Posts Tagged ‘Udinese’

Udinese 0-1 Inter: Isla own goal Gives Nerazzurri +9 Serie A Lead (Serie A Matchday 30)

Tuesday, April 7th, 2009

Inter Milan's Patrick Vieira of France, center, and teammates Luis Figo of Portugal, right and Maxwell react after scoring, during a Serie A soccer match between Udinese and Inter Milan in Udine, Italy, Sunday, April 5, 2009. (AP Photo)

Thank you Mauricio, the Isla(nd) of Inter bliss.

I could find no better way to open this article. I tried. Not too hard, but I tried. When faced with the sad reality of the unstoppable gears of fate (that is, even when Inter play poorly they still manage to win), imagination tends to leaves its place to facility. Writing facility in this case, and all its associated bad puns.

In seriousness though, if Sunday’s win vs. Udinese doesn’t virtually clinch the Nerazzurri’s 17th Scudetto for you, you must still believe in fairy tales. And to make matters worse for Juve (as if their 3-3 draw vs. Chievo earlier in the day wasn’t enough) is that Inter’s winning goal didn’t come from one of the many superstars at José Mourinho’s disposal. No. It came from an Udinese player.

Poor Isla. In the day where, due to his team’s injury problems, he was forced to backtrack to the defensive line (he’s a midfielder), he ended up being the unlikely and unfortunate protagonist for his opponents, as well as the annihilator of all the good work (and many scoring chances) obtained by the Bianconeri in the first 60 minutes.

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Serie A Matchday 29 Preview: Roma and Juventus Set for Stadio Olimpico Showdown

Saturday, March 21st, 2009

Serie A Matchday 29 Preview: Roma and Juventus Set for Stadio Olimpico Showdown

It is getting close to crunch time for a few Serie A sides and if anyone wants to catch Inter Milan they’re going to have to get a run together now. Inter won’t be dropping any points this weekend unless something drastic happens though, they face bottom club Reggina at the Giuseppe Meazza and I don’t think anyone would predict anything other than a victory for the Nerazzurri. I’ve had a run through some of the key fixtures to see if I can offer any betting tips and advice along the way.

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UEFA Cup Quarter-Finals Draw (2008-09): Udinese Get Werder Bremen

Friday, March 20th, 2009

UEFA Cup

The draw for the Quarter-Finals of the UEFA Champions League took place at the House of European Football in Nyon, Switzerland, today at 13:00 CET (I liveblogged the event on Soccerlens).

Udinese, the only Serie A team remaining in Europe, can be moderately satisfied. They have the chance to avenge AC Milan, but will have to watch out from conceding too many goals. Despite a rather bleak Bundesliga campaign this year, Bremen have grown accustomed to scoring lots of ‘em in recent years.

I’ll make a more elaborate analysis later in the day, but for now here are the draw results.

.

2008/09 UEFA Cup
Quarter-Finals
to be played April 9 and 16

.

Hamburg
Hamburg
vs.
Man City
Manchester City
Paris SG
Paris SG
vs.
Dynamo Kiev
Dynamo Kiev
Shakhtar Donetsk
Shakhtar
vs.
Marseille
Marseille
Werder Bremen
Werder
vs.
Udinese
Udinese


.

2008/09 UEFA Cup
Semi-Finals
to be played April 30 and May 7

.

Werder/Udinese
vs.
Hamburg/Man City
PSG/D.Kiev
vs.
Shakhtar/Marseille

.
.

Zenit St. Petersburg 1-0 Udinese: Bianconeri Scraping their Way to Quarter-Finals (UEFA Cup Round of 16, 2nd Leg)

Friday, March 20th, 2009

Players of Udinese react after UEFA Cup Round of 16 second leg soccer match against Zenit at the Petrovsky stadium in St.Petersburg, Russia, Thursday, March 19, 2009. Udinese lost 0-1 but gets to the next round. (AP Photo)

Through to the UEFA Cup quarter-finals, for the first time ever. Thursday’s 1-0 loss in St. Petersburg was a “happy” loss for Udinese, as Pasquale Marino’s boys achieved a club milestone by beating current champions FC Zenit 2-1 on aggregate, and qualifying for the last 8 of Europe’s “lesser” competition.

If one wanted to push a “schoolyard logic” here, we could say that Zenit beat Man Utd (Super Cup), Udinese beat Zenit, and that therefore Udinese > Man Utd. Ah to be 8 years old again… The Italian 2008-09 adventure in Europe is not looking so grim after all.

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Udinese 2-0 Zenit St. Petersburg: All Hail the Pride of Italy… (UEFA Cup Round of 16, 1st Leg)

Saturday, March 14th, 2009

(LEFT) Udinese's Fabio Quagliarella, left, celebrates after scoring with his teammate Simone Pepe, during a UEFA Cup, Round of 16, first-leg soccer match between Udinese and Zenit St. Petersburg, in Udine, Italy, Thursday, March 12, 2009. (AP Photo) (RIGHT) Udinese's Antonio Di Natale celebrates after scoring on a penalty kick during a UEFA Cup, Round of 16, first-leg soccer match between Udinese and Zenit St. Petersburg, in Udine, Italy, Thursday, March 12, 2009.  (AP Photo) (

All together now: “Thank you Udinese!!”.

The Italian disaster-fest that was the UEFA Champions League this year will not be easily forgotten, but at least there is one team giving us consolation and keeping the peninsula’s pride elevated (to moderate heights at least) as they mantain their presence in Europe’s second-choice cup: the UEFA (soon-to-be Europa) Cup.

With this win, the Bianconeri have demonstrated that their darkest days are finally behind them and to sweeten the deal even further, Udinese’s opponents Thursday night were none other than 2007 Russian Premier League and 2008 UEFA Cup Winners Zenit St. Petersburg, the very same team which not even five months ago was battling it out against Real Madrid and Juventus in the UCL.

Just something to keep the naysayers quiet…

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