First Moscow… Then Inter

By: vin | November 3rd, 2008

On Thursday, Udinese face yet another unfamiliar opponent. This time, it’s Spartak Moscow, and I’m just hoping that Marino has sent his spy out again, because it appears as though Spartak’s coach already has already done his homework on Udinese.

Anyway, about these Russians:

They’re currently sixth place in the Russian Premier League. Funny… if you had asked me before the season which team would be in sixth and which would be in second, I’d have put my money on Udinese in sixth.
Their nickname (and I’m not joking here) is “Meat.” Yes. Our Zebrette are playing f*#%ing MEAT. What. The. F*#k. (Apparently they were owned by a farm conglomerate of some kind. Whatever. Parma had “Parmalat” on their shirts for years… and maybe they still do, but you don’t see us calling them “Milk.”)
They have a Brazilian dude named Mozart. No word on whether or not he drops dope melodies.
They’ve had some recent (i.e. a few since ‘03) racist incidents which is of some concern due to the fact that Udinese have a few Africans on the squad.
Several members of the MEAT attack (I can’t believe I even just typed that) have featured on the Russian national team: Bystrov (MF), Saenko (FW), Prudnikov (FW), Pavlenko (MF), and Bazhenov (FW). Intererstingly enough, the same can’t be said for MEAT’s defense. That, plus the fact that MEAT have scored more goals thatn all but three teams in the Russian league this season leads me to believe that Udinese are up against an attack-happy group.

I wish MEAT was the only noteworthy match coming up. I wish I didn’t have to say that Udinese must visit Milan on Sunday for a date with Inter. Unfortunately however, the schedule is the schedule, and unless Udinese have a lucky deluge (not that it helped Roma much in the long run), they’re going to have to face the Model U.N… I mean… Inter.

At the moment, I don’t have anything to say about Inter other than to remind everyone that: 1) they’ve managed to continue their wonderful (sarcasm, right there) tradition of starting as few Italians as possible this season, and 2) in the last two seasons, they haven’t been able to beat Udinese even *once*. No other squad can make that claim.

Now… here are the Genoa highlights. I’m digging D’Agostino’s celebration pose and Quagliarella’s “read the name” gesture.