How much is Inter-Juve Super Cup 1-1: goals from McKennie and Lautaro | Direct”>Handanovic worth having
An old football adage said that you shouldn’t be happy with the great performance of a goalkeeper: the fact that an extreme defender is very busy means, inevitably, that the defense has not worked at its best. Like all prepackaged sentences, this is only partially true. It is enough to review Atalanta-Inter 0-0 to realize it: Samir Handanovic was decisive with several beautiful saves, but this does not mean that his team defended and therefore played badly. Because there were also opponents on the pitch, and what opponents: Atalanta, at this moment, is probably the best Serie A team right behind Inter, and therefore it was and is impossible to prevent Gasperini’s men from creating many – and great – scoring opportunities.
It is here, in certain circumstances, that the importance of having a goalkeeper like Handanovic comes out: Inzaghi’s Inter have improved a lot since the beginning of the season, it is no coincidence that they have conceded 14 goals in the first 13 games of this championship and then only one. goal in the next ten games; obviously the credit goes to the whole defense and the whole team, but in some cases – Atalanta are only the last – it is impossible to limit the opponents, not to let them shoot on goal. Here, in these – haggard, very rare – moments, such as those experienced in Bergamo, the Slovenian goalkeeper has always been ready. He defused very poisonous shots, gave his teammates confidence, and then he also continued to participate in a sustained manner in the bottom-up construction – a skill that has been honed a lot in recent seasons.
Immediately after the great performance against Atalanta, we returned to talk about the renewal of Handanovic’s contract, about possible doubts of the Slovenian goalkeeper about the dualism with Onana, about ongoing reflections also by Inter. These are the classic news that arise from matches, and this is precisely the point: at 38 years old in July, Handanovic is still able to be the absolute protagonist, to guide and fill the journalists’ agenda setting. It is not obvious for any 38-year-old player, and it was not obvious for him, who in some moments of the last few seasons seemed to have lowered the quality standard of his performances. And instead Handanovic is still one of the best goalkeepers in Serie A, he proved it for the umpteenth time, in the most spectacular way possible.
A fun 0-0, between Atalanta and Inter
Thiago Motta and patience
A few hours before Christmas, everyone was sure that not even a victory in Naples would allow Thiago Motta to change his destiny, to escape being sacked by Spezia. The journalistic reconstructions told of internal problems in the locker room, of insurmountable misunderstandings, of an inevitable farewell. Then Spezia won in Naples, then they won again at Genoa, and yesterday came another even more unexpected success than that of Naples, at San Siro against Milan. It is no coincidence, one would think, that all this happened in sequence and that Thiago Motta is still on the Spezia bench: certain results can and have certainly been random, just think of the tumultuous final match at San Siro, but three clues usually test. And in this case, net of actually incidental events, it is clear that Spezia’s performances were of a great level, especially considering the absolute value of the players on the pitch. The ranking also says that Spezia plays well: after 22 days, the Ligurian team has 22 points, six more than the third-last Cagliari and only two fewer than a year ago, in the wonderful season spent with Italian on the bench. In short, certain numbers show that everything is in line with expectations. And that perhaps, but perhaps, having waited a moment longer before firing Thiago Motta, before crumpling a project and throwing it in the wastebasket, before frustrating a job set up for several months by hiring a technician who would inevitably do something different. (Not necessarily worse: simply different), was the right choice. We will probably never know if the disagreements that have been talked about for several weeks exist or have ever existed. What we do know, however, is that today Spezia is a team that plays intelligent football yet never renounces on principle, even if it has the youngest squad (average age 23.7) and with the penultimate overall value (70 million, source Transfermarkt) of the entire Serie A. And that would be saved if the championship ended today. These are not trivial things, and the merits are also – if not above all – by Thiago Motta.
Milan 1-2 Spezia
Antonín Barák is no surprise
Scoring three goals in a single game can be an incidental event, in reality it always is: a shot, even if very strong and well aimed, can end up on the post or be deflected by a great save by the opposing goalkeeper. The point is that in certain cases, for certain players, such exploits cannot be considered random. For a simple reason: behind the goals, before the goals, there are fantastic, continuous, decisive performances in an absolute sense. Antonín Barák’s explosion is such a story: since he arrived in Verona, in the summer of 2020, the Czech midfielder has experienced an incredible development, he has become one of the most important players in the entire Serie A, This feeling goes well beyond the numbers (we are already at 15 goals and nine assists in a season and a half) hard and pure: Tudor’s Hellas won only one of the four games they faced without him between December and January, the day before yesterday he went to play at Sassuolo – one of the most fit and tactically advanced teams in the league – on the day of his return as a starter and won 4-2. Even in Reggio Emilia, the goals – just the way they came: a crazy carom in the area, a penalty and a lob on an overturning action in the 94th – were only part of the whole: Caprari’s advantage was propitiated by an assist. clean and intelligent of the former Udinese, who led and organized many other actions with quality and dynamism, as required by football practiced by Tudor. At just 27 years old, Barák can no longer be considered a surprise, an upstart. It is a splendid reality of Verona and of our league, and by virtue of this it is destined to test itself at a higher level. He deserved it, after all.
