Newsgroups: rec.sport.soccer
Subject: Fwd: NEVER SAY GOAL
From: Saverio Cittadini <sc4n+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 08:35:51 -0400 
Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

I had to write this on my Italian account, then send it to my American one,
and finally forward it to r.s.s.; sorry about that...

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From: CITTADINI@SIVAX.CINECA.IT
Subject: NEVER SAY GOAL
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I've received a few positive responses, thus I'm going to post something
from the TV program "Mai dire gol". Now, clearly I can't reproduce
everything here, and for getting all the fun one should really watch the
program - and listen to it, too (beside the funny comments of the authors,
they have amazing sound effects: for example, when a shot goes wide and the
ball gets out of the picture, the next thing one hears is a noise of broken
glass...). So this first posting will be somehow experimental: then you may
tell me if it is the case to continue or not...
Since this is the first posting, I will give some explanation about the
various sections of the program. Note: the authors are three guys known as
"Gialappa's Band"; for short, I'll refer to them as "the Gialappas".
So, let's go with something from last Monday's show, related to week 5 of
the Italian League... (no show this week, since Serie A didn't play)

WORST GOAL OF THE DAY
The Gialappas choose the "worst", i.e. luckiest goal of the day (own goals
are generally excluded). This time the winner is Florin Raducioiu's goal
which gave Brescia a 1-0 lead vs. Foggia (Brescia won 4-1 in the end).
Description of the goal: there is a long distance shot, goalie Mancini saves
but the ball slips out of his hands (the pitch was very wet); Mancini tries
to catch the ball again before Raducioiu arrives, but he only manages to slap
it; the ball bounces off Raducioiu's leg and then into the net...

WORST LINE-UP OF THE LEAGUE
Every Monday, sport newspapers give votes to the players. Of course, people
thought to select a "best line-up", taking - role by role - the players who
have the highest average of these votes (it was called "Top 11"). So what
do the Gialappas do ? They select the "worst line-up", taking role by role
the players with the lowest average... after 5 weeks, the worst line-up is
the following:

Taffarel (Parma)
Sivebaek (Pescara)
Grandini (Foggia)
Carbone (Napoli)
Fornaciari (Foggia)
Di Bari (Foggia)
Medford (Foggia)
Rijkaard (Milan)
Agostini (Ancona)
Sliskovic (Pescara)
Zarate (Ancona)

The player with the lowest average is the Argentinian forward Sergio
Zarate.
[now, this is quite surprising... 6 of those 11 are foreigners, and celebrated
ones, too ! I mean, is it possible that Rijkaard and Taffarel are doing so
bad ? Perhaps the journalists expect too much from them, and so they give them
low marks when they don't play at their best...]

I COULD HAVE SCORED THAT, TOO
This section concerns the top non-scorers, i.e. the players who waste most
easy chances. Of course, what an "easy chance" is can be very subjective, so
one has to rely on the Gialappas' judgement...
Two years ago the top non-scorer was Ruben Sosa (then with Lazio, now with
Inter). Last year the winner was Gianluca Vialli (then with Sampdoria, now
with Juventus), who overtook Florin Raducioiu (then Verona, now Brescia) in
the last game, when the Rumanian seemed to be the sure winner. Vialli won
the "Egidio Calloni award" (Calloni was a Milan forward of the 70's, and a
notorious chance-waster).
This year, after 5 weeks, the top non-scorers are Careca (Napoli) and
Batistuta (Fiorentina) with 4 chances wasted. Napoli and Inter lead the
team standings with 8 chances wasted, Foggia is last with 0 [because they
have created no chance at all, the Gialappas say...]. A curiosity: last
year Napoli finished last, with only 10 chances wasted or so in the whole
Championship; and now, 8 in only 5 games...
[last year they also had "I could have saved that too" for goalkeepers; the
winner was Lazio's goalie Fiori, with 6 mistakes that led to a goal of the
opponents; Fiori won the "Massimo Mattolini award" (Mattolini was a goalie
of the 70's; he played for Fiorentina, Napoli and Foggia and was really the
worst goalkeeper I ever saw playing in Serie A)].

