Cagliari - Inter (29 Sep 13)

We were the better team except for the first part of the second half and we conceded a stupid goal off a deflection I'm not worries it was down to bad luck today.

tbh, there's nothing that handa could do with nainggolan's goal. his feet were covered in deep water. how could you expect him to move, let alone make a diving save?

fuck the pitch again and again. have jube played cagliari on that swimming pool this season? if they haven't, then make them to play in that fucking swimming pool as well!

oh wait...no way it's going to happen. that filthy pitch will only be dry when juve play on it.

I agree that the pitch was a disgrace and it's quite outrageous that teams playing at this level of competition are today exposed to such poor facilities and pitches.

But, using the pitch condition as an excuse or complaint about the result is ridiculous tbh. After all, cagliari played in it as well.

Devious said:

lol look at Alvarez` face: the fuck is this shit??

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spot the differences



serie a stadium

I think a lot of you (somehow) missed the fact that Nainggolan's shot was deflected off Rolando (who confirmed it in his post-match interview).

Handanovic this, Handanovic that. The guy moved to his right to attempt a save on Nainggolan's shot before it hit Rolando and ended up to Handanovic's left. Unlucky. That's all.

Universe said:

I think a lot of you (somehow) missed the fact that Nainggolan's shot was deflected off Rolando (who confirmed it in his post-match interview).

Handanovic this, Handanovic that. The guy moved to his right to attempt a save on Nainggolan's shot before it hit Rolando and ended up to Handanovic's left. Unlucky. That's all.

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I didn't realise that was a deflected shot tbh.

I4E said:

I didn't realise that was a deflected shot tbh.

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It was, Nainggolans shot was heading to his left, and suddenly it changed the direction. Pure luck, nothing more, nothing less.

As for the whining, really guys? Jesus. Some people are not even here, and are waiting inter to fail to win so that they come and flame the team. Relax, none is certain how it will go, but most fans are becoming cautiously optimistic. Except the eternal pessimist that if we reach top3, will claim that it was pure luck...

Games like yesterday will always happen, we shouldnt worry about it. The best teams in the world often drop points this way. Rotation, bad pitch, shit ref (although granted, he was way better than i expected), and most important, shit luck, and we failed to win. Move on.

I wonder what all the boo boys here would've done had they been Napoli fans after their Sassuolo draw (at home, not in a fucking swimming pool). Boo boys, chill the fuck out. It was a ridiculous pitch, a decent performance by our players to play a game in conditions that, honestly, should have been enough to call off or postpone the game. And Cagliari were more than lucky to get that deflected goal.

I4E said:

I didn't realise that was a deflected shot tbh.

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We can no longer be friends.

Pajo said:

Games like yesterday will always happen, we shouldnt worry about it. The best teams in the world often drop points this way. Rotation, bad pitch, shit ref (although granted, he was way better than i expected), and most important, shit luck, and we failed to win. Move on.

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Tbh, we got lots of chance to score but we failed, so I think a draw is what we deserve. I hope this will be a good draw so that our team can take a look back at themselves and keep improving.

At last, a draw is not a disaster. And remember that RuBe still won Scudetto 2 years ago with nearly 40% draw.

So, move on boys.

Between Quaresma, Pereira, Guarin and Rolando (well that was an unlucky deflection; decent aside from that) I never want to see another Porto reject at this club.

Frustrating result but it happens. Kovacic was excellent as was Cambiasso. Guarin pisses me off to no end these days. Belfodil looked incredibly rusty. Palacio continues to make things happen when he's on the pitch. I can't imagine how well we'd do without him. Probably poor though.

pencilpal said:

Compare the quality of our starting lineup to that of Cagliari, regardless of Taider and Campagnaro on the bench. And Jonathan didn't even play well against Fiorentina; a nice goal doesn't account for his overall performance, so I don't think he's worth mentioning tbh.

Palacio was eventually substituted in, Belfodil has two seasons in Serie A under his belt, and Kovacic was fit today. Not saying that these players were bad in this game, but we undeniably had a much stronger and more cohesive starting lineup than that of Cagliari.

And this is Rolando's tenth game in Serie A. Also remember that he played for four seasons as a starter in a fairly competitive Porto side. So he's not exactly inexperienced.

How long will the excuses last?



Except that Guarin was extremely wasteful and Kovacic, Nagatomo, and Nainggolan played relatively well today. Conti and Ricky had decent performances tbh.

Let's see how many players that played today are in the regular starting XI for Inter and Cagliari respectively (bolded players are substitutes that were fielded in this match)

Palacio Ricky Pereira - Kovacic - Guarin - Nagatomo Cambiasso Juan - Rano - Rolando Handanovic​

Ibarbo - Pinilla Cabrera Dessena - Conti - Nainggolan Avelar - Rossettini - Astori - Perico Agazzi​

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The comparison you made on the formation is totally invalid. Palacio and Alvarez didn't play together yesterday which means each of them had to play with someone they are not very familiar with or at least as familiar as Ricky-Palacio.

