As if either team’s fans weren’t aware of the season they’ve
fallen victim to, Saturday night’s showdown features two coaches whose futures
are also suspect. With Cagliari in the relegation zone, 4 points behind 17th
and Milan in a shameful 10th place, tied with next week’s opponent, both teams
will be desperate to grab the three points. But win, lose, or draw, come Sunday
morning in the media and for the fans, it will be the coaches who will be the smoking gun.
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| Will Smoking Man be the smoking gun? |
Zeman coached the first part of Cagliari’s season, was
sacked, replaced by Gianfranco Zola, and then he replaced his replacement, who
had a miserable 10 matches or so in charge. I don’t know how much confidence
that gives him, that he was the lesser of two evils, but it won’t stop him from
trying to bring down a wounded Milan. He’s also taking this very seriously,
getting right down to work last week after he was re-appointed and locking the
doors of the training facility for confidentiality purposes.
That work almost got him a win last weekend against Empoli.
They were up 1-0 until they conceded a goal in stoppage time to earn a sole
point from the match. For that home game, Zeman lined up Brkic; Murru, Balzano,
Ceppitelli, Diakite; Crisetig. Joao Pedro, Dessena; Farias, Sau, and Mpoku.
However, he will have to do without Balzano, who is suspended for this match.
While he may be able to welcome back Ekdal and Donsah from their injuries,
still questionable as far as fitness are Capuano, Gonzalez, and Colombi. I
would suggest that they would have a steep road to climb playing away, but the
San Siro is quite the opposite of a fortress this season, so it may actually
almost be an advantage.
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| Looking for a new job sucks. So does being sacked before you're actually sacked. |
Both Zeman and Inzaghi like to play attacking football. But
Inzaghi still has a lot to learn from the goalmaster. In fact, almost everyone
seems to agree that Inzaghi still has a lot to learn period, which he would
probably also agree with. My solace is that we actually played better last week than
we had for a while. So if he could string together another decent performance,
improve upon it, and especially get the result, he may not have to avoid
googling his name so much after the match.
Coinciding with this desperate need for three points is the
return of De Jong. While he was not at all quick to divulge any decision about
his future this week, I have no doubt he will do everything possible to play tomorrow
and give us 100%. It is rumored that Montolivo and Rami may also be fit in
time, but not certain. And then we will still be missing Zaccardo, Armero,
Agazzi, Mastour, El Shaarawy, Zapata, and De Sciglio, of course. But with a
team of 31 players, we’ll hardly even notice they’re missing, right?
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| "The General reporting for duty, Sir!" |
I’m hoping… aww, forget it. I am really only hoping that the game
doesn’t drive me to start drinking. Let’s face it, I will scream as loud in celebration as
anyone else if we get the three points, but I also know better than to hold my breath
for a positive result. Like Pavlov’s dogs, I am conditioned to Milan’s poor
performances this season. But I will say that if one of these managers pulls
off a win tomorrow, they could see their name linked with the other one’s job
for next season. So maybe it’s actually more of a chance to audition for a position
next year than to avoid being a smoking gun. But if Milan lose again, you might want to keep
all guns out of my reach, smoking or no. I really don’t know how much more of
this I can endure.
This post inspired by the music of Muse’s
“Psycho”
Milan vs. Cagliari
Saturday, March 21 • 20:45 CET (3:45pm EDT)*
*note the time difference due to Daylight Savings Time
This match will be shown on RAI and BeIN Sports in the U.S.