Ballotta Blunders, Pazzini Profits
By: Daryl | November 4th, 2007Fiorentina beat Lazio 1-0 yesterday to go second in Serie A with this goal from Giampaolo Pazzini, not bad going for The Viola. But spare a thought for Lazio keeper Marco Ballotta, who seems to be mostly to blame for this defensive shambles. He misreads what his defender is going to do, then unnecessarily scrambles back to prevent the ball going out for a corner, only to present it on a plate to Pazzini.
The one thing Ballotta won’t be blaming this blunder on is inexperience. The man is 43 years old. I know keepers play until they’re old, but 43 is quite the ripe old age to be turning out in Serie A. Ballotta is actually Lazio’s goalkeeper coach, and only playing due to injuries. I’m not ageist in any way, and one day hope to also be 43 years old, but with Lazio’s poor start to the season (they lost the Rome derby 3-2 in midweek) it might be wise for them to invest in someone a little younger to stand in front of the net.
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Category: Serie A
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Well Lazio has invested in someone younger, 23 year old Uruguayan Fernando Muslera, who had a horrible experience in net in the 5-1 loss to Milan. They also tried to get River Plate goalkeeper Carrizo in the summer but he couldn’t come because he couldn’t get a passport. Apparently he’s all set to arrive in January though.
Ballotta on the other hand has never been a great keeper. He’s basically a journeyman who’s been a starter at lower level teams and a backup or even third keeper at bigger clubs.
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Young or old keeper it’s a freak play. In a split second it went from a heady slide to prevent a corner kick to disaster. You could repeat that play 1000 times and the striker wouldn’t have been present at split second the keeper took his hand off the ball to prevent the corner. Give credit to the striker for being a pest and poaching one.
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