goal in the opening two games with an impressive lob over the overly committing Empoli keeper.
Juve continued to pressure right until the end of the match; a refreshing sight to those who have grown accustomed to the typical Juventus style of football.
AC Milan wanted to put last week’s disappointing result away to Ascoli behind them with a positive result against Siena in the San Siro. Last time these two teams met, Siena took maximum points from the giants.
Milan hardly wanted to repeat history and on 15 minutes, after a good deal of early pressure, Massimo Abrosini gave Milan the lead after a cutting Shevchenko run into the Siena box, spotting Ambrosini for a wide-open net. Siena were quickly paying the price for starting a three-man attack.
Milan captain Paulo Maldini showed no sign of aging, making two stellar tackles in the span of a few minutes.
Milan added another to their lead on the half hour mark when Andriy Shevchenko had an absolute cracker of a shot go right into the top left corner of Mirante’s net. The Ukrainian almost added another to his account a minute later, having a bad-angled shot saved by the Siena keeper.
The second conceded goal somehow seemed to breathe new life into Siena and a minute before the interval, after an Enrica Chiesa shot was stopped by Dida, Siena got one back courtesy of an Igor Tudor corner kick header from five yards out.
Two minutes after the break, Alberto Gilardino completely missed a close-range header from a close range cross from Clarence Seedorf. Ten minutes later Gilardino missed an even more glorious scoring chance as he was put through on goal by Shevchenko. He took too long to shoot and when he did, let a weak one go, allowing Francesco Colonnese to get back and make a goal-line clearance.
It was a very open second half with both teams having chances to score, but it was Milan who made their chances count after a defensive breakdown allowed Kaka to dribble uncontested into a scoring position where he made no mistake in slotting it into the bottom left corner of the net.
Kaka then went on to miss two other scoring chances, but it meant little as Milan went on to the 3-1 victory.
AC Milan’s week two success could not be mimicked by cross-town rivals Inter Milan, playing away to Palermo. The Nerazzurri came out flat footed and paid for it on 18 minutes when Palermo captain Eugenio Corini put a perfectly placed free kick passed Julio Cesar to give the Sicilians a 1-0 lead.
The Inter keeper came up big many times over the course of the match, at the beginning of the second half, making two class saves in the span of a minute. However, on the ensuing corner after his second save, Christian Terlizzi scored to make it 2-0 to Palermo. Inter supporters were witnessing an all too familiar sight.
Something then happened that even the disheartened Inter fans did not expect. In the 67th minute, after pressure by both teams, Steven Makinwa converted a header to make it 3-0 to the home side. Second half substitute Luis Figo tried giving a little bit of life to his drowning Nerazzurri team and some good work helped to do that.
Alvaro Recoba had a screamer from 25 yards out just go over the bar. David Pizarro then had a shot go just wide. Finally on 38 minutes, Inter got on the board after a nifty passing play between Recoba and Adriano ending with Julio touching it into an open net.
Both teams continued to pressure with Adriano having a shot saved and Mariano Gonzalez hitting the woodwork. In the last seconds of the game, a Figo corner kick was converted by Cruz, whose brace was not nearly enough to beat or even take points from an extremely on form Palermo side.
There was some bad blood when Roma played host to Udinese. Roma’s coach Luciano Spalletti was facing his former team for the first time after leaving on rather poor terms. Like last week, Antonio Cassano was left on the Roma bench due to ongoing contract disputes.
Vincenzo Montella missed two great chances including one sitter in the opening minutes. Montella’s misses proved costly in the 32nd minute when a deflected Sulley Muntari strike found its way past Roma goalkeeper Gianluca Curci.
Roma were digging their own grave by continuing to miss chances in the first half. And they missed a couple glorious chances in the opening minutes of the second half, but this time they were in the form of inspirational De Sanctis saves on Danielle De Rossi from close range.
Cassano then came on in the 50th minute to add a little more life to the struggling capital outfit. He did just that and moments after coming on, fed a nice pass onto the path of Totti who got his shot totally wrong from close range.
