Forget About It. Romito 1-0 IUE

A classic piece of film dialogue from Donnie Brasco: "Forget about it" is like if you agree with someone, you know, like "Raquel Welsh is one great piece of ass forget about it." But then, if you disagree, like "A Lincoln is better than a Cadillac? Forget about it!" you know? But then, it's also like if something's the greatest thing in the world, like Mingrio's Peppers, "forget about it." But it's also like saying "Go to hell!" too. Like, you know, like "Hey Paulie, you got a one inch pecker?" and Paulie says "Forget about it!" Sometimes it just means forget about it.

I always think that a bad ref is like a bad pitch - you just have to play to the conditions, and that, in any case, things even themselves out more or less eventually. Sometimes though, the metaphor fails, unless the bad pitch is a 45 degree slope towards your goal. And while last week we had a good goal disallowed and then got away with a couple of things in our own box, yesterday was completely different: the number of freekicks given in this game must have been something like 40 to them, 6 or 7 to us. This, combined with a very very heavy pitch which is notoriously badly lit, meant it was very difficult to get going. Still, we had three excellent chances, and let in what was a disappointing but also somewhat freakish goal. This was a game with few chances, in which everything was against us, Concentrate and wait for our chance had to be the name of the game. It just didn't quite work out.

With Dom, Dave and Markie all out for internal disciplinary reasons, we were had to play with a makeshift defence. (Dom was suspended for coming from a too posh a part of Leicester, Dave for asking whether people wanting it too much, and Mark for being too mean to his teammates). Nate came in for his first start at right back and Davie Horan came in at centre back, alongside Arnout, with Andrew on the left. Norberto made his first start of the season.

A combination of PEOPLE GETTING THERE TOO LATE and the fact that the whole pitch was being used right up to kick off meant that we couldn't properly warm up. It showed in the first twenty minutes, in which we were RUBBISH. Forget about it. They almost scored from a header from a corner. We eventually woke up a little bit and put together a couple of good moves, one excellent down the right which saw the onrushing Sebastian almost score. Although we were improving our play lacked fluidity and often bypassed our midfield, meaning we had no chance of getting on top in the game, accentuated by the fact that the ref was slowly revealing himself to be a complete scandal.

Half-time, playing badly but improving. 0-0. To do: increase energy, win more balls and get our foot on in and pass. Unfortunately a freak combination of bad positioning, a slip and a second's hesitation saw them burst through and their striker took his goal well. 35 minutes to put it right. Ref makes it tougher, making some genuinely ridiculous decisions. Even Vomito were laughing about it. Great. We win more balls, and look fitter than them. Mate, Jan and David are on, and we are passing it very well, but our short passing game becomes overly intricate near their box as we try and score the perfect goal, with us trying passes which are far too cute around their D. Still, we have two good chances, with a shot going just wide and a header just over in the last minute after a great cross from Leo. Should have had a penalty in the last minute. Obviously, Irial was booked instead.

Forget about it.

Missing shirts

Who has the missing number 3, 6 and 9 shirts for the old red kit? Manolo, Luis, Norberto? You were using them. There are also many pairs of missing shorts. This all needs to be returned immediately.

I'm bringing in Ramos...

Given that a lot of you have some difficulties coming to two training sessions a week (or even one in the case of some David Horans), think yourselves lucky you don't play for Spurs, who are training twice a day. So, start winning again, or we'll be doing that too...

Congratulations to everyone last week for not only a great turnout at training (22 people), but also, for the first time ever, for everyone paying! Well, Irial only vicariously. Obviously Andrew collecting the money is more effective than me doing it. This means we might be able to get some more new bibs and finally chuck out those rancid red ones.

The Life and Times of Arnout Mertens. IUE 1-1 Crystal Piazza

Tuesday 23rd October, 2007. Scorer: Jaime

[This post breaks the rules about swearing several times. If they want to take the link down they can]

Nobody knows how long Arnout Mertens has been in Florence for. Some people say he came as one of the angeli del fango to save Florence's artwork after the flood of '66. Others say he was one of the occupying German soldiers in the mid-forties, and was in fact responsible for not blowing up the Ponte Vecchio, and because of this the partisans let him off and pretended he was Belgian instead of German. Some say he came to do a PhD several decades ago and, long after everyone had forgotten about him, he produced a manuscript and, with all the embarassment of not knowing who he was, the jury awarded him a doctorate of history, even though close examination of the work revealed it to be a strange, somewhat paranoid work of science fiction. I mean, the last one is obviously false, as if it were true, why would he still be here? In any case, he is such a VIP player that he sends minor players like Irial Glynn to get his boots from his house before the game. (Irial told me about the Nazi memorabilia at your place Arnout, so I guess that clears up which of the competing stories is true).