As for Cagliari:
Dessena has played 5 games this season. All as starter. Is he a sub?
Perico started 3 Serie A games this season out of 5. Is he a sub?
Rossettini played all 5 games as starter. Is he a sub?
You put Palacio who was our sub in the line-up, but why didn't you put Marco Sau instead of Pinilla?

You have double standard in comparing the formation which is a

Rolando. yes he played in Serie A before, but I don't think he played for Inter and I don't think his partner was Ranocchia, Jesus, and Jonathan.

Kovacic was fit? I presume you didn't watch the game. Kovacic was being overrun by Cagliari couple times in the second half. After 65-70 minutes, he drained. He didn't do much anymore.

Jonathan didn't play well vs Fio, true. But, that doesn't deny the fact that he plays better than Pereira. Plus, he has played extremely well for Jonathan standard.

I really didn't think any of our attempts minus Icardi's goal were considerably strong. Yes, Agazzi had to make a couple of saves, but keep in mind the quality of Cagliari's defence, and also the force of the shots.



Were we better than Cagliari today? Perhaps.

But did we play well? Was our performance strong, not relative to our opponent, but on an absolute scale. I'd argue that it wasn't.

We could've played better, and honestly the excuses need to stop now.

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None of our attempts were considerably strong? On top of my head now.. Nagatomo volley in the first 5 minutes. Guarin powershot which was saved by Agazzi. Guarin lob over Agazzi which he just managed to parry over the bar. Belfodil header which was unfortunately fell on Agazzi lap.

No one said we couldn't play better but given the condition of the pitch, the barely new and young team. They deserved the credit. Losing points is part of the game but their efforts must be appreciated. Perhaps you never played in those conditions. Ask the Indonesians in this forum who are 25-30 years old, I believe most of them grew up playing football on shitty swamp pitch 10-15 years ago. Today everyone plays indoor on astro turf.

Let me explain why it is difficult to play on that kind of pitch:
1. Ball doesn't roll on water.
2. Once the ball is wet, it is difficult to control
3. The ball that fall in a pool like that will soak the water and is heavier
4. When the ball is on the water, it is hard to get accurate passing or shooting. Why? because the ball is not on the pitch while we are standing on the pitch.
5. Running in water is more difficult.
6. The pitch is more slippery coz it's wet and shoes are wet too
7. Shoes are full of water, water don't drain from shoes, it stays with the shoes make them much heavier.

Of course, they are pro footballer but they are not used to that condition. Those are not excuses.

The excuses need to stop? Tell that yourself. Stop making excuses cause you need a defence mechanism to feel better and have something to blame than facing the reality.

Wow, haven't been reading most of these posts but the last one by Ed killed it. You can't seriously diss Inter over the performance yesterday.

Yeah seriously we were unlucky yesterday but it's out fault since we were wasteful early on but it's nothing to go apeshit crazy, some teams concede off a deflection while other teams concede and the goal gets annulled for a non existent offside but that's what happens, we were unlucky nothing more nothing less.

why all this negativity?

I'm pretty happy with how we are playing this season and am pretty optimistic especially after the last 2-3 seasons

we have some great young players that are getting a lot of minutes, we are either winning or playing well enough to win in every game and we are getting good performances out of many players that have been poor since arriving here.

what did some of you expect after last season? i don't see how things could be going much better TBH

the most important thing is that even in this draw with all the rotations we were playing with a clear strategy and didnt let cagliari dictate the game !
pitch was terrible and honestly it can be used as an excuse :/ i can understand every player trying to avoid the wings

so far i think the two most consistent teams in serie a are inter and roma

Universe said:

I think a lot of you (somehow) missed the fact that Nainggolan's shot was deflected off Rolando (who confirmed it in his post-match interview).

Handanovic this, Handanovic that. The guy moved to his right to attempt a save on Nainggolan's shot before it hit Rolando and ended up to Handanovic's left. Unlucky. That's all.

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But but, he should've at least move his body and try to catch it even if he knows that its too late blivious:

:fiflogic:

Batman said:

But but, he should've at least move his body and try to catch it even if he knows that its too late blivious:

:fiflogic:

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deflection is the hardest one for goalie to saves
even if one try to react to it, the mind is set to move to certain direction and the whole body usually already move to the wrong side

one reaction is just stunned like handa yesterday

or gk might try to save and fail
i remember toldo once tried this move, not enough power to counter his body and ended up horizontally static in his position while his hand was move to the right side

or gk might try to save and success
minute 1:59 and 5:16
deflection saved by gk

Yeah, the team shouldn't be blamed for this game. It's true that we were wasteful but it happens from time to time. The goal they scored is the kind of crap that's just unfortunate, can't really put the blame on anyone. It reminds of those 2 Stankovic goals he scored against Parma when he had the hat-trick.

Important thing is we controlled the game and hardly gave anything away. I'd rather this type of game than those troll wins we got under Strama where we kept winning and it masked that we weren't performing well at all. We still do need reinforcements in midfield, but it's a good start and I'm satisfied. Once again, Cagliari away has always been a tough game for us, and no team wins there easily. Even Juve had trouble there last year, I believe they won in the last minute with Matri.