Mac Attack sinks Roma

When your team hasn’t scored a goal in over a month and your star striker has just left, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that you might need to pick up a new striker somewhere. Which, surprisingly, is exactly what we did, with Manchester United’s nineteen-year-old kiddo Federico Macheda being loaned la maglia blucerchiata for the next six months. He’s a tough looking chap, and has popped up with amazing and amazingly important goals for United over the last couple of years, but whether someone with 220 minutes of league football this season can fill the Cassano-shaped hole in the Samp attack remains to be seen (feel free to insert your own pastry-related quip here). Apparently there is no option to buy at the end of the season, and the sounds from Old Trafford indicate that he’ll be coming back regardless of what happens at the Ferraris over the coming months. So we have six months of Chicco, and six months only.

Chicco getting friendly with some fans…

When Macheda came on with thirteen minutes left to play against Roma earlier this afternoon, Samp were confusedly trying how figure out how best to make use of their extra man after Roma keeper Julio Sergio’s sending-off, still smiling gratefully at being allowed back into a game that had seen the bare minimum in the way of creativity, urgency and cutting edge from the men in blue. Mirko Vucinic had blasted Roma into the lead early in the second half, single-handedly rampaging his way through the somnambulic Samp defence into the box before pounding a shot past Curci.

While Macheda’s contributions were by no means spectacular, his introduction sparked a surge in passion and drive from Samp, as though the three-month Cassano circus had finally been put to bed and the players eventually remembered that they are, in fact, football players rather than barely relevant pawns in the torturous Cassano/Garrone charade. He distributed the ball well, and moments after glancing a diving header wide of the post, Guberti capitalised on Juan’s second calamitous back-pass of the afternoon (the first had lead to the red card and penalty that restored unmerited parity) to sneak the ball under the baffled keeper Doni. The wild celebrations that followed were further proof that, despite the evidence presented over the first seventy minutes, there is still plenty of desire and passion in this slumbering blucerchiato beast. After the game, Guberti spoke of his satisfaction at having scored against his former club, and Macheda illustrated his desire to do the same against his former employers, Lazio, next Sunday. Worringly, the trip south will be undertaken without Samp’s first choice central defence after both picked up red cards in the dying moments of the game.

Lucchini’s crime was failing to dematerialise as Vucinic knocked the ball past him outside the Samp box. It is endlessly baffling how defenders are expected to simply cease to exist as bodies of matter once the ball has been tapped past them – an attacker simply has to not alter his trajectory in any way in order to win a free kick and have his opponent booked. Lucchini was shown his second yellow card, as was Gasteldello moments later for a high foot.

Nonetheless, Doria held on to record their fourth home league win of the season, and the first victory against a team not battling against relegation since mid-October. It would be premature to suggest we’ve turned the corner, especially with Lazio, the phenomenal Antionio Di Natale’s Udinese in the cup, Juve, the rescheduled Derby della Lanterna and Napoli all coming up before the end of the month. But with our very own ‘import’ from the Theatre of Dreams, there’s no harm in hoping, right?

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