The Circus Has Come To Town And Its Name Is Palermo

By: chris | March 24th, 2008

Palermo only made its ascent back to Serie A recently after 31 years in the calcio dungeons, and they have made damn quick work of becoming the Monday morning water cooler subject of discussion for a great deal of the peninsula. Much of it is due to their extreme whacko of an owner, Maurizio Zamparini, whose favorite recreational activities are, in order: firing coaches, saying stupid shit, and then finally calcio. Zampa decided to give himself a nice holiday present early Monday morning by canning Francesco Guidolin for the fourth time in three years. Yes, he’s apparently that clueless.

The squad itself is by no means a joke. They’ve got Amauri, probably the best player in the world not to have a national team call up, Andrea Barzagli, the future heir to the Azzurri’s back line, Cristian Zaccardo, a wildly talented if slightly underachieving assumed future participant on Barzagli’s back line, and other gifted players like Edison Cavani, Bosko Jankovic and Leandro Rinaudo. The club, however? A walking punch line.

Martha did a fine job of explaining the previous shenanigans, so I’ll pick up where she left off. Palermo has, since that 5-0 shellacking by Juventus, picked up a total of 18 points in 13 games, highlighted by recent losses to 10 man relegation fighter Parma, and a home drubbing by Genoa this Saturday (Genoa scored 3 in quick succession, and Amauri only pulled one back in injury time). They’re closer to the relegation zone (9 points) than they are to a UEFA Cup spot (11) and they’ve got a nice little four game stretch upcoming against Napoli, Juventus, Fiorentina and Catania in the Sicilian derby. Yes, that Sicilian derby.

The club is saying that this firing had much to do with the recent comments from Guidolin about the “infernal atmosphere” at the Renzo Barbera and maybe kinda sorta insinuating that the club had strategically placed (implying the hierarchy has a strategy, which is complete bs) certain detractors in the stands to get the crowd against him. All of which is a load of manure. They lost a bunch of games, they’re down in the table and he was getting canned eventually. This is just an avenue of convenience.

What does Zamparini do? Go and bring back the same guy who he fired earlier in the season. Duh. Stefano Colantuono was named as coach this morning, after a quick four month sabbatical. And so the punch line comes in, and this sideshow which fancies itself a football club - their hiring/firing tactics seems more reminiscent of a McDonalds than a European hopeful - gets another coach who will assuredly be gone within 18 months. So if you’re an Italian coach and a couple suits short of a full deck, dust off the old resume by the time the summer winds arrive.