Sport

Inter 1 - 1 Torino and Arrivederci Quaresma February 3rd, 2009

It is all giggles and laughs when Juve loose at home and Roma draw to a bottom-three team, but it is just no fun at all when it happens to you. Dont get me wrong, I will take the 6 points we are up but I just cant help but wish it were 9. How often does a team get a chance to gain points on Juve or Milan? I just can’t help but think we may rue this missed opportunity. Still, a point is a point, and suppose it could have been worse… but cripes, this is TORINO we are talking about. On top of that, we have the Champions League list and the departure of Dacourt and Quaresma to deal with. First things first

video Inter Milan 1-0 AS Roma

Juventus suffer set back against Cagliari

Juventus' hopes of catching Serie A league leaders Inter Milan suffered a major blow on Saturday when it lost 3-2 at home to Cagliari.
Had it won Claudio Ranieri's side would have closed to within three points of Inter, but now Jose Mourinho's side can widen the gap to nine points when it takes on Torino on Sunday.
Worse still, if AC Milan also wins, Carlo Ancelotti's team will leapfrog Juventus into second place.
Inter top the table with 49 points, Juventus are second on 43 and AC Milan lie third with 41.
"Cagliari had a great game, a very good game. You could see from what they did against Inter Milan (1-1 draw) and Lazio (4-1 win) that they would give us a lot to worry about," Ranieri said"We've only given away five games at home, so our defense is better than this. We need to watch (the match) and then discuss it. We shouldn't have given away two goals when we were leading 2-1," he added.
In form Cagliari, which hasn't lost since returning from the winter break, took the lead against the run of play on 16 minutes when Davide Biondini headed in Michele Fini's cross at the far post.
Mohamed Sissoko brought the home side level on 31 minutes, heading in Alessandro Del Piero's corner.
On 38 minutes Juventus took the lead when Pavel Nedved picked up a weak header to shoot low past Federico Marchetti to give Juventus the halftime lead.
Cagliari equalized on 54 minutes. Andrea Cossu was released on the left and Jeda reached his cross to score his eighth goal of the season.
The winner came on 78 minutes. Alessandro Matri sent Andrea Lazzari into space behind the Juventus defence and made up enough ground to score from the return pass and put Cagliari three points from the Champions League places.
"This evening the team had a great game. It took it's chances and then at the end we didn't give Juventus anything," Cagliari coach Massimiliano Allegri said.
In the night's earlier match Napoli and Udinese scored two first half goals apiece to draw 2-2.
Ezequiel Lavezzi gave the home side the lead in the 24th minute, following good work by his attacking partner German Denis and Marek Hamsik added the second three minutes later when he headed in Walter Gargano's freekick.
Antonio di Natale scored his 11th goal of the season on 32 minutes after Paolo Cannavaro had brought down Kwadwo Asamoah to close the deficit, before Fabio Quagliarella scored an acrobatic volley from outside the penalty area on the stroke of halftime

Lazio 0 - 3 Inter Milan

Toro Comes to Town and Ibra Gets His Century

What: Inter v Torino
When: Sunday, February 1, 3:15* pm local time (6:15am pacific, 9:15am eastern)
Where: San Siro, Milan
How to Watch: Broadcast on FSC, MyP2P is still not providing links to Serie A games, so there is always Justin.tv, Rojadirecta, Ustream, and ATDHE.net. Somewhere in there should be a stream.

*All Serie A and B games are starting 15 minutes late in protest against the 1-year bans handed down to Daniele Mannini (Napoli) and Davide Possanzini (Breschia).

Inter welcome Torino to the San Siro this Sunday for an afternoon game, and hopefully, a good drubbing. The game will mark 100 appearances for Zlatan Ibrahimovic in an Inter jersey. Hopefully, he will get a few goals to celebrate. Inter come into the match in high confidence, which could be the kiss of death of us. It seems that whenever we do well, we follow it up with a stinker. Fingers-crossed that we have finally broken the cycle. Last year, Inter won this tie handily 4-0 (see below); this year, a similar result would be just what we need to really kick-start the second half of the season

Catania 0 - 2 Inter: Three More Points Baby!

This game has helped to renew my faith in Inter as a team. After that horrific loss and last week’s near draw against Sampdoria, this is just the kind of showing that demonstrates why Inter is at the top of the table. Despite going down to 10 men midway through the first half, we kept our wits about us and brought home 3 points. Even better, with the clean sheet, we have the best goal differential again (the details matter). This win, taken with the other results of the day (grazie Udinese e Genoa), put Inter 6 points clear at the top. Highlights after the jump

Back On Top: Inter 1 - 0 Sampdoria

That was bloody. Still, we managed to take full points, and with these three very important points, find ourselves back at the top of the table - at least until Wednesday. The game saw 6 yellows (4 for them, 2 for us), 1 red (for Mourinho), a stupid punch (by Adriano), and a split head (Muntari). There were calls for penalties, injuries (2 a piece), and 3 gut-wrenching injury scares (JC, Zanetti, and Cambiasso). Probably the worst thing, though, was that Inter only managed to score one crumby goal. Even after Mazzarri was forced to take off his last defender, Inter could not score on a squad comprised almost entirely of midfielders. Very disappointing. Highlights after the jump