Vincenzo Iaquinta thought he had doubled Udinese’s lead, only to have the goal ruled back for offside. Iaquinta then missed the next couple of chances that followed, but Udinese still hung on for the 1-0 victory.
Meanwhile, Fiorentina let a comfortable game slip away to Messina. The Viola started off strong, coming close to scoring on more than one occasion in the opening minutes and in the 9th minute they took the lead.
Toni, who is continuing his great run of football, beat his defender and slotted the angled shot on the ground just inside the left post. They added another after 40 minutes with a goal by Valeri Bojinov.
Fiorentina came out strong in the second half as well, but in the 57th minute a defensive let-down allowed Arturo Di Napoli to bring Messina within one. Four minutes later Messina completed their comeback on more poor defending, allowing Andre Zoro to beat Frey in the top near corner. Frey came up big in the dying minutes of the game to preserve the draw.
An early goal filled Cagliari with confidence as they played host to Lazio. It took only 35 seconds for Lazio’s defence to go to sleep and pay the price of a David Suazo finish.
Lazio equalized after 13 minutes in a box scramble that ended in a Sebastiano Siviglia’s diving header goal. Peruzzi made some big saves over the course of the match for Lazio.
There were chances from either side after half-time. Cagliari were forced to play the final 13 minutes with 10 men, as Diego Lopez was shown a red for a challenge from behind on Goran Pandev.
Lazio made poor use of the extra man in the closing stages and found themselves close to conceding a late goal. However, it finished in a 1-1 draw.
Reggina are unlucky to have walked out of their match with Sampdoria empy handed. After only three minutes, Reggina’s Simone Cavalli’s strike slammed against the upright. Soon after, Francesco Cozza followed suit hitting the same post again.
But it was Sampdoria who drew first blood through Bonazzoli. His half-volley was hit perfectly into the far corner of the net, reminiscent of the great Marco van Basten.
A scrappy goal from Cozza put Reggina back on level terms after half an hour. Then Sampdoria regained the lead after 58 minutes with a stunnig free kick by Sampdoria captain Sergio Volpi.
Soon after, Reggina’s Giacomo Tedesco was shown a straight red card for a late tackle on Andrea Gasbarroni. Gasbarroni then scored Sampdoria’s third goal with a well-placed lob.
Reggina’s Missiroli made things close again with a tap-in. and moments later the goal scorer brought down Flachi in the Reggina box, but Flachi’s penalty was saved by Pelizzoli, which was the last action of the match. 3-2 was the final score.
Chievo hosted Parma at the Stadio Bentegodi. This match marked the return of Fernando Couto to Parma after being on loan with Lazio.
Chievo opened the scoring after 10 minutes when Davide Mandelli met a Federico Giunti corner kick from six yards out.
Chievo controlled most of this match and though they could not score again, some costly Parma misses handed Chievo a 1-0 victory.
Ascoli held Lecce to a 0-0 stalemate. As the score suggests, there was not a great deal of intense action on the field. Ascoli worked themselves into some trouble when Tosto was red carded for a late challenge on Giuseppe Cozzolino.
Lecce’s Mirko Vucinic’s free kick clipped the crossbar late in the match but could do nothing to change the outcome of the match.
Livorno took a trip to Stadio Euganeo to square off against Treviso. It was Francesco Coco’s Livorno debut, coming in on loan from Inter.
The first real chance went Treviso’s way after 30 minutes, but Antonio Filippini missed an easy tap-in from an Andre Pinga’s pass.
In the second half, Livorno’s Cristiano Lucarelli sent in an angled drive that was saved and went just past the far post.
Treviso’s keeper, Handanovic, made a fine save in stoppage time when a Gennaro Ruotolo corner kick came out to Pfertzel.
Livorno grabbed that crucial goal in the 92nd minute. Lazetic took advantage of a weak Handanovic back pass to Dellafiore and crossed in for a Cristiano Lucarelli volley. The match was called shortly after that. 1-0 was the final score.
Aaron Pires Mammoliti
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