Last night we saw a dark, twisted side of Arnout that none of us knew existed. It took the biggest bunch of wining, cheating, pussyole fuckers to bring it out of him, accompanied by spells of absolutely calamity on our part and absolute insanity on the part of the ref. Arnout, in short, is one of the cool-headed members of the EUI team. Or so we thought. Last night, while all the defenders around him were collectively losing their heads in defence, he was dealing with his inner deamons, brought out by the concerted attempts of their number 9 (I have his name if anyone wants it), to seriously injure Arnout while the ref wasn't looking. Arnout kept remarkably cool in the circumstances, but the cat is out of the bag now. First bookings are a step on the way to genuine manhood. Knocking that fucker out would have been another. Oh well, probably best you didn't.

Oh, we also drew 1-1 last night, which I am trying to avoid talking about as it is one of those that sticks in your throat, and pops into my head every five minutes making me want to smash things. There was something of last season's performances about last night. Domination, control, unfairly disallowed goal, ten minutes of absolute insanity in defence, hatfuls of missed open goals, unbelievably hateful opposition, stupid mistakes, terrible, terrible reffing (although often in our favour), and two points dropped when we had enough chances to win by six or seven,

Mate came in at right back, and David BS at number 10. Sebastian came back into the middle of the park. Anyone who read any match report from last season knows the script now: we dominate, very compact, good passing, use width well, look dangerous and in control. Sebastian scores perfectly good goal, which is scandalously disallowed for offside, when he came from behind the ball after a header down from my freekick from the left. Similar position five minutes later, Irial heads but for once doesn't score.

Crystal Piazza begin to reveal themselves as cheating pussies, whining bastards, and into cynical off-the-ball violence. After having nothing to do for 25 minutes, and still with nothing much to worry about, our defence suffers from collective insanity, and literally gifts Crystal Piazza three open goals - failing to clear, leaving men unmarked between two centrebacks, neither of whom are marking anyone, trying to pass the ball around our our penalty area. They hit the post, and we clear off the line. It is coming.

If you fail, for no reason, to get the ball out of your own half for ten minutes, you will let in a goal. We have only ourselves to blame. We lowered ourselves to their very low level. Ref gives them nonsense freekick on the edge of the box. Mistake 1. They take it quickly, ref doesn't let them for some reason. Mistake 2. They spack out. Fair enough. They take freekick. Irial is pushed and kicked by one of their right in front of the ref, No foul. Mistake 3. The ball eventually drops in our box, they square it across goal and tap in. We should be 3-0 up, but are 1-0 down. What we deserve. We create two more great, great chances before half time but snatch at them both.

Angry teamtalk. Right-footed Jaime comes onto the left, and nate onto the right, in an attempt to make the midfield more compact. They are quickly followed by Norberto for David, and Dave H for Sebastian. We dominate territorially, and swarm all over them. We miss hatfulls of chances, but eventually score through Jaime after the ball was put across the face of goal, a couple of minutes after he had hit the bar. Miguel comes on down the right, and Nate switches to right back. They kick, head butt and elbow off the ball. Even Dave M gets pissed off. We try to be above it, but it is tough, as they are also pussies who squeal and roll around every time we go near them, and bully the ref incessantly. Ah the ref, who's signature is like a five year old child's handwriting, with back-to-front bs and ds and everything. What a fucking moron. He actually saved us twice in the second half, by not giving a penalty against us (handball, Miguel), and unbelievably, not giving them a freekick in our box after Igor picked up a Nate backpass throw-in. Nate, Igor, William the ref: idiots. A few more missed chances for good measure. Full time. Two points dropped, but, the way things went last night we could easily have lost.

Training tomorrow: on the agenda: clearing the ball, finishing.

Moflo, and record hits on the blog yesterday...

