Weekend Watch Recap: Let’s Dance

By: chris | March 17th, 2008

Saturday

Roma 2 – Milan 1: For the Giallorossi faithful, and probably some neutral observers, this one’s going directly into the vault as one of the classics. It really lived up to its billing, and the Paolo Maldini who stepped out onto the pitch looked much closer to 20 than 40 – here’s to hoping he plays at least one more. Roma played Milan off the pitch for the first half, exhibiting all those beautiful characteristics they’re synonymous with. Then Milan played Roma off the pitch to begin the second half, putting on the passing clinics they’re known for. Kaka bagged the first goal for Milan, but Luciano Spalletti, Roma’s saviour, brought Ludovic Giuly and Mirko Vucinic off the bench at just the right time, and they scored 2 goals in 3 minutes to create what is the loudest Olimpico crowd I have heard in a long time. Made all the sweeter by the fact that both goals came after that fucking traitor Emerson came onto the pitch. (No, we’re not bitter.)

Derby 0 – ManYoo 1: Not what was expected at all. In fact, some Derby fans could even consider this a victory – after the Devils needed a late goal to take the whole kit and caboodle. Cristiano Ronaldo scored a missile of a goal and then proceeded to go completely bananas in celebration, apparently jubilant over having scored a goal against what is quite possibly the worst team in the history of the Premiership. United snuck past Arsenal into first place, but it was probably a decent day for both sides – something nobody saw coming.

Valencia 1 – Sevilla 2: Luis Fabiano put the match away within the first half hour with a brace, and got himself into a tie with CRon for the lead in the European Golden Boot standings. Sevilla are now within 2 of Atletico Madrid for The Almighty Fourth Champions League Spot. For Valencia, the bad just keeps getting worse, as they drop a crucial 3 points at home and now sit 9 points from European competition with 10 games to go.

Sunday

Juventus 1 – Napoli 0: The Bianconeri completely owned this game, but didn’t manage to break the ice until the 88th minute when Super Sub Vincenzo Iaquinta came in to save the day. Juventus may have won, but the highlight of the day was Napoli’s 21 year old CB Fabiano Santacroce, who looked like the second coming of Fabio Cannavaro in the back. Raw, but a beast of a talent.

Zenit St. Petersburg 0 – Spartak Moscow 0 : If you watched this one on our recommendation, we sincerely apologize. Via ESPN:

Chances were few and far in between for Zenit and Spartak in their first match of league season at St Petersburg’s Petrovsky stadium with both sides looking sluggish and short of ideas.

So basically what they’re trying to say is: “This game sucked, I sat in the press box waiting for somebody to do something, anything, but I was stuck grasping for shit to say. And the highlight of my day was a hot dog.”

Lens 3 – Marseille 3: Props to Laurie for picking out a 6 goal thriller, props to Lens for scoring 3 goals in 17 minutes, and props to Djibril Cisse for taking what would have been a devastating loss – after being dumped out of Europe by Zenit last week – and turning it into an 89th minute point (after the defender looked to have ducked out of the way of a sure three points). Goals:

Lens – Marseille
Uploaded by doa56

* – And we apologize for not knowing Energie Freakin’ Cottbus was going to upset Bayern 2-0.