THE PEARL OF THE WEEK
The funniest football-related scene the Gialappas could find in the week
(in their opinion, of course). This time it might be called... "Rambaudi
welcomed at Atalanta by his new teammates".
[I don't know how the Gialappas got the film... anyway, last year Rambaudi
played with Foggia under coach Zdenek Zeman, famous for his "revolutionary"
theories, and now is with Atalanta]

Scene: the Atalanta summer training camp. There are players running, others
doing exercises. The camera moves to Rambaudi and Minaudo, who are doing
exercises on the ground [the sound is not perfect, so I couldn't hear all
the words, but the sense was more or less the following].
Rambaudi: "I can't stop thinking at Zeman's training methods... his ideas
are great... since I met him, he changed my whole way to look at football..."
Minaudo: "Now stop it ! We're all pissed off with these stories... You're
always repeating the same s**t ! F**k you and Zeman !"

CONFRONTS
Two different newspapers about Baiano in Fiorentina-Milan... [I think they
were "La Gazzetta dello Sport" and "Tuttosport", though I'm not sure].
GS: "Vote: 6.5; his continuous movement caused a lot of troubles to the
Milan defense"
TS: "Vote: 4.5; he moved a lot, but his movement was totally useless"

Slow-motion replays on Taffarel's foul on Gascoigne for which Lazio was
awarded a penalty kick (that gave them a 1-0 lead vs. Parma)...
"La Domenica Sportiva", commentator Bruno Pizzul: "Gascoigne is alone in
front of Taffarel, and you can clearly see the goalie grabbing Gascoigne's
ankle and bringing him down. Clearly a penalty kick."
"Pressing", commentator Omar Sivori: "Gascoigne is alone in front of
Taffarel, and you can clearly see the goalie slapping the ball away, after
which Gascoigne falls down. Clearly not a penalty kick."
[Gialappas' conclusion: slow-motion replays are totally worthless...]

FOREIGN WONDERS
This section is to recall those foreign players who did terribly bad in
the Italian League. This time the player was Renato Portaluppi (known as
Renato), who was very successful both before and after his experience at
Roma, also with the Brazilian national team, but who in Roma was a real
disaster. They showed several occasions in which Renato tried to dribble
the whole opponent's team, always ending up to lose the ball... In one
occasion, Voeller is alone in the opponent's box and desperately calls for
a pass; but Renato keeps on dribbling players, until he loses the ball once
again... the following gesture by Voeller clearly shows how the German had
appreciated his teammate's behaviour !
Renato's  statistics in his italian year [well, maybe they're a little
exaggerated, but...]:
Games played            23
Goals scored             0
Dribblings attempted            614
Dribblings succesfully attempted  7

AMARCORD
This is not a section of the program. I just want to recall some of the
funniest scenes shown on "Mai dire gol" in the past.

Scene: 1974 WC. Game: Brazil-Zaire.
There's a free kick for Brazil, Rivelino and a few others are on the ball.
As soon as the Zaire wall is at proper distance, the referee whistles.
Rivelino holds on a moment and... a Zaire player comes out of the wall and
kicks the ball away ! The Brazilians are puzzled (maybe even scared); the
referee thinks about it for a moment, then shows a yellow card to the poor
Zaire player... it should have been red, of course, but the referee was
pitiful... the Zaire player even protests, indicating his own ears as to
say "But I heard a whistle ! You whistled, didn't you ?". Poor guy, they
sent him to the World Cup and he didn't even know the rules...
[my, how African football has changed since then !]


Well, this is it for now. I'm waiting for feedback...
Anyway, you'll probably have to wait a couple of weeks for next posting,
since I'm thinking to stay away for a while...

                                            Saverio

e-mail: CITTADINI@SIVAX.CINECA.IT
"The sky is light-blue, since God is a Napoli fan"
V I N C I   P E R   N O I   M A G I C O   N A P O L I  !!!