80 unique visitors on this site yesterday, checking the team news. Wow. Somewhat inflated, it seems, by the fact that Nate sent an email to all his mates telling them to have a look, explaining the 11 hits from North America. Paris and Huddersfield are the most consistent non-Italian visitors, although London, numerous places in Germany, Holland and Portugal sneak in daily.

Anyway, what this means is that we are whipping Moflo, Jeremy and Dom's website about what's on in Florence, although they haven't done any advertising yet. Why not check it out, and even write for it.

www.moflo.it

When I'm not wasting my time writing crap on this blog I am sometimes writing about music and other stuff on Moflo. They are feeling bad that some amateur glorified mailing list is trouncing their glossy effort, so click on the link and make their day!

Attendance at training

Let's continue our good form on Tuesday vs Crystal Piazza.

However, the rule that you must come to training if you want to play is serious. It is a lack of respect for your teammates to not turn up. To a certain extent, the calcetto sessions are optional, but the big sessions at Cerreti or v Gioberti are not.

Obviously, sometimes you won't be able to make it, this is not a problem. However, it is funny how certain people are always available on matchdays but never for training. If you want to compete for a place in the team, you are doing yourself no favours by not coming to training. We had three sessions this week. Well done to everyone who made it to these - the Friday session was particularly useful. If you want to get fit and play regularly in this team, we must come to these sessions. Some people did not come to ANY of the three sessions. You know who you are.

This week: training is at v Gioberti on Thursday, where we have the pitch for only an hour and a half from 8.45 to 10.15 SO BE ON TIME TO BE ON THE PITCH AT 8.45, and at Schif on Sunday at 7.30.

Training this week...

Okay, three training sessions this week after our good start to the season.

They are:
*Thursday at Schif at 21:00,
*Friday FULL PITCH TRAINING at CERRETI (our home ground), see the link in my email about our first game. (Behind the baseball ground in campo di marte) at 20:45. NB not at via Gioberti!
*Usual Sunday session at Schif at 19:30, where the squad for the next game will be up.

Coming to training at least most of the time is obligatory if you want to be in the team. Not because I'm a tyrant but because this is only fair to those people who always turn up. Please try and make at least two of the sessions, and especially the one on the full-sized pitch at Cerreti.

"Vi vogliamo così." Serpiolle 0-3 IUE

Monday 15th October, 2007. Scorers: Irial, Dave H, David BS.

"Vi vogliamo così" is what our fans would have been singing at the end of last night's game in Sesto against Serpiolle, after we dominated the whole game, playing excellent simple and organised football. We didn't have any fans though, except Leo's dad, who came to meet us in the changing room after the game. A simple and deserved 3-0 win is the kind of result I have been pining after for over a year. Here it is at last. Ci voglio così.

Nothing involving la squadra fantastica can pass off without a little drama, however, and even not being on the pitch didn't stop Markie Jones almost starting riot after a Serpiolle players broke his own leg colliding with one of his teammates as the simultaneously attempted to crock Davie Horan. At this point we were 2-0 up, but a near-20 minute wait for an ambulance could have knocked us off guard after our fantastic start. Not a bit of it. We stayed collected and calm, saw out the half, and the second period was played at a pace that was a couple of gears below what we were doing in the first 40 minutes, not that that stopped David getting a debut goal at the death to give us a deserved winning margin, all this on a horrendous pitch, that looks like one of those 300 grand astro efforts but is actually some dodgy mafioso scam where they just laid concrete, put their Nan's carpet over the top, paint it green and sprinkle some rubber bits on in. How are everyone's knees and ankles today? Mine: very bad.

After Leo and Jaime's hints of brilliance in the opener there were full debuts for them, at left midfield and seconda punta respectively. Luis came in to the middle for his first game of the season, with Davie Horan next to him. We started off simply but brilliantly, doing exactly the things I had been saying in the changing room - flat back four, high line, keeping the ball moving, hitting the wingers from the back and from midfield - using the very wide pitch, and lots of movement from the strikers to disrupt their three man central defence. Strangely the one part of the team that didn't click, at least going while we were on the ball was the central midfield partnership, which should be the hub of everything we do. It didn't matter as we looked dangerous from the off, and secure at the back. We varied our attacking play with a mix of short passing, dribbling and crosses, leaving them nervous and on the back foot. When the EUI get a free kick thirty yards out, the Mason-Glynn combination has always served us well. I loop in it in from the left to the on-coming Irial. Goal. Irial washes the kit.

