Europa League, Lazio - Salzburg, Thursday, 17-9-09

Man I'm pissed off. A very bad start to the Europa League. A draw would have been alright I think but this.....

Lazio played way too defensively after Foggia's goal IMO and it really cost us. Before that goal the team was playing well creating several chances on goal. Had one more of those gone in, then chances are we would be celebrating a win right now instead of reliving Cribari's 91st minute blunder to hand that riomma-loving wanker Janko a goal.

Also, their first goal. WTF!!?? What was Bizzarri doing? Either go out and claim the ball or stay in your goal. That scrappy goal was a joke. Instead Albano decided to half-heartedly go for it, bumped into Diakite - who half cleared the ball onto Scheimer's feet who lobbed it in.

Why did Ballardini not start players like Muslera and Kolarov? Meghni did well I thought.

Sh*t happens, unfortunately it really cost us today - but I hope the team puts this behind them and gets set for the away game to Catania coming up. As for the Europa League, in the next match day a win away to Levski is a MUST but it won't be easy at all. Playing in Bulgaria is like any other place in Eastern Europe, very tough.

FORZA LAZIO!

I do not think we have to mourn all is not lost. simply entered are in the game lightly., we reduce the opponent .. I'm sure the next match will be better .. and certainly brings the result of teamwork team.

Instead of givin us a decent defender worth Lazio, Lotito and his yes-doll Igli Albino thinks Cribari is good enough. It's all about money, folks. Either Ballardini or Lotito knows sh!t about the game, maybe Balla didn't wanted another defender (in that case he should easily put a bullet in his head asap) or possible signins was scared away by Lotito on Pandev, LDS, Ledesma, Mutta and so on. How many pionts this shitty Cribari has cost us in recent years by his lack of skills?

Such a bad game! how do you lose to them? Salzburg was so horrible! and yet lazio lost??

Big wake up call for these players! you better show up to every single game!

I thought it was weird that immediately after the goal Cruz was replaced with Mauri, which I feel lost us some ball possesion and needed support for Maurito up front.

Another poor result. What can I say. Lazio is weaker then last season in my opinion. No Pandev or Ledesma. Even no Rozehnal hurts. He played ok last season. Lazio played good for 25 minutes in the second half and should of scored a couple. But they took there foot of the gas instead of playing hard the full game. Some players just walked around in the last 10 minutes. Makes me mad seeing that. Salzburg is not a strong team. Lazio should of beat them. They have a lot of work to do now.

So so fickle, embarassing really

First time I was able to watch our boys on TV instead of crappy stream and they show me this kind of performance. I actually woudl have preferred if we just had continued playing crappy as in the first half and lost deservedly. But no, we played very well for 20 or so minutes than stupidly took our foot off the pedal with only one goal advantage. I hope Lotito thinks twice before boasting we don't need new players and he won the financial scudetto, etc, this type of defensive errors are absolutely unforgivable, not just Cribari's but Bizzarri and Diakite for the first goal too.

I liked only Matuzalem and Meghni, the latter was the only one who could do a good through ball and the former had to do two men job as Baronio was a complete passenger almsot all game lone. Foggia had a good fifteen minutes than absolutely disappeared from the pitch. Cruz seemed deadly tired, even his shots were anemic. Zarate was ridiculously selfish, I don't get him really. Some game he tries to make assists all the time, some games he never, ever passes and is beyond predictable.
We need Ledesma back for Serie A, as for Europa League we need a whole new motivation as we really were too complacent in this game. I am sure we can beat red Bull away but only if we show up with the same type of motivation we showed against rube. And with Muslera in goal.

Mark wrote:

I thought it was weird that immediately after the goal Cruz was replaced with Mauri, which I feel lost us some ball possesion and needed support for Maurito up front.

Cruz was hardly useful today (at least from what I saw, missed the first 20 minutes, and few of 2nd half), same as in the Juve game. And he certainly isn't the man for counter-attacks, Maurito is much better, even on his own.

I think Ballardini was spot on with the subs (especially the Foggia one), but the problem is that we don't have much options on the bench.

We should have won the game anyway, but two dumb mistakes cost us, not anything else.

Cribari? He was good enough for us to finish third in 2006-07. It's not a problem of skill, but of concentration. He's never been the same since March 2009, when he said he was leaving the club. Probably should have left, but then again do we have better defenders?

Disappointing debut for Bizzari but it happens. Hopefully this will be a wake-up call and we will bounce back, there are still a lot of games to play.

As some of you already wrote, we simply made too many mistakes and lacked experience. Do not just look at Cribari and Bizzarri, because if we hadn't missed many chances their mistakes would have been irrelevant.

