Football Italia: Season 8 – Enjoying life in the big time.

Season Eight: Enjoying life in the big time!

On the pitch, we’re continuing to perform miracles, even at this level but, as seen from our commercial income and the half-empty stadium whenever we play at home – we’re still a pretty small fish in the massive pond that is Serie A.

Nice progression was made – with a highly rotated squad – against Pro Vercelli, kicking off a season where we would face much harder challenges. However, one simply does not go to the Giuseppe Meazza, against the reigning Serie A champions and win. Or do they? Vinci poked in after a minute from close range as my defensive full back duo of Carboni and Mussolini combined across the wings and, arguably, should have doubled our lead five minutes later, as we called their sweeper keeper into play, pulling them forward before playing it over the top. I opted for Moraga as a A(d) instead of captain Lucentias a DLP(s) – arguably a contentious decision to drop your captain for the first game of the season, but it paid off as he marshalled the defensive area and stopped the hosts from getting any real chances. The match review shows that this was not a lucky result for and I’m absolutely delighted!

Whilst the Torino tie was of much lower quality, we restricted our opponents to just a solitary shot on target – taking the total to two for the season – and 0.06xG. Our 0.85xG was hardly prolific but we’re a team that will build around a strong defence and, thanks to Zapelli’s first goal in ten hours, we made it two from two.

Our magical start continued with a comeback win over rivals Catania before a series of six draws in a row started away at Roma. Against Milan, we created some lovely overloads through counter attacking play, pushing their players to one side, before triggering aggressive pressing traps and switching play quickly. This approach went even further against Juve, when we targeted their young left backs, Battara – firstly – and then Luppi – a substitute. Moving from a WB(au) to a WB(a) with a WCB(s) behind, overlapping on the right and setting Kmet, the chosen attacking midfielder, to man mark that area, meant we pushed a strong Juve team right to the end.

I changed slightly against Atalanta, initially employing the wide second strikers – Kmet and Farrera – but then moved to get them to mark their double pivot, pushing them wide and leaving Bellinoable to resist moving forward so aggressively. With one attacker, I was also able to use Cubarsi as a libero, stepping up to receive the ball. A 3-3 draw painted the picture of a real spectacle, but their xG chart paints a more solid picture of a 0.68xG tap in, a soft – 0.79xG – penalty and a 0.11xG shot that deflected and wrong-footed our keeper.

To have made it that far – facing both Milan teams, Juventus and Roma still remaining unbeaten was a fantastic achievement for us. Our run continued against Modena as I tried to pick up on little things – a right/right combination in the second striker role, with both defenders being weak on the left foot – trying to enable as much progressive chaos as possible plus identifying a very out of shape single pivot and working really hard, with some pressing traps, to make his afternoon a misery!

A very different game against Udinese, where, at 2-0 up after eighty minutes, I’d want to be walking away with the points. We were never really in the game from the start, so I changed up our style a little – went more cautious and encouraged more ball retention, making Udinese press us and tire them out. Once that happened, I was able to then kick up a gear into a more aggressive, positive style and play through their tired legs. Unfortunately, with such fine margins here, I think we overdid it and, once I wanted to sit ourselves, the home side were all over us and two late goals, the last assisted by the keeper’s knock down at a corner – a truly infuriating way to see a goal set up – before being palmed, weakly, into the back of his own net by Esposito was, probably, just what we deserved from it. Considering that we absolutely battered our way to the Serie B title – this type of game management is something that I need to revisit and learn methods for against much, much higher quality players. Still – 10 unbeaten!

My 300th game, on my seven year anniversary of joining Messina was a special one as we took on, and easily beat table topping Fiorentina, who are managed by Kevin Nolan – something I just can’t quit get my head around. With 2.42xG to their 0.36xG, our attacking performance was just as strong as our defensive one – overwhelming their backline in the quintessentially English 442 shape. We left our scoring boots in Sicily though and looked poor – for probably the first time this season – away at Monza.

A couple of poor performances against Salernitana and our first defeat of the season away at Sassuolo – a game that we probably didn’t deserve to lose. That then preceded another dull tie with Bologna. Our strategy of setting pressing traps and nullifying opposition threats is working wonderfully well but we have become a little stale going forward. Absolutely to be expected for a newly promoted team, but, already, I’m setting goals for next season that involve turning these draws into wins.

The poor – I say poor but what I really mean is poor in comparison to the earlier days of the season and not our overall season expectations – form continued against Napoli where a very dodgy penalty gave them the three points but, against the top side in the team, we absolutely were not outclassed, which is fantastic for us. The spell ended as our kids came out for the Coppa Italia tie against Serie B Empoli, which we won at a canter.

A bit of an odd table neither of the teams from the capital – Lazio and Roma – even making the top half. There is, perfectly for us, quite the drop off after Juve, with six points to Lazio, a further one to Roma and one more to Torino – all teams that should be above us this time around. Juventus have just sacked Jurgen Klopp but can probably count themselves unlucky based on expected points. Modena, playoff winners last year, have risen to sixteenth, Catania sit in nineteenth – on eleven points – one more than bottom side Genoa.

With the best defence in the league – albeit not the best xGA in the league – owing somewhat to Esposito’s strong performances and the joint least defeats, we are absolutely smashing my pre-season predictions of lower middle table. As a team, we have a total of 267 Serie C appearances and 1512 Serie B appearances and I think that this is key to our successes – we are a collective team that has risen together. We’ve reached the top flight and added two new players, with another two – Viti and Carboni – coming in January and experiencing six months in Serie B; we’ve not rebuilt the squad and that has had such a big impact.

Overall – this is a fantastic showing! With the foundations now in place, the next update will take into account the transfer window and a lot more statistical work – I hope!

Forza Biancoscudati!