We continue to play well and look like getting another goal. It comes from a corner on the left, which I whip in the the edge of the six yard box, blocked header, comes to Davie Horan who controls it and whacks it into the back of the net. Cruising. Playing well. Leo gets called offside when he was through on goal and five yards (literally) onside. Davie Horan outpaces a defender and goes one on one with the keeper who stands up and makes a good save. Serpiolle player tries to break Davie's leg (as revenge for a supposed 'foul' by Leo), and breaks his own. I don't really want to comment further about this.

20 minutes waiting for an ambulance. We keep our cool while getting cold. We carry on where we left off. Luis plays a brilliant ball to the back post where I stretch to reach it 10 yards out but it goes over the bar. Should have scored.

A positive team-talk and positive mood at half time. Excellent play, but still room for improvement. The excellent Leo and Jaime are replaced by Mate and Norberto. Nate comes on for me after a while, and manages to get into another fight. Don't ask me, and Sebastian comes on for Luis and David for Irial, and we eventually wake up from our slumber to create a few chances in the last twenty minutes, instead of just going through the motions (don't get me wrong, going through the motions is something we should be doing every week after we have secured the win). Mate bursts down the inside left channel and dinks the ball over the keeper. Just wide. Mark comes on for Dom, and his first meaningful contribution is a wicked cross from deep that almost leads to a goal. Nate puts in a similar one from the right, after avoid another attempted leg break. Sebastian heads down and David gets a debut goal. I think a lot of us believed their complaints about offside. Couldn't have been: the man who went across to block Nate's cross (who had been on David) was still on the goals line near the corner flag. We passed it around quite well for the dying seconds, in particular Sebastian, who gave us the continuity we needed in our short passing game. Horan decided to hang out by the touchline quite a lot. We'll have to talk about that. An excellent defensive performance, they only got in behind once, and they blazed over. Igor was outstanding when he was called upon.

Lads, an excellent performance that we should be very proud of. But I am sure we all know why we played so well: discipline, unselfishness, running and doing the simple things well. I was particularly happy about everyone doing the job they were meant to be doing, and doing them very well. Once you get all of this right, the rest will take care of itself. We attacked spectacularly at times in the first half, without anyone trying the spectacular. Something else of note: only three outfield players have played every minute and we are only two games in. Rafa would be happy, and so am I. Ci voglio così.

Team:
Igor - Dom (Mark), Dave M, Arnout, Andrew - Luke (Nate), Luis (Sebastian), Dave H, Leo (Mate) - Jaime (Norberto) - Irial (David)

Death threats and fighting spirit. IUE 2-1 Villoreal

Friday 13th October, 2007. Scorers: Mark (pen), Irial.

Five minutes to play, 2-1 up. The sea, no longer red but now sky blue, that is our defence opens up, Villoreal's lanky striker (and token nice guy in a team of psychopaths) runs onto a pass and slots in past Igor. All too familiar. Here were go again, we all think. But no, it hits the inside of the base of the post and goes across the goal. Maybe this season will be different... Three points from an absolute battle of a game is a good start. Legs are tired and voices are hoarse. We are in full swing again. Fights on the bench, death threats, separating the ref and the opposition, being told to **** off back to where we come from. The beautiful game in the land of the world champions.

With four new players on the bench, but a familiar starting line-up, with only Sebastian and Mate new this season, we should have been able to get quickly into the groove of our passing game, especially after all the small sided games in training. Strangely however, we were actually better at keeping our shape and playing in a disciplined manner than we were at getting the ball on the floor and doing what we do best. Our 100 mph starts of last season were not repeated and it took us twenty minutes to really get going. The three Irish lads with the dodgy barnets in the side were in the thick of all the action (almost) for the whole game...

Number 3, Mark Jones. If there is one thing that Mark is better at than shouting abuse at the opposition and the ref it is shouting abuse at his team-mates. He excelled in this for the first twenty minutes. 'He should calm down,' was suggested on the bench. When Igor picked up a 'backpass' from Dave six yards out, which they blasted straight at a sensitive area of my midriff, paralysing me for a moment, Mark was the one who cleared the ball as their striker rushed onto it, clattering Mark, who made a great yelping noise and collapsed in a heap. I wonder who he learns these things from. If there is one thing he is better at that screaming abuse and yelping, it is certainly not penalties – I saw him miss four out of four in training the other week WITH NO GOALKEEPER. Didn't stop him from slotting his third penalty for la squadra fantastica last night though after Davie Horan had been bundled over right in front of goal.

