Blucerchiati vs the other Nerazzuri

By: Rolf | February 21st, 2009

But first, a word on our recent UEFA Cup embarrasment.
I didn’t watch the game, but from various reports I’ve read we played a game that can be perfectly described as utter crap. Metalist seems to have walked all over us at the Marassi, and our chances of going to Ukraine and winning 2-0, 3-1, 4-2 etc are…well, they’re NOT good.
So that’s the UEFA Cup then. Only the Coppa left to fight for. Jolly good.

But first of all, the Nerazzuri of Bergamo are coming to town, high on self-belief after their trashing of Roma last week. So why am I feeling optimistic?
Last weekend we faced a Juve side who are miles ahead of Atalanta in terms of quality, but while Juve were (and are) in a less-than-ideal mood the same can’t be said of Atalanta.
They have now taken three impressive scalps, namely Napoli (3-1), Inter (3-1) and Roma (3-0) as well as beating Udinese and us earlier, but seeing how we and the Zebrette have fared this season those scalps aren’t that impressive.
So we’ve got a determined team led by the arguably most in-form player in Italy (Doni), a team who has humbled three giants during the season and whose squad includes a striker who is on the shopping list of at least Juve and Roma. Facing them are a team who have won only 3 of their last 12 games and who recently lost out to a team called Metalist. At home. Jeez.

However, there is one thing going for us (two actually; we’ve got Pazzini) : So far, Atalanta have shown a tendency to play extraordinarily well in every other match, but not quite as well in the next one. After they beat Napoli they proceeded to lose to Reggina, after their victory against Inter they were brought down by Cagliari, and hopefully we will do the honours after their Roma triumph. This is all mere speculation, but in my opinion it’s worth to take into consideration. Oh and Cassano scored his first ever Sampdoria goal against Atalanta. So there.
We aren’t really playing for much, the Coppa is the only thing that can be fought for now and relegation isn’t as much of a threat as some people seem to think.
Atalanta however are where we should have been, chasing a UEFA Cup spot. I must admit it would be sweet to make some trouble for them.

Probable line-up:
Castellazzi; Raggi, Ferri, Stankevicius; Pieri, Franceschini, Palombo, Sammarco, Padalino; Cassano, Pazzini

Key battles:
Doni vs the entire fucking Doria team = I’m not kidding, this guy is dynamite at the moment, and stopping him will be our most important objective.

Floccari vs Raggi & Ferri = I don’t like this, I don’t like this at all.

Predictions:
This match will depend on wether Doni and Floccari turns up or not. We are in the middle of an injury crisis and have been rather poor leading up to this game but Atalanta are notorious strugglers playing away from home.

Game: Sampdoria 2-1 Atalanta
Goals: Pazzini 22′, Palombo 71′, Floccari 77′
MOTM: Castellazzi.

As always, FORZA DORIA!

PS. Because of some problems with the media function, this post is pictureless.
I’ll try and fix this ’till next time.