Now it's the time to support the team (after the final whistle, curva nord was chanting our hymn) and try to get past the group, nothing is lost and an early drama is unnecessary.

Forza LAZIO

p.s. It's funny to see people who backed lotito's mercato now saying "wake up" to the players. The players are already awake, someone else is still dreaming...

Well, Lotito screwed up by not buying a defender and selling two but on the other hand strolling through the pitch as if they are out for a walk in the park for two thirds of the game is absolutely unprofessional behaviour from our players. One doesn't exclude the other.

The last few posts were great.

This is a setback but it is also a lesson worth learning. I do believe there was an element of underestimation. Ballardini said in his press conference that "Catania will be more difficult." Take from that what you will.

We put in an excellent performance on Saturday but didn't get the result we perhaps deserved and today we make 2 mistakes. As long as they don't happen again for a while, I'll be satisfied. But, we need to learn our lesson and fast.

Matrim wrote:

Well, Lotito screwed up by not buying a defender and selling two but on the other hand strolling through the pitch as if they are out for a walk in the park for two thirds of the game is absolutely unprofessional behaviour from our players. One doesn't exclude the other.

Matrim, i was not referring to you :)

Absolutely disgraceful.
The mistakes we made tonight give credit to those who consider us a less-than-average team. Just prior to this game some of my friends ridiculed the way Dinamo Zagreb keeps making the same mistakes again and again. I'm almost ashamed to face them after this.

So what's next...
As if it wasn't difficult enough, now winning away to Levski is a priority. We really should take Europa League seriously, there's money and reputation to be made here, much more than in Serie A...

We also had many unavailble players... Kolarov, Siviglia (although he`s not good..he is 100 light years from Cribari), Brocchi, Rocchi...not to mention Pandev and Ledesma..and that idiotic stuff with Muslera, Mauri and Foggia on the bench.
Someone please tell Cruz to wake up.
We underestimate them and this is what we get ....
It hurts because we are far better then Red Bull ...

Europa League is now a very very hard task for us. We need points from those 2 matches with Villareal and i`m afraid that`s impossible. Not when we play with 1 defender.

Jingle bells Jongle bells Christmas is on his way....!!!

Yes, it was a poor performance, But its not a knock out game. Have faith, this game may well shake us back into form for the next fixture.

Kris wrote:

Yes, it was a poor performance, But its not a knock out game. Have faith, this game may well shake us back into form for the next fixture.

This was the easiest game of them all. This is a really bad start.

Ah its hard even to post something. How many times we said no leader, no spirit and no Lazialita.

Well said that ones more.

Not good to say the least. We will have to do it the hard way. Forza Lazio forever.

Im trying to forget about this and look forward. The only thing that's for sure is we need to take this competition more seriously.

LofL wrote:

Im trying to forget about this and look forward. The only thing that's for sure is we need to take this competition more seriously.

There where other teams that performed badly tonite so Lazio is in good company (ajax, roma, herta etc).

Ermetico wrote:

Jingle bells Jongle bells Christmas is on his way....!!!

Bad results, let's just forget it. Hopefully it was Cribari's last mistake for the season. FORZA LAZIO!

This game was a lost case even before it began. What the hell was Ballardini thinking, putting 2 defenders, 4 midfielders and no striker on the bench in the game which is supposed to be the easiest in our Europa group. Putting Foggia in already at halftime was a nice move which was annulled by taking Cruz off for Mauri. Cruz was disappointing and he and Foggia/Maurito seemed to be off sync. Either Cruz was lurking behind the defenders or Foggia/Maurito did not bother to put one cross in - depends how you look at it. Regardless of that, your chances of scoring with no real striker on the field are slim. Cribari deserves special comments for his idiocy, hard to digest having family ties to Brazil.

What should I say?

I don´t want to comment the match.
I want to comment other things.

The team played, especially in the first half, like training in Formello with the coloured shirts...

It´s a problem in the Italian football. The teams don´t take this tournament seriously. Yesterday we saw a team which didn´t want to play on limit. They did nothing, and I´m asking why?
Players always want to have more money - they could get more money if they were playing good results in the international games. They can show what they can in Europe. But they don´t want to.
I´m sorry for the fans who are going in the stadium to support the team - and then the team don´t give something back. It´s a shame.

It´s not the first time that our club or another italian club play such a bad game in the Uefa Cup. But WE (the fans) are always happy when Lazio is reaching an european place in the league. BUT for what???

Yesterday the players didn´t want, and also the coach didn´t want to do something.


I don´t expect that Lazio is going to take this tournament seriously. Not in the game against Levski and not in the game against Villareal. They will only concetrate on Serie A. BUT then, Lazio fans shouldn´t visit the games of the team in the Europa League, because the team don´t deserve it.