We won the penalty after a classic IUE move, with the ball spread wide down the left into my path, after a couple of passes in the middle. I cut inside, look up and see Irial. Irial wins the header which goes across the goal to Davie Horan who has the goal at his mercy. Foul. Penalty. 1-0. Villoreal start moaning. I say start, I mean I think this team moans for a living. Ref says that they shouldn't moan as the goal he had disallowed a few minutes earlier should have counted. Unbelievable. Well, it should have counted. Their player passes it through his own defence to Dave McCourt, who whacked it in. Ref panics, blows whistle. We point out the fact that he is a lunatic. Somehow all of this means we deserve a penalty. When we got the ball on the floor a few times in the second half of the first period we looked like a genuinely good side, we had three or four crosses narrowly miss our onrushing forwards – Irial hit the post with one, and their keeper sprawled brilliant to palm away one of mine. I almost scored from 45 yards with a freekick after seeing their keeper about 29 yards off his line, followed by great keeper-makes-brilliant-recovery-save-then-bangs-his head-on-the-post routine.

Number 9, Irial Glynn. If there is one thing Irial is better at than scoring belting goals for the EUI it is certainly not correctly pronouncing arbitro. Who cares though – a few minutes into the second half a good move ends with Davie H squaring the ball to Irial just inside the box. Swivel and shot on the turn. Left foot. Top corner. Trade mark goal, trade mark Irial grin and celebration. Beautiful. 2-0

Back to Mark... After Mark scored the first thing he said to me was that he wasn't washing the kit. I told him I'd do it if we kept a clean sheet. Having none of this, he decided to give away a penalty. Fair enough. Great penalty. 2-1. Ten minutes of panic and disarray. We have serious psychological problems I think. We struggled to keep our shape or the ball. After numerous alterations, and an injury to Sebastian after we had made our last substitution, we eventually regained composure. Nate allegedly broke their number 4's ribs. This sparks acrimony between the benches and death threats (honestly, death threats) for Nate, and then for me when I suggested it might not be a good idea to kill one of our players. Then the ref loses it completely and goes over to confront their bench (which had about 4000 people on – all on crack cocaine seemingly). Me and Andrew go and separate them and the ref and tell the ref not to send one of them off from the bench. Ref doesn't send him off. Villoreal get pissed off at me and Andrew and the threats of violence begin again. My sexuality was questioned at some point, by as Arnout put it 'the biggest frocio you've ever seen'. I have to admit though, I have been having some doubts recently...

Number 10, David Horan. After winning us the penalty, setting up the second goal and screaming at the ref in English for the whole game, Davie found himself playing centreback for the last 10 or 15 minutes. Having been subdued for a lot of the game, he decided this was the time to excel, taking on 4 or 5 players on the edge of our box every time he got the ball. If you can keep you head while... Anyway, if only he could do that nearer the other goal next time...There were a couple of great clearing headers by Mark and Dave near the end, and apart from an abomination of a defensive line right near the end, the back four played well.

Leo and Jaime were great outlets after they came on and Nate offered great energy and elbows in the middle of the park. Leo has an, erm, interesting miss near the end meaning we had to sweat a bit longer. This game was always going to be more of a battle than a football match. The win was the important thing, and we were obviously the much stronger side. That's not always what counts in these games though, and we should be proud of ourselves for our spirit – it's in many ways much easier to win games against stronger sides.

After the game we were on the verge on a brawl for a while. The ref ran off straight away. I felt genuinely sorry for him last night. Looking after Nate was the priority, who was in danger of getting lynched. I mean, this is Nate. Such a nice guy that if he entered a nice guy contest he would come second, just because he's so nice he would let someone else win. If some demented florentines ask you about the whereabouts of the number 14, just shrug your shoulders and walk away. Not like Trechsel, who came storming round the corner, just as things were calming down, and 'did a Mark' and starting screaming abuse at them again. Thanks Prof. Well done to Tijl for sticking up for us as well. I'm sure they were scared of us all really.

Team:

Igor- Andrew (Leo), Dave M, Arnout (Miguel), Mark - Mate (Nate), Sebastian, Dom, Luke (Jaime) - Dave H - Irial

New kit and lots of players...

So the new kit is currently in my possession, looking beautiful. You can see what it looks like at training tonight! It is lovely, needless to say, and fits in very nicely with the EUI's corporate colour scheme. We also have new bibs, which is even better news, if you ask me. They are just yellow.

We also have 35 tesserati, and a ball is yet to be kicked. We had 22 at this point last season. This is fantastic and should mean a brilliant season (if people keep coming to training). However, what it also means is that even with a monster squad of 17 or 18 for our first game, half of the players registered will miss out, and there are a few players who are yet to register. Every member of the squad will prove to be important-the season is very long-and it is crucial that people who are not in the first squad, or the first starting 11 keep coming to training and force their way into the team! See you at training tonight...

La Squadra Fantastica in two-page feature in the EUI Review

A few months ago I sent round an article that i had written about the team that was going to be published in the EUI review. Well, for those of you who didn't read it then, there is now another chance not to read it: make sure you don't turn to the back pages of the EUI Review to read hilarious anecdotes and tear-jerking musings about la squadra fantastica.

Asyou can see above, there are also great photos are Tijl struggling to work out how to run backwards in a warm up, Mark looking like a schoolgirl fan of his hero Manolo. There are Irial, Davie Parsons and Alex in a same haircut, same cheesy grin pose, Andrew looking like an evil alien in a good team photo, a goal celebration photo which looks remarkably similar to the soft-porn-effects one just above this post, and a quite fetching shot of Manolo's neck, Simon in his pants and Tim literally naval gazing, with the hilarious caption: 'the team listen attentively to pre-match instructions. Obviously not attentively enough, as they lost this game'. 5-0 as well, but I didn't mention that.

You can see the article here.

There is also a picture of me, unrelated to the team, on page 46, in a fetching hat.

Last Training Session Before the Big Kick-Off: Sunday 7th October

Well done everyone for a great training session last night. 28 people, with several 'big names' missing, is an excellent turn-out.

Ernesto, Igor, Sebastian, Norberto, Mate, Tijl, Simon you are expected at the next session! Luca, you are expected back soon too.

Thanks to everyone who has handed in photos and documents, we are just waiting on a few stragglers. It would be a really stupid way of missing the first couple of games if you can't play because you are not iscritto. Ernesto, Igor, Simon, Luca, Jen, Graham to name a few.

With a squad of over 25 excellent players this season, we have every reason to be very optimistic. Although Prof. Trechsel was staunchly defending the old guard of years gone by in Finnegans last night, what I said about this being the strongest squad ever is definitely true. If we can get a genuine commitment from everyone, we will have an exceptional season. Therefore, we need a big turn-out on Sunday at Villa Schifanoia for training on the calcetto pitch, the perfect way to increase our sharpness before the opening game.

New Season, New Website. Calendario - Girone di Andata....

WELCOME TO THE BRAND NEW IUE CALCIO WEBSITE!
TOTALLY INTERACTIVE - feel free to post comments in any language.
This website is in no way part of the EUI, so people can feel reasonably free to say what they like... Watch out though, you never know when high profile members of EUI staff might get offended...

This will be the place to read match reports, see photos etc. this season.

Anyhow, the new season is fast approaching....

We have an unprecedented two games in four days to start the season, as we have a Friday home game to start off with... Grudge matches v Speranza 1998 and Romito will soon be upon us... Careggi is on standby. Terror level will be at least orange on those days at least... We also have a team of doctors in our league this year, relegated last season, although I assume not to punish them for ****ing me and Igor up last season....

The fixtures are:

(Home games in capitals)

VILLOREAL Fri 12 Oct
Serpiolle Mon 15 Oct
Cr.PIAZZA Tue 23 Oct
Romito Tue 30 Oct
S.FREDIANO Tue 06 Nov
S.Ambrogio Mon 12 Nov
SPERANZA Tue 20 Nov
Casellina Mon 26 Nov
MEDICI F'TINI Tue 04 Dec
Sporting 2003 Wed 12 Dec
CAVALLINA Tue 18 Dec
Sp. Club Fi. Wed 15 Jan